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Hi Folks,

I tested the experimental XBMC PVR builds with tvheadend as backend and it's really promising Nod, but unfortunately - at this moment - it misses some "must have" features that every 30 $ pvr enabled sat receiver will provide such as recording and time shifted watching .. or in other words - W.A.F. is not very high Sad ..

Since a XBMC PVR release is scheduled (?) for v12.0 we'll have to wait at least one year (?) until stable builds ..

'Cause XBMC rulz Cool and other HTPC/MediaCenter solutions can't compete with it (I had to tested all of them - WAF !) I'd like to speed up the Live-TV support ..

What speaks against a (standalone) live-tv addon for tvheadend ? Where is - form the technical point of view - the need for a special PVR Build of XBMC ? Why not enable TV like it's done for all the other functions - with addons ?

- the HTSP (protocol) supports everything that is needed for Live-TV - EPG information, channels, tv video stream (server-side).
- a XBMC addon (client-side)
- could read an save channel and EPG information
- could read the video stream (it's a basic feature of XBMC ?!)
- could save the stream, could handle timeshift client side
- could manage timer recordings

(most of other functions like channel / transponder search could be done server side 'cause it's an administration task, not part of daily usage ..)

imho these are the "killer features" of live tv. Even though the client handles in this scenario the most tv operations it's a practicable solution for most HTPC secenarios like mine - PC in the living room that combines CD/DVD/bluray player, satellite receiver, game console and so on ..

I'm not a XBMC developer at this moment, so I can only guess .. but if there is nothing that speaks against it from the inside view of a XBMC developer I would give a try ?!? Could you give any advise ?

So long
LastCoder

PS: btw. the highest WAF goes to DVBViewer Pro - at this moment in the live-TV discipline unbeatable ... but requires Windows and the media center / HTPC skills are very basic ..
There's a reason why it's not in mainline yet... You're better off waiting, or trying another more "mature" app with regards to PVR functionality.
LastCoder,

If you like coding .. then why not help with tvheadend development :-)
It is written in plain C, easy to understand .. and a lot of people like it

You can always visit us on our forums:
http://www.lonelycoder.com/redmine/proje...end/boards

Regards,

Hein
@Rigolo: I really like tvheadend - that's why I try to check if it is possible to write a straight forward addon for XBMC that could be used in the official stable builds dharma and eden without the pvr branch .. what do you think about it ?

@kirky99: I know that .. and that's why I prove if it is possible to write myself an addon for tvheadend ..

So long

LastCoder
What you are proposing is to move some of the the PVR functions to the client side, instead of the server side where the PVR add-on is expecting them to be.

The biggest "problem" would be how your proposed addon would co-exist with the pvr logic once it has been included into the main branch. I would suspect that it will become obsolete and not used anymore, because having all the PVR functions on the serverside has some big advantages. (converting a live-tv buffer into a recording for example, shared live tv buffers etc etc.)

That is why I suspect you are better off with either helping out with the existing PVR branch and improving on it, or help out with one of the backends like tvheadend.

The more people are willing to help and code, the sooner it can be included into the main branch.

Hein
@LastCoder:
if I understand you correctly, you want to put everything that the PVR branch adds to XBMC in a PVR add-on? I wouldn't spend time on that if I were you. if you want to help out, help with tvheadend or XBMC-PVR develoment, so we can make your wife happy ;-)
dushmaniac Wrote:@LastCoder:
if I understand you correctly, you want to put everything that the PVR branch adds to XBMC in a PVR add-on? I wouldn't spend time on that if I were you. if you want to help out, help with tvheadend or XBMC-PVR develoment, so we can make your wife happy ;-)

What was the reason for changing the XBMC Core to add PVR functionality ? If I'm right the main job has to be done by the TVServers anyway ?! .. doesn't XBMC already provide everything that is necessary to allow live TV watching ? It can handle video streams, can handle different kinds of data for EPG or channels and so ... I guess everything is provided by the TV Servers ? In this scenario I don't see a great difference in handling other video sources ?!? :confused2:

I see that you want to establish a main generic PVR interface - but why is it really necessary ? And why to build a Porsche 911 over years and print nice brochures about it's technical data if 90 % are satisfied with a rock solid VW Golf if they could get it instantly ?

I would help but I can't see the main construction area - XBMC or in TVHeadEnd ? What is missing ? What are the main problems ? In case of XBMC - core programming or add on ?

Greetz

LastCoder
TVHeadend is not cross plattform, while XBMC is - thus it is no option to just focus on one PVR backend and that's the reason why generic PVR frontend features get built into XBMC and all the backend logic and communication is moved to plugins. This ensures that the user experience in XBMC is the same for every backend and plattform.

And not all are using linux or are willing to switch to it (limited bluray support) or like to setup a linux based PVR server for which you need at least some low level knowledge of linux to get it running smoothly (when I tried tvheadend I had serious issues to get drivers for my hardware - it was blacklisted or something like that and fixing it was bash hacking - not very user friendly if you ask me). So for me the decision for a generic PVR frontend is absolutely comprehensible.

And with support for MythTV you allready have basic PVR features in core.
Personally I think that there are many big advantages with having tvheadend on an always on server. I have mine on a low power atom server that also does my torrents. Its great for recording...never have to worry about it missing.
LastCoder Wrote:I would help but I can't see the main construction area - XBMC or in TVHeadEnd ? What is missing ? What are the main problems ? In case of XBMC - core programming or add on ?

Greetz

LastCoder

Well, I am a bit biased, but tvheadend can always use extra help. ;-)

You can contact us via our forum on lonelycoder.com

Hein
da-anda Wrote:And not all are using linux or are willing to switch to it (limited bluray support) or like to setup a linux based PVR server for which you need at least some low level knowledge of linux to get it running smoothly (when I tried tvheadend I had serious issues to get drivers for my hardware - it was blacklisted or something like that and fixing it was bash hacking - not very user friendly if you ask me). So for me the decision for a generic PVR frontend is absolutely comprehensible.

At this moment I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium on my HTPC 'cause of DVBViewer Pro for LiveTV and 'cause of the bluray support - and it totally suckz ! While linux (LMDE) supported every piece of my modern HTPC hardware out of the box, windows 7 found 10 unsupported devices for which I had to search for drivers .. compared to linux win7 is slow, buggy and lacks the stability of linux I'm used to from my linux computers .. OpenElec took 10s to bootup, LMDE 20s and Win7 up to 2 minutes. Standby and hibernation is a mess (even on a modern ASUS board - with linux I had no problems). And don't speak about bluray support - yesterday I tried to play a bluray for my daughter with powerDVD without success - a bluray that played fine some days before .. no, imho, there is nowadays no reason to use win7 especially on HTPCs .. and installing XBMC and tvheadend is totally simple with a Lu/Xu/Ku/Ubuntu distro - easier than with windows (even installing the distris self is faster and easier) ..

The WAF is rapidly moving to Zero Angry

Happy New Year !

LastCoder
Strange, that's not my experience at all. I switched from Linux to Win7 for support. Never got LiveTV working under Linux (USA locations), too problematic. Since switching to a full Windows setup (Team Mediaportal) WAF is very high. There's no way she would be able to make do with Linux.

I'll give you the stability though, I never did have to reboot my Linux server, but I just schedule a task in Win7 to reboot at like 3am, I don't even know its happening.

OpenELEC is a nice client too, I have one running off a USB stick. It seems to have some sleep issues (runnning on suppoorted hardware), but I haven't written it off just yet.
Kirky99 Wrote:Strange, that's not my experience at all. I switched from Linux to Win7 for support. Never got LiveTV working under Linux (USA locations), too problematic. Since switching to a full Windows setup (Team Mediaportal) WAF is very high. There's no way she would be able to make do with Linux.

I'll give you the stability though, I never did have to reboot my Linux server, but I just schedule a task in Win7 to reboot at like 3am, I don't even know its happening.

OpenELEC is a nice client too, I have one running off a USB stick. It seems to have some sleep issues (runnning on suppoorted hardware), but I haven't written it off just yet.

tvheadend itself runs really smooth as TV Server - problematic is just the xbmc client at this moment. I tried Mediaportal and I was totally disappointed - at least I had expected to get nice EPG information, but even that didn't work better than with my fu**ing COMAG receiver .. DVBViewer has excellent EPG and TV support .. highest WAF would give Windows media center, unfortunately you can't disable timeshift at all ..

OpenElec is nice but I don't understand their strategy to build the linux basis themselves instead of using for example an Ubuntu Server as basis .. I can't handle a linux without a console / tty ! Didn't get a WLAN connection running, so I stopped testing ..

We'll see .. I guess XBMC will kick ass if PVR works stable !

So long

LastCoder
LastCoder - use SSH to connect to your OpenElec install and you have your console (just for the case you like to play with it again).

And I didn't say Win7 is THE htpc OS, it's just something that's working best for me and at least allows me to watch my blurays (using TMT as PowerDVD suckz).
And I don't understand why you'd like to disable timeshift - I love permanent timeshift (moved the timeshift buffer to a RAM disc) and can't live without it (that's why I currently don't use XBMC-PVR atm although I'd really love to finally drop MP). But everybody has a different taste and preferences - that's also why XBMC is x-plattform.
Hi Folks,

when I opened this thread I had in mind for TVHeadend what Mythbox [http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...t=mythbox] does for MythTV .. Reinventing the wheel is of course not useful, maybe it's possible to get MythBox running with TVHeadend .. I'll check it ...

So long

LastCoder
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