[dhead]

Ned, from your own reply I understand that you don't have a hardware issue but a software one.

Recommended hardware list would be great addition and should be added with regards to real world tests and price,
but LinuxTv wiki is the origin of authoritative in this matter,
if a device has open source drivers included in the main kernel tree then by all means it's supported by Linux.

As for the matter with your device, on its LinuxTv page stated that it is supported by main kernel, meaning you just need to download the firmware and that's it, so what's the problem ?
Trying to figure out what's going on a Linux system is a big headache for normal people.

For me it's an easy task to get an updated Arch Linux system with the latest 3.8 kernel from a clean sheet and have all the necessery firmware and configs set, but for 99.9% of the people I know this sounds like an unthinkable horror.

I love the appliance approach, to have a dedicated cheap device and openelec on raspberry pi is great but I think there's a place for a preconfigured image for cheap arm device like raspberry pi or pogoplug and even x86-64 with tvheadend, samba and a webgui for some configs and of course the latest kernel and firmware for every possible tv tuners with nothing else, no xbmc, no raid, no alsa.
Users should just download the image, flash to sd, insert to their device, add usb digital tv card and choose their location (for auto scanning frequencies) on the webgui and that's it.
Everything should be auto configured, plug&play, auto discovered services, nothing that even mentioning setting ip, users, passwords, smb, shares. installing drivers or firmware.

[Ned Scott]

Believe me, I've spent days on this. Between kernels 3.2 and 3.6, the driver (and possibly others) was either removed or botched. There's threads all over raspberrypi.org, Raspbmc's forums, and more, about this issue.

I don't know how it is for DVB, but for ATSC we have very few USB tuners on the market, and there is very little attention paid to the ATSC side of things. I've used this USB tuner before with TVHeadend a while ago, and it did work at one point. I've set up TVheadened a few times, both for older linux systems (hardy) where I had to manually install the driver, and where it worked "out of the box". Right now, the 950Q is a clusterfuck. There are already bug reports filed, and I think OpenELEC might have it working (it's finally seen with OpenELEC, but still not scanning).

So while for DVB I'm sure LinuxTV is the authority, and most people won't even have to worry, that's simply not the case for people in North America using ATSC.

/rant

But yes, the idea is to have some examples or something that will let newbies get things going easily. For some that might mean very specific hardware recommendations, but for others it might be very broad and generic recommendations. I'm just tired of pointing people to five different websites in order to watch TV in XBMC (just talking about the most basic steps, getting it up and running, nothing fancy).

[Ned Scott]

dhead, I've finally dug my PogoPlug out from a pile of junk and have gotten it working again. I'm going to try to tackle your recommendations for the guide tonight, format your instructions, that is, but yeah, this looks to be our winner for kick-ass-easy OTA "standalone" device for everyone :D

[Ned Scott]

Alright, I'm not understanding the kernel version stuff. Using the instructions from archlinuxarm.org and updating everything seems to give me kernel 2.6, which you say is pretty much dead at this point. Is there another site or set of instructions that users should use for this pre-prep that would give them a newer kernel?

[dhead]

Alright, I'm not understanding the kernel version stuff. Using the instructions from archlinuxarm.org and updating everything seems to give me kernel 2.6, which you say is pretty much dead at this point. Is there another site or set of instructions that users should use for this pre-prep that would give them a newer kernel?

It's hard for me to believe you're on kernel 2.6.
What's the output of "# uname -r" ?

What's your device ?
Is it Marvell SoC based ? meaning Pogoplug v2 (Ping/Gray) or Pogoplug v4 & Mobile.
If so the "# pacman -Syu" will set you with the latest freezed kernel 3.1.x.
If you followed the installation guide and installed the updated uboot on your device,
then you a have a uboot version that is compatible with the latest kernel,
just run "# pacman -Sy linux-kirkwood" and you'll get the latest 3.8.x kernel.

I'm not sure what is the latest kernel version of Pogoplug v3,
you'll need to look a bit at the Arch Linux Arm forums for more info on the device.

[dhead]

Maybe a good idea would be to add a link in the wiki to openelec's dvb-firmware folder on github, all the needed firmware already there.
https://github.com/OpenELEC/dvb-firmware

[Ned Scott]

Code:

[root@alarm ~]# uname -r
2.6.31.6_SMP_820

PogoPlug v3 P-21

PLX/Oxford Semiconductor NAS7820 SoC

http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv6/...provideov3

Did "pacman -Syu" to update everything after install

[Ned Scott]

Yeah, reading the archlinuxarm forums, and my group of hardware is currently stuck on 2.6. I'll make a split page for 2.6 on the wiki, and use your instructions as the default, since I assume it's not an issue for most pogoplug devices that can be bought today.

[dhead]

For Pogoplug v3 I think 2.6 kernel is a dead end, this is what happens when companies are not open source friendly and put nda on everything.
I'm not sure if it possible to compile an update v4l-dvb for this device.

For the much older Marvell based Pogoplug v2 there is an updated 3.8.x kernel and the path to install it is just to run "# pacman -Sy linux-kirkwood".

[Ned Scott]

Oh no, it works fine. That's how that original set of instructions showed up on the wiki in the first place :)

It just sounds like this specific situation (my pogoplug) isn't something to recommend for the masses.

[dhead]

Exept for kernel version the biggest issue with Pogoplug v3 regarding Arch Linux is that Arch moved to systemd, so packages that need startup script like system services will not work without a proper script.
So for a novice user it may not be wised to update some packages on Pogoplug v3 Arch Linux device.

[dhead]

Ned,
Regarding device with 2.6 kernel I believe you can use the same steps that provided for newer kernel with the exception on how to configure the service.
So after the package installation instead of starting the systemd service, you should:
1. Create service files (I've grabbed these from the tvheadend-git package on Aur):
(Instead you can include links to the files on the wiki, so users only need to wget them)

# nano /etc/conf.d/tvheadend/tvheadend.conf.d

Code:

TVHEADEND_ARGS="-f -u hts -g video -C"

# nano /etc/rc.d/tvheadend/tvheadend.rc.d

Code:

#!/bin/bash

. /etc/rc.conf
. /etc/rc.d/functions
. /etc/conf.d/tvheadend

PID=$(pidof -o %PPID /usr/bin/tvheadend)

case $1 in
  start)
    stat_busy "Starting tvheadend daemon"

    if [[ -z $PID ]] && /usr/bin/tvheadend $TVHEADEND_ARGS; then
        add_daemon tvheadend
        stat_done
    else
        stat_fail
        exit 1
    fi
    ;;
  stop)
    stat_busy "Stopping tvheadend daemon"
    if [[ ! -z $PID ]]  && kill $PID &> /dev/null; then
        rm_daemon tvheadend
        stat_done
    else
        stat_fail
        exit 1
    fi
    ;;
  restart)
    $0 stop
    sleep 2
    $0 start
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
    exit 1
esac

2. Set the proper permissions "# chmod +x /etc/rc.d/tvheadend/tvheadend.rc.d"
3. Start the service "# /etc/rc.d/tvheadend/tvheadend.rc.d start"

[TheCheeseGoat]

Hi,

Two day newbie here, just thought I would share my setup experiences so far. Sorry if this isn't the correct place to do this.

Country:
- UK

Service:
- freesat on Astra 28.2E

Hardware:
- 1 used dell 755SFF E8400 3Ghz, 4GB ram, 500GB hd (£65). I have added a vsx HD5450 1GB graphics card (£23) and a Tevii 464 dvb-s2 sat card (£50). Total £138
- xbox 360 pad (already had this)

Software:
- Windows 7 pro
- nextpvr 2.6.2 with patches
- xbmc 12.2pre-20130410


Problems I have encountered with xbmc:
- live tv, pvr; If you pause the stream, wait a while for the buffer to build up, press play and then fast forward until you are at the point where you would be watching in real-time the picture will freeze and xbmc hangs.
- Pausing live tv and changing channels occasionally causes the nextpvr service to lock up. To recover from this I have to restart the nextpvr service.


Problems I have encountered with nextpvr:
- EPG country specific setup information is hard to find - not sure how to do this yet; still reading up. I think I need to pay for digiguide and convert this with xmltv; possibly the only viable solution for the uk?
- Channels - The scan produced duplicate channels due to regional specific variations. I know I need to remove some, but I have found that there are quality differences with the streams - Is there a channel signal strength meter hidden away somewhere or even a bitrate meter?


Problems I have encountered with the hardware:
- AMD drivers 13.1 / dell optiplex 755 dont play nice and cause BSOD on installation. It's working now; I am now bald though!


Overall, I am very happy with the xbmc / nextpvr solution and thank all the developers / testers and wiki contributers for their hard work.

[Ned Scott]

Awesome feedback! Thank you for taking the time to write this!

[lukasnmd]

@ned Scott
What do you want me to give/write?

I'm watching LiveTV through my Synology NAS with a Smargo CardReader Plus in combination with a Sundtek MediaTV Pro (DVB-C) to watch scrambled channels from my provider (EU).

I would like this, since I dont have to open my machine and I also can use an old netbook/RasPi for this task.

Just some questions:

1- Can I add several tuners, or 1 multi-tuner and use the same Smartcard reader, have you tried this?
2- Did you tried with a DVB-S/S2 tuner or know someone with this setup?

I know that this topic is for newbies, but I think that newbies use more than 1 tv in their homes. Especially if they live with their parents, a 2 TV tuner set would be awesome as well, there's no need to make this more expensive.