[tenchumaster]

Hi all,
I am planing a new house and I am looking for the best way to add multimedia to our house.

Attached my project ideas:

General Environment

• I have a DVB-S2 environment (Quad LNB)
  
• Apart from the Multimedia Stuff, I am rolling out a an KNX System
  
• 19'' Rack in the cellar with 1 Gbit Switch + Cat6 cables going into every room
  
• In total 4 Clients: 1xTV in Living Room, 2xTV in Children Room, 1xBeamer plus maybe mobile devices
  

Concept 1
Until now, I used to watch TV with a Dreambox 800SE (Cable). So the first idea is to attach SAT-Receivers (Dreambox or Vu+) to every room and have a decentralized environment.

Concept 2
Install one or two Vu+ Receivers in the cellar and bring the image via HDMI directly to the TVs in the rooms

Concept 3
Install one or two Vu+ Receivers in the cellar and stream the TV signals to kodi clients

Concept 4
I am not an expert, but from what I understand. I can have a central tvheadend server with multiple tuners (maybe 4 tuners) in my rack in the cellar. Then just use Kodi on Rasberries or whatever to show the HD TV stream.

Especially for the last concept with tvheadend + kodi, I would like to know your experience/recommendations:

1. What are the advantages/drawbacks of such an environment?
   
2. It must be easy to use (select tv-channel, see EPG and configure recordings (PVR))
   
3. What Hardware would you recommend for the central Server (remember 4 tuners, transcoding etc.) and the clients?
   
4. How to bring Dolby Surround to my main TV/AVR or would you even do the speaker setup decentralized as well?
   

Thanks for your answers!

[noggin]

Do you need pay-TV or all of your channels FTA?
What is the transcoding for ? (Kodi on the Pi doesn't need MPEG2 or VC-1 SD or HD to be transcoded - it can play it unmodified)

[Raitsa]

Concept 3 works for me pretty darn well, with a few Openelec Intel NUC's and Vu+ Solo2 and some 5000 satchannels (+ USB-T) from 8 satellites.

[tenchumaster]

@noggin: I would like to be flexible, so adding pay-tv later on would be good
@raitsa: so the Vu+ Solo2 is decentral (not close to the TV) as well? For what do you use the NUCs (Clients?) Why do you use the Vu+ option and not doing it with tvheadend?

Thanks so far for your answers?

One last question: Instead of using a Vu+ (which is connected directly to the TV) and using the TV Streaming approach (Stream Vu+ Content to Kodi), what is the difference for the user in terms of usability/features?

[mr.Gru]

How about going with 2 WeTek Play which you could use as servers and clients with OpenELEC installed on them.

I'm using one currently as a DVB server streaming to 3 client devices. two can be used without any restrictions while the third client needs to stream content form transponders that are already in use.

This would also be a more cost effective solution.
You will need a USB cardreader like the omnikey 3121 for pay TV and with that you would be able to watch those channels on all clients.

[schafy]

Thanks for that brilliant post. I have exactly the same issue and I'm very curious for your answers.

[Raitsa]

@raitsa: so the Vu+ Solo2 is decentral (not close to the TV) as well? For what do you use the NUCs (Clients?) Why do you use the Vu+ option and not doing it with tvheadend?

Yeah the Vu+ is in its own AV equipment room that I visit very rarely.

Vu+ pvr addon is very easy to setup, the initial setup takes about 2 mins and works perfectly for my needs.
I have never tried tvheadend (succesfully).

The 3 NUC´s are all in different rooms and they stream the Vu+ channels via cat6 cables around the house.

(The HDMI in the back of the Vu+ Solo2 only feeds the AV receiver->projector in the hometheater).

[M4tt0]

Am running Concept 4 for quite some time now:

Two quad LNBs (Astra 19.2E and Astra 28.2E) -> multiswitch -> Digibit R1 Sat>IP server (4 tuners, with satip-axe custom firmware) -> Switch
DS415Play Synology NAS as file- and mediaserver with TVH backend (running the 4.1.x builds as they are pretty stable) -> Switch

Recordings are stored on the NAS too. Am streaming to all kind of devices: Living room HTPC (HSW i5 NUC) with OE and TVH frontend, which is connected to an AVR (5.1) via HDMI, Android phones (but only rarely), an old iPad2 in the bedroom, a RPI2 with OE for the kids, you name it. I am not transcoding as my frontends can handle the streams well enough (partially watch SD channels instead of HD ones over WiFi). I don't think the DS415Play can handle transcoding in combination with TVH, so if you need that, you might look into some different server setup (e.g. Ubuntu-based), but then the configuration will be more difficult and time-consuming. Usability is good IMO. My wife got used to Kodi within about a week or two.

Make no mistake, I have spent A LOT of time, getting everything up and running, especially because when I started many components were not mature. Although that is different now (lots of improvements in recent months, especially w.r.t. perexg's work on the satip-axe firmware for the server and the TVH backend), first-time installation will still take time. My system is reliable and stable now. What I like about the setup is that it only requires power supply and ethernet / WiFi network. Should be all one needs. I don't want sat cables or phone cables anymore. But that's just my philosophy...

[tenchumaster]

Hey M4tt0, thanks a lot for your detailed description, that helped a lot. What is the benefit of using the custom firmware in the satip? You use the Synology as TVH backend server which reads the stream from the Sat/IP device? Where do you deal with encrypted channels?

[ullix]

I am also running your concept 4 with tvheadend as a central server. All clients are Kodi (version mix 14, 15, 16) on multiple regular computers, including laptops, with Ubuntu 12.04 /14.04, a Raspberry (original, a bit sluggish on the GUI, but replay ok), and an Amazon Fire TV (generally very good, but I have video-audio sync problems; clearly a problem of this device, not of tvh or Kodi!).

It is very easy to program recordings either at a computer (on the TVH-server or elsewhere) or at a smartphone/tablet with e.g. the app TVHClient.

My tuner is an 8-tuner SAT>IP device (IDLI-8CHE20-OOPOE-OSP; apparently no longer available). However, the SAT>IP technology is very easy to use with tvheadend.

I do strongly suggest to consider getting a sat>ip tuner for your Quad LNB (check here: http://www.satip.info/products/sat%3Eip%20servers, perhaps this device: http://www.amazon.de/Telestar-Digibit-Sa...B008OVPYCQ)

As you have CAT6 cables in every room already, you only need to connect the SAT>IP device to the lnb and to the network and you are set for distribution of TV and radio to any place in the house.

[zag]

How about going with 2 WeTek Play which you could use as servers and clients with OpenELEC installed on them.

I'm using one currently as a DVB server streaming to 3 client devices. two can be used without any restrictions while the third client needs to stream content form transponders that are already in use.

This would also be a more cost effective solution.
You will need a USB cardreader like the omnikey 3121 for pay TV and with that you would be able to watch those channels on all clients.

How is the speed on them? I've got one wetek play spare and never thought about using it as a dedicated tvheadend server. That's actually a good idea!

[tenchumaster]

I am also running your concept 4 with tvheadend as a central server. All clients are Kodi (version mix 14, 15, 16) on multiple regular computers, including laptops, with Ubuntu 12.04 /14.04, a Raspberry (original, a bit sluggish on the GUI, but replay ok), and an Amazon Fire TV (generally very good, but I have video-audio sync problems; clearly a problem of this device, not of tvh or Kodi!).

One more question here: What is the benefit of the SAT/IP approach you described here, instead of adding SAT Tuners (e.g. via USB) to the TVHeadEnd Server directly? Here we are just talking about the line between the LNB and the TVHeadEnd right?

2nd question: what is the benefit of having the TVHEadEnd Server instead of just using SAT/IP without the server?

[mr.Gru]

I tested ZDF HD, ServusTV HD and ZDF Info HD at the same time. Having 3 clients this is the worst case scenario but 2 are mainly in use.
The two tuners are great providing me to watch football while my wife and children watch they're shows.

there is a video on youtube showing 4 streams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frid_8bG-8Y

I can make some test later tonight after work if you are referring to network transfer.

[noggin]

I am also running your concept 4 with tvheadend as a central server. All clients are Kodi (version mix 14, 15, 16) on multiple regular computers, including laptops, with Ubuntu 12.04 /14.04, a Raspberry (original, a bit sluggish on the GUI, but replay ok), and an Amazon Fire TV (generally very good, but I have video-audio sync problems; clearly a problem of this device, not of tvh or Kodi!).

One more question here: What is the benefit of the SAT/IP approach you described here, instead of adding SAT Tuners (e.g. via USB) to the TVHeadEnd Server directly? Here we are just talking about the line between the LNB and the TVHeadEnd right?

Major benefits :
4 x USB 2.0 satellite tuners are more expensive than one Quad DVB-S2 SAT>IP box.
You don't have to put your TV Headend device near your LNB cables or connect satellite tuners (and neither does it thus need drivers for satellite tuners) to it - it just sits on the network (It can run on many NASs). You just need a single Ethernet cable (not 4 x coax) to run to your TV Headend box, and similarly to your SAT>IP tuner.

2nd question: what is the benefit of having the TVHEadEnd Server instead of just using SAT/IP without the server?

Without TV Headend you won't get PVR functionality. SAT>IP simply serves transponder streams over IP. It doesn't do anything else like recording, EPG etc.

[tenchumaster]

Awesome! That all makes totally sense! Good that you described it so much.

There was one question left, which is: The major benefit of using the "modified" firmware of the SAT/IP device (Digibit R1 Sat). I read that the custom firmware is more stable and supports some CAM features. Even if you really want to use that kind of stuff (which of course is not allowed), you could do that with TV Headend as well...

For me it seems, that the even better solution is to make use of a special LNB (which supports SAT/IP) instead of having a seperate device or? There are different "servers" out there (http://www.satip.info/products/sat%3Eip%20servers), is there a special reason you have taken the Digibit R1 Sat?

Thanks again for the valuable input!