[Justin9]

I was just wondering how many others are using PTV in the entire home? Thought it would be interesting if others are, my type of equipment they are using. Mainly, what type of pc are you using at the TVs... I'm interested in whether I could get decent performance out of Raspberry Pi 2... I have never had any of those... I tried the Android things and gave up since most of those USFF pcs can be found for 100 bucks or less... I have also never played with other OS, but have been tempted to try something like OpenElec, but I like that with Win 7 machines I can update any pc channel settings from my desktop machine... drag and drop.

Server: 6-core AMD, 8 gigs ram running FreeNAS. The machine currently has a RAID 1 with two 4TB WD Blacks. (started out with a small 2 bay NAS box, a Lenovo running 3 gig WD REDs) As soon as I get comfortable with this FreeNas box I will be moving the two Reds over and creating a drive with those as well. I call this machine "Cougar" has that was the brand of the case I used. I'm currently using half of the 4TB in the Blacks, when I bring the Reds over I am going to use them for TV Shows and Recordings, and use the Blacks for movies...

Network: The only two ISPs we are offered here at Windstream DSL and Comcast Cable. I could get a 25m service w/ Comcast for what I'm paying for 6m DSL, but there bandwidth limit scares me. Windstream's model is a Sagecom FAST 1704N, which doubles as a 4 port router. It is fairly reliable and decent once you figure out how to login it to customize it. I have it wired to some 10/100/1000 switches. I cut our cable service a year ago next month, when I decide to do that, I ran cat5 to each TV location in the house, just like you would do with coax for the cable system.

For OTA, I have a Winegard 2000 antenna about 15 feet on a pole in the backyard. I wish I could have gotten 7 or 8 more feet, but I didn't, I used two 10' sections of gas pipe, over 20 feet it wasn't steady and I didn't want wires in my yard, I live in town so the lot isn't that big. The downside is I can't get PBS. I get 10 channels in my area... there's not a ton around here, and if I was able to get the other 5 or 6 my dad gets with his, they would just be duplicate channels anyway... I have that antenna connected to TWO (2) HDHomerun Duals. Those are both on the network. I have an old Dell Optiplex I rescued from work, throw Win 7 on it and use it to record TV off the antenna with Windows Media Center. The 620 then saves the recorded show after my WMC sidekick program removes the commercials and converts the file type on Cougar. I have had this setup for about 6 months, at first, I only had the one tuner, so I was limited on recordings, but once I added the second one, my recordings have taken off. The 620 machine only has a 200 gig drive in it, but the convert deletes the WMC recording after its done, so it works great.

Channels:

1. Local Content - this is a folder on my NAS where we keep home movies, stuff like my daughter's ballet or stuff from my GoPro off my road racing car.
2. Open - I just saved a space here, maybe swap with #1 and make a TV Guide channel, haven't worked on it because I'm stll tinkering with the channel lineup
3-12. Local OTA - These are my local, OTA channels.
13-20. Reserved for future OTAs
21-40. Movie Channels - I have one that plays 2010+, then the genres, then I have one that plays 2000+, I have a Robin Williams channel, a James Bond Channel, Tom Hanks, and Elvis
(33-36 &40) not in use but available if needed
41-60 - TV Shows Big Bang, HIMYM, King of Queens, Modern Family, Law and Order SVU, etc... this is where my wife hangs out... I'm currently up to channel 55, so 56-60 I have open
61 is Band of Brothers
62 is The Pacific
63-66 Science stuff, NeoGeo stuff I have, BCC stuff, Discovery, etc...
67 Roadkill from MotorTrend
81 - Vevo TV Hits
82-84 - I would like to be able to have my own music channels here, I had started out creating YouTube lists on my login but since most video were Vevo, they wouldn't play... I haven't tried doing this again in a long time.. maybe that's been fixed.
91 - Christmas Channel
100-105 are cartoon channels...

That is it for right now, I know I can add some more, but I have been taking my time with it. With only 6m DSL, you are pretty much limited also to only one person watching something online at a given time... Our town actually has a local TV service, which I had for years until I cut the cord, it only had 65 channels for 55 bucks. It was great, but its analog and they have not maintained it. I didn't care for Comcast, because of cost. So although we don't have a lot of channels, we have the channels we care about.

Usage: I'm running a system on currently 2 TVs but soon will be 4 once I get the channels and all the bugs worked out.
I have a Dell Optiplex 745 USFF w/ Win 7 on a 60" Vizio and a HP 7800 USFF w/ Win 7 on a 32" TV. All my TVs are LED LCDs. We have one that is 720p but everything else is 1080. I have noticed skipping when I play any 1080 video. I'm not sure if these little USFF machines can't handle it or if that is network lag. I've set each one to output 720 from the machine to the TV, I can't notice a difference and most of my stuff is in 720 quality anyway for space. For remotes, the ebst I have found so far is this Aerb 2.4 Gihz Remote

[RamboUnchained]

Server/Bedroom

Code:

- Windows 8.1 NAS (soon to be W10)
- 120GB PNY SSD for OS and apps
- Six 4TB Hitachi 7200 RPM drives for storage
- Shared MySQL
- AMD 4300
- Sapphire Radeon 7750
- 4GB of RAM
- Old Xbox 360 Media Remote + Logitech K400
- 32in RCA with 2.1 PC speakers connected
- No disc drive
- Kodi Helix 14.2

Living room

Code:

- Android Armada Mach 8 (ARM)
- Android 4.4.2
- Quad core CPU with octa-core am-logic GPU
- 2GB RAM
- 5GB Storage + 8GB flash for Kodi thumbnails
- Rosewill RHRC-11001 + Logitech K400
- 32in RCA with 5.1 RCA surround system
- Kodi Helix 14.2

My son's rooms

Code:

- WDTV Live Media Player v3
- 32in Westinghouse

Test Machine/ gaming rig/ BluRay ripper

Code:

- Windows 8.1
- AMD 8350
- Sapphire Radeon 270x
- 8GB RAM
- 120 GB PNY SSD
- 1TB WD HDD
- 24in Asus VN247H-P 1080p monitor
- Kodi 15 Isengard Beta 2
- MKVToolNix, MakeMKV, and Handbrake for ripping and rendering

I purposely have my channels scattered all around. I have 130 channels that follow the same format for the most part;

Code:

- TV channel
- TV channel
- Movie channel
- TV channel
- Movie channel
- Movie channel

[Justin9]

Cool... thanks..

how do you like that Android Armada Mach 8

[Resuwen]

Here's what I do (Maybe we can share some ideas).

I haven't use PseudoTV in a while though because I don't know the most efficient way to work it with multi setups and my config files keep getting reset every so often, I just kind of gave up with it..

But, you can use Emby Media Server (once called MediaBrowser), there is an add-on for Kodi. Basically this is the same as PLEX but open source and integrates perfectly into Kodi's library. You just have to install the Kodi plugin for Emby to have it replace your entire database library with Emby's.

This DOES in fact work with PseudoTV. Emby will manage all of your media for your entire house and stream/transcode it on the fly to every device at best quality in most efficient manner (That can help with your buffering on 1080p).

Is definitely the best solution, even over mysql share.

Now, what I have no idea on is the best way to setup Kodi and PseudoTV to share everything. I would mostly like to setup a PTVL server on my emby server computer and have that share the settings and channels with every other kodi device in the house. I am completely unsure of Mirroring vs Sharing. Ultimately, I would only like to have to manage one computer (the server) and not have to worry about tinkering with every single client pc to have pseudotv running and maintained...

Any ideas?

[Justin9]

I have never heard of Emby Media Server. so I'll check that out..

[RamboUnchained]

Cool... thanks..

how do you like that Android Armada Mach 8

I love it. $100 bucks and it runs without a hitch.

[RamboUnchained]

Here's what I do (Maybe we can share some ideas).

I haven't use PseudoTV in a while though because I don't know the most efficient way to work it with multi setups and my config files keep getting reset every so often, I just kind of gave up with it..

But, you can use Emby Media Server (once called MediaBrowser), there is an add-on for Kodi. Basically this is the same as PLEX but open source and integrates perfectly into Kodi's library. You just have to install the Kodi plugin for Emby to have it replace your entire database library with Emby's.

This DOES in fact work with PseudoTV. Emby will manage all of your media for your entire house and stream/transcode it on the fly to every device at best quality in most efficient manner (That can help with your buffering on 1080p).

Is definitely the best solution, even over mysql share.

Now, what I have no idea on is the best way to setup Kodi and PseudoTV to share everything. I would mostly like to setup a PTVL server on my emby server computer and have that share the settings and channels with every other kodi device in the house. I am completely unsure of Mirroring vs Sharing. Ultimately, I would only like to have to manage one computer (the server) and not have to worry about tinkering with every single client pc to have pseudotv running and maintained...

Any ideas?

I actually don't do channel sharing or mirroring, because when I get ready to watch TV, I'm not gonna get up and go to another room.

[Justin9]

I don't channel share either... not enough hassle so my tv and wifes is synced....