[t2ffn]

I'm going to move back into the Kodi PVR setup this week, with a Digibit R1 and Chromeboxes in each room. I will run the TVHeadend backend on the 'main' Chromebox, but want to be able to record TV content via any of the instances and be able to play it back on any of the other boxes. I have a NAS, but don't want to use it to record TV content onto (especially timeshift) as I don't want to stress the drives with so much disposable data, so based on that, is this the best set up map;

Should I create another 'NAS' via a USB HDD connected to my router for TV recording to make it accessible to all clients?
Should I add a USB stick to each Chromebox for timeshift content? I doubt I'd need more than a few GB for timeshift, so would an SD perform as well or the same as a USB? I am happy to replace annually for a few £ when they die due to number of writes.
On the Digibit front, I've read of some non-oem firmware (perexg's) for better performance, is this still the recommended route? The post I read was over a year old, so the stock firmware may include the same features/performance now?

Having not set up TVH before, I assume the above is possible.

Thanks

[rpcameron]

Depending upon your broadcaster, HD MPEG2 live TV streams tend to be about ~5GB/hr, so you should plan your timeshift buffer accordingly.

As far as recording location accessibility: the only device that matters is the one running Tvheadend. It doesn't matter whether the other devices can see it, as long as Tvheadend can and the other devices can see Tvheadend.

(Timeshift is handled on the device running Tvheadend, not locally.)

[t2ffn]

Ah, interesting, I was thinking the timeshift would be handled locally by the TVH front end client, not the back end.

So I'll basically add a USB HDD to the chromebox acting as the TVH backend for all of the PVR recording / timeshifting for all of the front end clients.

Does anyone have experience with this set up, and will the chromebox (celeron) be able to run the backend/front end for 1 client plus serve 2 additional front end clients adequately without impacting Kodi performance on the backend machine? I'll probably be replacing the other clients with chromeboxes too so all are exatly the same spec and set up.

[rpcameron]

Tvheadend is pretty light. You should not have any issues; the only bottleneck would be your storage. I don't personally run a frontend/Kodi on my Tvheadend server, but I can't imagine the load being anything to worry about.

[nickr]

Hell yes a chromebox should handle that.

[t2ffn]

Right, so the Digibit R1 is installed, channels found, mapped, etc. I have some EPG but need to set up WebGrab+Plus for the full EPG as some channels are blank. (mainly Ch4, Film 4, Pick TV so the OTA guide has done very well)

Within TVH backend, Config>Timeshift>Enable tickbox won't retain the tick on save, so it appears timeshift keeps being disabled. Recordings work and are saved to the USB drive attached but timeshift will not enable, so TV cannot be paused. Can't find a reason why.

TVH 4.1.2309
TVH Addon v.105
Libreelec Beta 7

Thanks

[rpcameron]

So, are you entering a location for the timeshift buffer in addition to checking the enable box? And if so, does the user that TVH runs as have permissions to the location of your timeshifting buffer?

Also, have you tried manually modifying the timeshifting config? With TVH not running, edit the tvheadend/timeshift/config file; it's just a standard JSON format.

[t2ffn]

I've tried with the original TVH timeshift location and the USB location, but when you tick enable and hit save, the tab refreshes and it's unticked again in the Basic Settings. It doesn't appear to be a permissions issue as regular recording to the USB location works fine. Do I need to do something with the default recorder profile to enable timeshift or does it work with the default profile? Recording seems to work fine.

Thanks for the clue. I had a look at that config file and it says its enabled so it looks like the TVH GUI has a bug. Even with this timeshift enabled, Kodi is unable to pause TV streams, the pause button is greyed out.

Code:

    "enabled": true,
    "ondemand": false,
    "path": "/var/media/USB",
    "max_period": 35,
    "unlimited_period": false,
    "max_size": 4000,
    "ram_size": 0,
    "unlimited_size": false,
    "ram_only": false,
    "ram_fit": false

[t2ffn]

Looks like it just needed a full restart! All working now!