Geniatech HD Star DVB-S2 and cheapass ranting
#1
USB DVB-S2 tuners are quite pricey and single tuner so need to grab few of these and I'm not sure how the usb bus will handle mutliple hd ts from couple of devices.
On the other hand pci/x cards are much more affordable, got more features and you can get up to 4 tuners in a card.

So the scales tip to pci cards but this doesn't fit my low cost Arm devices like Pogoplug Series 4 as a server or G-Box Midnight as XBMC client.
I also had my share of patching kernels, compiling custom kernels and the s2-liliplian crap and I just want a plug & play device with mainline kernel.
By the looks of it the Geniatech HD Star DVB-S2 seems to fit my needs, cheap (50$ with shipping, so 4~6 devices won't break my piggybank) and supported by mainline kernel.

Now I only need to install a sat dish Smile (I can grab some freeview sat channels from a premium service but I really need to move to private dish)

If anyone got the device and willing to share his thoughts on it please post here.

Now for the ranting...

I believe that the most affordable, flexible and growable apporach that would support multiple devices (including portables) for XBMC dvb-s2 pvr would be:
1. To have one server with at least two tuners for recording and streaming to portable devices.
2. Clients with one tuner each for only watching while recording are made on the server.

The big issue is that the pvr backend (tvheadend, vdr ...) aren't smart enough regarding multiple servers (maybe except mythtv) so this isn't possible yet.
So the current solutions would be:
a. One servers with multiple tuners for all the clients, you'll need at least micro atx form factor to be flexible in regards to tuners number, not compact nor low powered enough for me.
b. Dual tuners on all the clients to be able to record while watch on another transponder or have only one client with dual tuner and limit the recording function to it.


p.s. Link for the Geniatech device
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/...17215.html

p.s. 2 ordered the device (yep, impulse buying) and will update (slowish Chinese shipping) if this works out of the box on linux (with the tvheadend magic) probably with one of my Pogoplugs or Raspberries.

p.s. 3 Anyone know what is this device (like uid,gid) ? for 25$ I was considering getting this just to find out the id's but it surely will find it's way into the trash (the psu will probably dive first after a little teardown).
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Digital-S...03104.html
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#2
don't forget each tuner can record multiple programmes provided they are on the same mux. So there is not necessarily 1:1 relationship between tuners and steams.

My view is get a reasonable sized server and put all your tuners in there and run mythtv.
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#3
Well, I plan for worst case scenario as a replacement for satellite setboxes the solution need to be 100% reliable even when it means more tuners.

My point of view is not from a personal perspective (I don't really mind not having live tv) but I ask myself will the average Joe would also consider such setup ?

Coming from premium satellite services (encrypted with proprietary dedicated setboxes) a solution based on xbmc pvr need to be very attractive to move to.
So it should be very compact (wife factor and also may coexist initially with the premium service), hardware should be low cost as the initial investment in equipment and installation is very high, scaleable to minimize the initial cost, easy to setup (an easy solution will be using preconfigured images to flash to usb drives) and stable.

The largest form factor I would consider for the server is a mini itx (low powered celeron ?).
With support (that not exist currently) for multiple pvr backends the server should be set with a dual tuner pci card while each client with a single tuner usb card.

Just my 2 cents, feel free to criticize.
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#4
(2013-06-22, 22:07)dhead Wrote: The big issue is that the pvr backend (tvheadend, vdr ...) aren't smart enough regarding multiple servers (maybe except mythtv) so this isn't possible yet.
Maybe I'm stupid, but I really don't understand what the problem is. Or what you mean when you say "multiple servers" and what exactly isn't possible.
opdenkamp / dushmaniac

xbmc-pvr [Eden-PVR builds] [now included in mainline XBMC, so no more source link here :)]
personal website: [link]

Found a problem with PVR? Report it on Trac, under "PVR - core components". Please attach the full debug log.

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#5
@opdenkamp,

The idea is to have one master backend and to connect to it slaves backends, each slave backend can have one or more tuners.
The master gets requests to channels from clients and decides which tuner to use and also manages the recordings.

It doesn't has to be a master/slaves approach, it can be some kind of smart ditributed system, but the idea is the same, mutiple backends with smart and flexible method to manage resources.
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#6
You are making very little sense. More backends means more power, more management, major disk requirements in each backend, etc.

Stick your backend server with multiple tuners and multiple large hard drives in a cupboard or basement and run eg revos or zotac machines as frontends.

I don't know why you are obsessed with multiple backends.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
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#7
Received the usb tuner a few weeks ago and had few minutes today to test it.
The device is working out of the box on Linux, I downloaded the fw (vb-fe-ds3000.fw), connected the device to a PogoPlug v4, compiled tvheadend and that's it.
I highly recommend the device on all the other usb crap sold with no driver on mainline kernel, absolutely pleasure, no need for s2-liliplian bs.
Keep in mind that I only tested the device briefly.
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Ge...-S2_USB2.0

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Geniatech HD Star DVB-S2 and cheapass ranting0