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I have an HDHomerun Prime with Comcast cable. I'd love to have a good setup, but I can't seem to cobble one together. I have a dedicated 24/7 Linux server set up and I've tried both MythTV and TVHeadednd as a backend. TVHeadend doesn't completely work with the Prime yet due to work that still needs done on dvbhdhomerun. MythTV seems to work, but if I go into suspend and then come back out on my HTPC I can't tune any channels through the Myth addon.
I've installed the latest beta firmware from SiliconDust and the DLNA function of the Prime works splendidly, but I can't record anything with it. The only thing I've found that works solidly with the Prime is Windows Media Center. I can tune to any channel I want, and I can record with it as well. But, since the machine I have on all the time is Linux-based WMC is a non-starter. I'm hoping to see some improvements in the future to get the Prime working with Linux to a better state.
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It took me a few days and quite a few bumps along the way to get everything working well, but I would now say I am extremely satisfied with my XBMC PVR setup. I am running DirecTV over HDMI to a Colossus card, using IR Blaster and NextPVR backend. Schedules Direct for EPG data (NextPVR supports SD import). I found all the high def channel logos/icons I could, and made the ones I could not find myself in Photoshop. Everything now looks and works great. I couldn't be happier.
I look forward to (hopefully) genre coloring working (it works fine in NextPVR). EPG data scraping such as imdb info would be a fantastic feature, but I may be expecting a little too much there. Nonetheless, my current setup is more than sufficient.
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I am super happy with my windows-based pvr setup. It is totally prime-time-ready at my house...whole family uses it every day.
I have a Windows 7 server which runs ArgusTV (scheduler and backend). The ArgusTV add-on ships with xbmc and works great. The HDHomerun (I do OTA antenna only) is by far the best tuner because it allows any pc on my network to connect to live tv (I can even watch on the iPad/iPhone if I want). They are also stackable, so if I ever need more tuners, I just pop another one onto the network.
I subscribe to schedulesdirect.org for my EPG (it's just way easier and more reliable than using mc2xml manually. Costs $25/year.). ArgusTV scans your station list, lets you map/organize your channels (order them, add logos, hide the ones you don't want to see,etc), then lets you map your EPG records to those channels. Argus offers an EPG import tool which can be scheduled to pull each night. Once that is setup, you're pretty much golden. I don't do any channel configuration inside xbmc. ArgusTV also ships with a Guide Enricher which I would recommend installing. It will look at the programs that you record, try to look them up at thetvdb.org, and add metadata like S01E01. It will also let you manually configure show mappings if the name doesn't properly lookup.
I use ForTheLibrary and comskip as post-recording processing commands. For shows that I want to record OTA and auto-add to the library, ForTheLibrary will rename the files to a scan-friendly format with season and episode numbers, move the files to a directory which xbmc looks at as a source, and run comskip to remove the commercials. For shows that I don't want in my library, I just run comskip on them directly as a post processing command.
ArgusTV has an iOS app which is what I use to schedule new series recordings. Argus used to be known as ForTheRecord, and is known for its robust, rules-based scheduling utilities.
I feel confident saying that ArgusTV is the best combo of stability, ease of configuration and feature-richness. I have tried:
1. TVHeadened (Linux) - super stable and easy, but didn't play nice with the HDHomerun and didn't support timeshifting
2. MythTV (Linux) - a beast to setup, xbmc add-on was not reliable
3. MediaPortal (Windows) - needed ArgusTV front end for good scheduling...could not find a reason to use this instead of the core ArgusTV backend
4. NextPVR (Windows) - not stable enough, no killer features that ArgusTV didn't provide.
5. VDR (Linux) - couldn't get anywhere near working with this....I'm not a Linux guru
I agree that xbmc could use some refining (esp on the EPG and allowing series scheduling), but generally, this setup supports everything we need. We can see what's on each channel, record anything we want (series or one-off), pause/resume live TV, and watch recordings easily. Hope that is helpful!
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So i currently use WMC along with an HDHR3 for my live tv and dvr and i see that XBMC now has live tv which i would love to switch over to since i keep the rest of my media on it. I went through the steps on XBMC's cover page dealing with pvr support and it had me download nextpvr and did everything it said but it didn't seem to work. XBMC found all the channels when i click on live tv but when i would click on one nothing would happen and xbmc would crash, and the guide was just blank as well.. I have a comcast cable card in the tuner and have an i7 3770k 3.5 ghz quad core with nvidia geforce 550 ti and asrock z77 extreme4 mb and Windows 8. Hoping someone out there can help me out, would be very much appreciated! Anybody on this thread know somewhere i can get a good step by step for this at least?
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bmn001
Junior Member
Posts: 10
I understand why XBMC took the "frontend only" approach (easier to support across multiple platforms) but all of the issues people are citing in this thread could be addressed by a native tuner service embedded within XBMC.
It'd be a lot more work, but we wouldn't be left with this fragmented state of figuring out which backend works best with which OS, which changes channels faster, which has the best scheduling, etc. Take the Apple approach and just control the entire (software) ecosystem to deliver the best DVR user experience.
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Currently have tried Mediaportal (slow), NextPVR (buggy, freezes), and am about to try Argus. Each time I ended back in WMC because the interface is just so much smoother. Right now PVR in XBMC feels like exactly what it is... an addon. Its like a trailer attached to the back of a mansion.
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2013-02-06, 17:29
(This post was last modified: 2013-02-06, 17:34 by 2twisty.)
OK, I'm gonna throw in here.
I'm currently a Win7 MCE user and I'm looking to move to XBMC. The additional features, plugins and scripting really interest me. I will run whatever OS is needed to provide the best setup. That means that if the backend needs to be MacOS, I can do that.. Or if the frontend needs to be a Raspberry Pi, I'm good there, too.
However, there are some features that I want XBMC to provide that I get now with my MCE setup with the plugins I use.
I only tune OTA ATSC. I don't tune a lot of channels, nor do I record a lot. Most of my content comes from online sources, most of which is NOT streamed. I keep files for movies and TV shows on a 20TB array. In MCE, I use the MyMovies add-on to organize my movies and TV shows. This is where most of our Media Center time is spent.
So, here are some features that I have in MCE that I REALLY want in XBMC:
1. Robust EPG. Tried NextPVR and it sucked. Could not record a series, there was no indication that a show was set to record in the EPG, no conflict resolution....just a nasty error.
2. Closed Captions for TV recordings and live TV. My wife and I aren't hard of hearing (yet) but we like to have them on -- it helps us catch things we might have missed. Not a deal breaker, but a very strong factor.
3. Time Shifting. We want to be able to pause and rewind live TV.
4. More options for TV Shows. Currently, the MyMovies app allows me to select "Play next unwatched episode" and "play random unwatched episode." I know that the TV shows tool in XBMC can somewhat provide the "play next unwatched" function, but I really don't want to "hide watched episodes." Sometimes we want to go back and re-watch, or I will watch something and she will want to go back and see it later. If the system hides watched episodes, then that's a lot harder to do. Why "play random unwatched?" Some shows aren't linear. For example: Star Trek: TOS. You can watch those in any order you like. Documentary and science shows. They are not usually serial in nature. So, we like to "change it up" a bit and have some shows play a random unwatched episode.
I am no stranger to coding and scripting, although I've never used Python. However, I do pick up programming languages quickly. I am not afraid to code some of these things if they don't exist, although don't expect skins out of me.. I don't "do" user interfaces.. I do backend stuff.
Anyway, I don't want to reinvent the wheel if someone already has these functions or if there is a good "starting point" to enhance.
So, what frontend/backend, and on what hardware/os? And, if its best to have a separate backend hardware from the frontend, I can do that, too. I can do just about any combination if it can pass the "wife test."
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I run an Openelec frontend in my lounge with an UnRaid Server running TVHeadend as a server. Works really well and I'm a convert from a Windows 7 HTPC running MediaPortal and Argus streaming from my UnRaid Server.
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mbc0
Senior Member
Posts: 159
My Setup
WHS2011 Server in the cupboard under the stairs
6 PC's In The house all Running Win 7X64 and XBMC
VU+ Duo Satellite box
The Good & Bad
DVBLINK Pro's
Excellent for use with the Digiguide EPG Data
Timeslip Works Perfectly
DVBLink Con's
Does not recognize that I have 2 Tuners so will only allow one program to watch or record at once
Slow Channel Changes
Have to keep my server on 24/7
VU+ Duo Addon Pro's
Quick Channel Change
Records Direct To VU+ Receiver Hard Drive So Server Does Not Need To Be On
Recognizes that I have two tuners
VU+ Duo Addon Con's
Unable to use Digiguide EPG
No Timeslip
Alot Of Stuttering (Buffering) on some channels
If only there was a "complete" solution :-(
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Joined: Oct 2007
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2013-02-20, 20:06
(This post was last modified: 2013-02-27, 23:48 by seninha.)
My setup:
Server:
Windows 7 PC with 4TB storage.
Used also for downloading
Living room HTPC: Asrock ION330 running XBMCButnu 12 on a 32gb SSD
Bedroom HTPC: Foxconn 3500 netbook running XBMCBuntu 12 on a 16gb SD card
VU+ Solo with openpli 3 in the attic next to my server.
This box does not contain an HDD, so the bocx directly records to my servers HDD.
Thanks to this i am now able to watch all my movies/series and play all my music.
And since two days i am finally able to watch TV from same system.
Did some testing and TV is running fine. Even HD channels are streaming without any problem.NO buffering what so ever. (100mbit homenetwork)
Recording is some other thing.
Did two recordings of SD channels and this went perfect.
After this I wanted to test the possibility to start a recording using XBMC, but then stop XBMC to see if recording continue
Result, recording did continue, but after starting XBMC again, everything went wrong.XBMC did not react at all.
After restarting XBMC and stopping the recording directly from the VU+ I was able to watch TV again.
Recording was no without problems.Image stops now and then and had a lot of glitches.
At that moment didn't know why.
But this morning I remembered that during the recording, my server was also downloading at full speed.
That could be a problem.
That is why I will do a test tomorrow as soon as I can.
EPG is also other thing i need to test
LAST UPDATE:
After mounting my server HDD as CIFS (use to be NFS) everything is running fine.
Recordings are now really good quality.
I am very happy with my set-up.
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Joined: Feb 2013
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Another vote for TvHeadend - fast channel switching, good EPG support, and now with timeshift in 3.3.485.
I'm using TvHeadend with the Arctic built-in DVB tuner, plus a PCTV 290e nanoStick DVB-T2 for the HD channels.
Everything works. Am running on Arctic MC001 with OpenELEC and XBMC Frodo.
Still on my wish-list: support for commercial skipping using EDL files generated by comskip (which currently only works if the recordings are played via the video menu)
Posts: 497
Joined: Jul 2011
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I followed some of the advice earlier in this thread and configured ArgusTV on my Windows XBMC, using an HDHomerun Dual tuner (connected to clear QAM cable). Took some time to wrap my head around all of the mapping/etc needed in the initial configuration, but now it's working very nicely. If you're comfortable using ArgusTV's excellent web app for all of your series recordings and any other advanced settings, then it's really pretty solid. The only issues are slow channel changing (about 4 seconds after you optimize the timing), and the bug that prevents recordings from appearing in XBMC until you force a refresh by selecting "Recordings" from the side menu. Not sure if that bug is related to the ArgusTV plugin or XBMC itself. Otherwise it seems rock solid and I'm quite pleased. I've unplugged my Comcast DVR to test this out with the family.
I still may try TVHeadend in a VM to see how it compares, but I'm not in any hurry right now.
Devs should have had working plugins and backends coordinated with PVR coders before they went to final Frodo release. Maybe version 13
?? I think they got sidetracked working on getting android up and running with this release.
