Raspbian Kodi, DVB-T2 TVHeadend PVR and CPU at 100%
#1
Hello, I'm having a problem and I cannot find a solution so I really hope you can help me: when I stream an HD channel on TVHeadend from my attached DVB-T2 stick the CPU goes to 100% and the video gets very jerky and unwatchable (SD channels work fine). More in detail the setup that I have:
- Raspberry Pi 2 with Raspbian Jessie, kernel 4.4.21-v7+
- Backend is TVHeadend 4.1-2247 (github build)
- DVB-T2 Stick is a Geniatech T230C (newer version of the T230, also known as August T210, driver Silicon Labs Si2168 compiled from here: https://bitbucket.org/CrazyCat/media_build )
- Kodi 16.1 (github build): MPG2 and WVC1 codecs purchased and enabled; /boot/config.txt contains gpu_mem=256; video hardware acceleration MMAL enabled;
- PVR Frontend is TVHeadend HTSP Client 2.2.12

When I select an SD channel it works perfectly, when I select an HD channel the CPU goes quicky to 100% and I can't watch the channel. When I watch the HD channel on my Windows computer with VLC it works flawlessy (so I guess my problem is not with the backend but with the frontend/kodi).
I will attach a Kodi log file and a screenshot that I took in here: http://www.filedropper.com/kodilog
What am I doing wrong?
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#2
I see that you also posted in the Tvheadend forums. You mentioned that you are using OpenMAX acceleration, but have you installed the omxplayer? I'm not sure how Raspian does it (or whichever distro you are using), but on Arch (which is what I use for my Pis), omxplayer needs to be installed separately before enabling OpenMAX acceleration on the Pi in Kodi.

However, it is also possible that there is a problem with the Kodi plugin, as there are a couple of streams that play perfectly from VLC or mpv via the TVH web interface, or using TVHClient on iOS, but Kodi simply will not start the stream at all from my Tvheadend.

(Another thought: the HD DVB-T2 channels in Germany—where is seems like you are from your TVH forum postings—are HEVC/H.265. Perhaps there is a problem with inadequate processing power for HEVC on the Pi ...)
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#3
Hi! Yes I posted also there because I am struggling with this problem and I cannot figure out what is missing yet..
Regarding OMXPlayer, it is installed on my Raspbian:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ omxplayer -v
omxplayer - Commandline multimedia player for the Raspberry Pi
Build date: Fri, 06 May 2016 14:07:54 +0000
Version : 6c90c75 [master]
Repository: https://github.com/popcornmix/omxplayer.git
However by default my Kodi has Hardware acceleration through MMAL, but if I enable hardware acceleration through OMX the video is simply black (the audio is actually working smoothly and the cpu doesn't go to 100%).

How can I test if there's a problem with the kodi plugin?
Moreover on the TVHeadend forum they were talking about "H264 content" while you talk about H265. How can I know which kind of content am I using and is there a sample file that I can test in order to see if it works? Thank you!
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#4
If you have ffmpeg installed, you can use ffprobe. Just give it the stream as an argument, and it will parse. (So, instead of copying the URL from Tvheadend to VLC, give it to ffprobe.)

Also, IIRC on Kodi, if you chosen HW acceleration method does not handle the codec (such as OpenMAX not handling HEVC), then as long as you have OMX enabled in Kodi, you'll get the black screen results. HW acceleration in Kodi is all or nothing. So if OMX does not support HEVC, then Kodi can't play it while OMX is enabled.

Have you tried playing the stream in omxplayer? If omxplayer can't play it, then Kodi with OMX HW acceleration enabled can't, either.
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#5
turns out I can't play the video because it is HEVC H265 as you guessed :-( I guess I will need to buy a more powerful system
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Raspbian Kodi, DVB-T2 TVHeadend PVR and CPU at 100%0