[cable_guy]

Hi all,

I have a HP N40L Microserver running Windows Server 2008 R2, and on top of that a virtual machine running Ubuntu with TVheadend installed.

I have a USB Play TV DVBT-2 tune attached to the Microserver which is passed through to the Ubuntu virtual machine.

I also have XBMC installed in the Windows environment on the Microserver.

My problem is, when I play back TV either locally on the microserver or on a another network device I get occasional amounts of buffering. I can't work out what the problem is because:

- "top" reveals on the Ubuntu VM that tvheadend only ever uses at most 25% cpu,
- Windows on the Microserver never really reports anything above 25% cpu used either.
- Memory is plentyful for the Ubuntu VM and the Windows host OS

so I wonder what you think could be causing the buffering, any ideas please?

If noone has anything to offer, I think my next step will be to try eliminating Windows from the story completely, and install Ubuntu on the bare metal of the machine. I only use Windows to use "Logmein" from work which sometimes proves handy.

[nickr]

There are lots of reasons not to use something like tvheadend on a VM. Eliminate it I think!

[cable_guy]

Yes i agree really, tvheadend must be a very much realtime processing application by its nature and for realtime stuff you cant rely on a subsystem running on the correct drivers for the hardware underneath it all, and of course in my instance im abstracting tvheadend from the real hardware. I do think ill give it go with linux on the bare metal. Ill have the added advantage of my xbmc instance being much more stable, as ive struggled with it on windows.just seems a lot more buggy.

[nickr]

I have seen this debate time after time in relation to mythtv. The only instance where it seems to work well is with a HDHomerun which is a purely network connected device. Anything PCI or USB seems to suffer. I can't see TVHeadend being any different.

Anyway, let us know how you go. There are remote access solutions for linux.