[theballboy]

Hi folks
My current set up is
cyclone x2 running gotham beta
quad core rk3188 running gotham beta
Ouya running gotham beta

Grabbing myself a satellite receiver for a 12 month package subscription and it had always been a deal breaker for me to get xbmc running on it.
for quite a while it didn't seem to be happening. Dreambox's, skyboxs, vu solos etc on the enigma 2 were a no go.

Low and behold there are now some options

ANdroid satellite receivers
Media art 7 ultra £180
Evo X finity. £140

and these
E2BMC SETTOPBOX http://www.e2bmc.com/
Prismcube - http://www.abipbox.com/

Prismcube seems the most expensive but also seems the best supported

Any comments - horrible experiences? Praise? Advice? pointers to thriving communities
Thanks in advance

[nickr]

Would love to see their source code. If you buy one, demand it!

[theballboy]

?? What do you mean? They wont share it with the xbmc community? Can certainly ask if they will make it available before committing to purchase

[CaptainPsycho]

For the price i see no real advantage to a small mini-itx build with dvb-s2 tuners.

[theballboy]

yeah, point taken
surely it would be more power hungry though

[Hedda]

There are no Android boxes that today let you access the TV tuners from within XBMC's own Live TV and PVR GUI, as instead you will have to use separate Android apps for that, and usually an app with crappy interface without remote control support. Even those Linux based boxes that you listed have their own separate app for accessing the TV tuners, but they at least try to skin that to kind-of look a bit like XBMC, but it means you can't use the TV part with other skins for XBMC.


I think the best long term solution for this would be to fully port Tvheadend and MuMuDVB PVR backends run natively on Android and also have matching PVR client addon for XBMC, as then it would allow to have both the DVB TV tuner server part that is Tvheadend or MuMuDVB PVR backend TV tuner server application running on the very same Android box as the frontend XBMC media player.

Right now however there are no Android compatible "PVR backend" which also have a real "PVR client" addon for XBMC. Because while the upstream MuMuDVB PVR backend does runs on Android (and Linux) it doesn't yet have PVR client addon for XBMC. And while Tvheadend does have a PVR client addon for XBMC, the upstream Tvheadend PVR backend does not run on Android, (only on Linux so far).

Checkout the previous discussions in these two forum threads which relates to Android media player with integrated TV tuners
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=182218
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=196200


There are already many inexpensive USB DVB-T/C/S TV-tuners that are compatible with Android, and even more cheap Android boxes come with integrated TV-tuner, so if there was only an Android compatible "PVR backend" with a matching "PVR client" addon for XBMC then we would all be be golden in this Live TV area.

Just see these examples of Android USB TV-tuners and boxes with integrated tuners:
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/02/14/a...ls-for-93/
http://www.geniatech.com/tv-tuner-for-an...tablet.asp
http://www.geniatech.com/pa/pt115m.asp
http://www.geniatech.com/pa/atv1220.asp
http://www.mygica.com/product.asp?id=165
http://www.xtreamer.net/SideWinder4/
http://www.pctvsystems.com/Products/Prod...fault.aspx
http://www.pointofview-online.com/showro...uct_id=358
http://www.tevii.com/Products_t810_1.asp
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/05/22/u...-t2-tuner/

[noggin]

Another option is to run your TV Backend on a small low-power ARM server like a Pogoplug or GoFlexNet. I've got a TV Headend PVR build on a GoFlexNet with a DVB-T2 USB tuner and SATA HD working pretty well (Arch Linux base with self-built TV Headend on top). Leave that on 24/7 and power down the XBMC box(es) - Celeron 1007U Revo RL80 and i5 NUC - when not in use. There is also an unRAID server which serves both of them that is only powered up when needed.

[nickr]

?? What do you mean? They wont share it with the xbmc community? Can certainly ask if they will make it available before committing to purchase

My point is that they appear to be using a patched XBMC, so they are obliged to make the source available. Let's hope they do, the history of GPL abuse in this area is quite appalling.

[bgoldie]

?? What do you mean? They wont share it with the xbmc community? Can certainly ask if they will make it available before committing to purchase

My point is that they appear to be using a patched XBMC, so they are obliged to make the source available. Let's hope they do, the history of GPL abuse in this area is quite appalling.

The source for the XBMC modifications for the Prismcube are available and they are a diamond sponsor of XBMC now: http://xbmc.org/xbmc-sponsor-page/

[nickr]

That is excellent!

[RockerC]

?? What do you mean? They wont share it with the xbmc community? Can certainly ask if they will make it available before committing to purchase

My point is that they appear to be using a patched XBMC, so they are obliged to make the source available. Let's hope they do, the history of GPL abuse in this area is quite appalling.

The source for the XBMC modifications for the Prismcube are available and they are a diamond sponsor of XBMC now: http://xbmc.org/xbmc-sponsor-page/

That is excellent!

Not excellent at all since PrismCube actually have two separate apps to get around GPL, so almost all "modifications" are in a second closed source dirty hack of an app called "MaruApp" which is not based on XBMC.

http://www.prismcube-community.net/board...uilds.763/

Marusus are only diamond sponsor of XBMC because they donated money to XBMC Foundation, not because they have contributed any code to upstream XBMC that benefints any other platform than PrismCube.

I like to see PrismCube use XBMC's own native PVR frontend GUI for PVR/DVR/EPG/Live-TV, and for that have a (headless) PrismCube PVR backend only that works as a TV-tuner and recording server running as a background daemon service without a GUI.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=PVR

I think that PrismCube today is kind of ruining the XBMC experience by breaking the immersion of running the single application that is XBMC media center GUI, as it is right now PrismCube is instead launching its own separate application for all PVR functions, and that separate application has its own GUI that only tries to emulate the look and feel of XBMC, but needs its own skin.

So it should instead in the future PrismCube should port its own PVR backend TV server into a headless background running daemon service that work similar to like how Tvheadend PVR backend with XBMC works on a computer today, (and same if you use MediaPortal Server, VDR, or MythTV backend, etc. with XBMC). Which then all share the same XBMC's own native PVR frontend GUI for a common unified interface for everything, and the end-user should not even really need to know what PVR backend server that is running underneath it all.

Note again that I am not saying that PrismCube should simply use example Tvheadend or VDR. No I am instead saying that PrismCube should convert the code for their existing TV tuning application into a PVR backend TV server that works similar to Tvheadend or VDR, without its own GUI. And to begin to instead fully utilize XBMC's native PVR frontend GUI, and soley use that GUI as the only end-user interface for PrismCube that the users see on their TV display screen, following the XBMC' concept of how PVR should all the way completely, which happen to be standard client (frontend) to server (backend) model based

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client–server_model

By switching to using XBMC's own native PVR frontend GUI and the PVR backend concept you will again all the benefits on a common development community that all work towards the same goal to improve XBMC's own native PVR frontend GUI and API interlace, no matter what PVR backend is used.

Sure if it was open source then that would be a little better, but if MaruApp TV server was only acting as a PV backend then it would not matter as much if it was closed source, as then much could still be done in XBMC's open source code to improve the experience.

The best scenario to get as many community developers involved as would of course be an open source MaruApp TV server, and open source PrismCube PVR backend client for XBMC (that uses XBMC's PVR API), as then third-party community developers can assist in the whole chain, both working on bugs and developing new features or functions. This is the scenario that PVR backend client for XBMC is for Tvheadend, VDR, MediaPortal, and MythTV today and those all work great with very active community developers.

Second best would be closed source MaruApp TV server, and open source PrismCube PVR backend client for XBMC (that uses XBMC's PVR API), as then third-party community developers could at least assist in developing both the PrismCube PVR backend client for XBMC as well as XBMC. That is the scenario that ServerWMC is in today, which is a third-party open source WMC PVR backend client for XBMC that can still fully control closed source Microsoft Windows Media Center.

Third best would be closed source MaruApp TV server, and closed source PrismCube PVR backend client for XBMC (that uses XBMC's PVR API), which would mean that Marusus would have to develop all the backend features themselves without assistance from the community, but at least the community could develop XBMC's PVR GUI, PVR API, and skins, which would improve the end-user experience to give used a completely unified interface and the ability to switch skin in XBMC (without having to skin MaruApp separately).

However today we are almost looking at at almost the worse possible XBMC experience possible on PrismCube, with the separate MaruApp having it's own GUI. The only worse XBMC experience I can think of is if the MaruApp did not have the same look and feel as XBMC, but I think it is still bad enough as it is today.