[d_arrington]

Hey! I've never tried to set up a PVR with XBMC before, so I have a few questions. I've got a dedicated server running Windows Server 2012 that I want to use for my PVR backend, and then I was going to get a couple Raspberry Pis for the various TVs in my house running OpenELEC. Here's what I'm wondering:

(1) Would a Ceton InfiniTV 4 or HDHomeRun Prime be sufficient for the server PC? My provider is Frontier; would that cause any problems with DRM?
(2) Can the PVR be managed by a server like that with the video being forwarded to various clients over a standard network?
(3) If the server acts as the back-end, would it be able to stream different channels to each Raspberry Pi? Would it be limited to the number of tuners the card can handle? Or would I only be able to watch one channel at a time across all clients?
(4) Will live TV be available from within XBMC, or would I need to switch to third-party software for that? I'm pretty sure that it would be, but, again, I'm new to this, and a lot of forum posts are equally dated and vague on the matter.
(5) Will time-jumping, recording, etc. be available?

I'd normally just experiment with everything to see what works and what doesn't, but I don't have a tuner card on-hand, so any help before I drop a couple hundred on one would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[negge]

1. I don't know anything about hardware for US users so I'll have to defer that to someone else.

2. Yes.

3. Yes, it is limited to the number of tuners you have. Some tuners are dual/triple/quad tuners which means you can watch at least two/three/four different channels simultaneously.

4. Yes, it's integrated into XBMC, all you need is an addon (which exact one depends on which backend you decide to go with)

5. It depends on the backend, though they all support recording and most support timeshifting.

[Talguy]

Be careful. I read that the ceton infnitv cards don't work well with windows server

[d_arrington]

Thanks! I actually have another little PC sitting around that I might set up to handle the back-end software. This looks like enough information for me to go off of for now, at least, so I'll get the PCI adapter and a Raspberry Pi and start testing it all out whenever it gets here. Hopefully that's just after Christmas, since I'll still be on vacation until New Year's Day.

[negge]

One thing to keep in mind is that the software available for Linux is generally faster when it comes to switching channels, but on the downside the support for ATSC (which is what you Americans use) is not as good as it could be. From what I've heard though, once you manage the initial configuration it's all good.

[nickr]

If you are looking at the Ceton, I am guessing you need cablecard. You need to research what your provider allows to be recorded via cablecard. Some don't allow recording- there are various flags like 'copy once', 'copy freely' etc. As I say do your research. I cannot offer anything more as we don't have to put up with cablecard here

[d_arrington]

Alright, so I got the Ceton InfiniTV 6 paired with my cablecard, and Windows Media Center plays every channel just fine. XBMC, however, won't play most channels. It will usually either give me an error (either "This channel cannot be played" or "No video data for this channel") or simply switch to a grey or scrambled screen. I'm afraid that it might be DRM copy issues, but I guess it could be something else. If it is due to flags that my provider (Frontier) has set, is there any way around it? This is completely useless to me if there isn't. What about changing to a different back-end, like Argus?

EDIT: For some reason, now I can't open any channels. They all just give me an error: "This channel cannot be played. See the log for details." Is this thread a good place to post that? Here it is, just in case. http://pastebin.com/FP5TmGdR

[negge]

You may have better luck creating a new topic in the WMC addon subforum.