Is anyone on here running TVHeadend on a Raspberry Pi?
#16
(2017-05-15, 22:19)nickr Wrote: Transcoding is unneeded, but yes the XU4 is a better choice for a NAS than a C2.

If you wish to combine your NAS and Tvheadend server, then transcoding may be significant. And I misspoke: the 4.9 kernel became official at the end of last week.
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#17
Decisions, decisions - really not sure what to do now.

I am not going to be needing to do any transcoding, so that can be taken out of the mix.

Ultimately, therefore, it is going to be whether the XU4 really can do everything that my current server is being used for - Openmedivault, TVHeadend and perhaps Emby.
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#18
Do you really want a NAS with an ARM SOC?

ARM SOCs are good for clients (if you want a cheap box that lasts only one or two years), for a server i would tend to a x86 base. The XU4 is not that far from a celeron NUC or a beebox with case and shipping costs. If you use WOL or your NAS is not online 24/7, than it's not a big deal if your NAS has a wattage of 5W or 10W, but I think especially for OMV and TVHeadend a NUC is worth the extra charge
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#19
Very fair point - I agree that I should stick to x86 for the server.

Here is my current server spec:

G1840
MSI B85M-E45
12GB RAM (2x4GB and 2x2GB)
1 x 64GB Crucial M4 SSD
2 x 2TB Samsung F4 Harddrives
1 x 6TB WD Red Harddrive
HVR-2200 twin DVB-T tuner (PCI-e)
KWorld single DVB-T tuner (PCI)
Superflower Golden Green 350w PSU
Tower with 1 x 140mm exhaust fan and 1 x 120mm intake fan (both fans thermo-regulated).

I bought myself a wattage tester and decided to do some testing.

I took out all the fans, took out the twin tuner and swapped all three hard drives for two spare laptop hard drives that I had lying around.

To my surprise, at idle, the server still uses 32.6W, which is way more than I would like and too much just to leave on all the time.

My remaining options are therefore:

1. Use a C2 purely for TVHeadend and use WOL on the server for recordings or

2. Use an x86 system (like a NUC), which has a much lower idle wattage and can therefore be left running all the time. Is there any point trying to swap out any of the parts from my current server in an attempt to try and get the wattage down to around the 10-15w idle mark or is that going to be impossible?

I was thinking about a recent generation mini-itx motherboard with passive integrated CPU and perhaps a Pico PSU.
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#20
How about this low powered Windows box?? $199 US with free shipping.

VORKE V1 Plus Intel Apollo Lake J3455 4K@60hz 4G RAM 64GB SSD Windows MINI PC 802.11AC WIFI Gigabit LAN Bluetooth4.2 HDMI & VGA Output USB3.0 - Black

http://www.geekbuying.com/item/VORKE-V1-...79383.html
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#21
Perhaps a bit expensive for a complete box

The cheapest Intel NUC is about 120, in combination with cheap SSD and RAM you are under 199 and have hardware from Intel (with a working UEFI, ...). Even if you assembly your own PC, you would end up in the same range (or below that price if you can reuse parts from another system), but have more options for future upgrades
40 case
100 mainboard + DC
30 RAM
30 SSD
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#22
IMHO The point of a storage device is not to have a whole lot of external devices plugged in via usb or esata. Nucs are useless from that point of view, as are most small form factor devices.

Frankly a x86 box with lots of sata ports and space for plenty of disks will be perfect for your data and as a tvh or mythtv backend.

myth can sleep your computer when not recording or serving.
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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#23
The more I discuss this with you guys, the more I am starting to come full circle on this.

Perhaps there is absolutely nothing wrong with my server as it is. I am even starting to think that I should forget the two HDHomeruns and just put in a TBS Quad DVB-T2 tuner instead - keeping everything in a single box for simplicity.

I have done a few calculations and leaving the server on 24/7 is going to be around the £50-£60 per year in electricity. Not the end of the world but it does slightly irritate me that my server is going to spend around 50% idling unnecessary - someone on the TVHeadend forum is offering some help on getting the server to go into sleep mode after idling for a certain period of time. However, sleep timers and Linux seem like a very complex issues, compared to when I was using Windows on my server.

(2017-05-18, 10:54)nickr Wrote: myth can sleep your computer when not recording or serving.

Not to go off topic too much but how does MythTV compare to TVHeadend? Is there a plugin that allows the server to wake up for recordings?
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#24
to turn your circle further: my setup, perhaps it fits your needs

I have an OMV NAS similiar to your old components. Matter of expense is 0€ only old components were used. Wattage doesn't matter, most of the time it's powered off and if another system needs it, it wakes the NAS by WOL.

In my living room I have an enigma2 linux dual dvb-s2 receiver (but dvb-c and dvb-t2 are also available). Features like standby after or wake up for a recording work out of the box, no complex configuration (compared to a htpc) needed. I have paid 70€ for it and inserted an unused hdd for local recordings (but direct recordings to a NAS are also possible)

In other rooms I have clients (pi, S905X and intel) that connect to the NAS and to the receiver with KODI and its PVR client. Access to EPG, recordings and NAS work out of the box, no additional receiver or tv-card needed and an ARM-client costs under 50€

Only disadvantage is that channel switching lasts about 2 sec on the clients, only in the living room where the receiver is connected to the TV its fast as usual. And I would lose a lot of WAF, if the VU+ PVR client is no longer maintained

If you can live with a few quirks, such a setup is possible for under 200€. Otherwise you should plan with 100€ or 200€ more
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#25
(2017-05-18, 14:50)elsmandino Wrote: The more I discuss this with you guys, the more I am starting to come full circle on this.

Perhaps there is absolutely nothing wrong with my server as it is. I am even starting to think that I should forget the two HDHomeruns and just put in a TBS Quad DVB-T2 tuner instead - keeping everything in a single box for simplicity.

I have done a few calculations and leaving the server on 24/7 is going to be around the £50-£60 per year in electricity. Not the end of the world but it does slightly irritate me that my server is going to spend around 50% idling unnecessary - someone on the TVHeadend forum is offering some help on getting the server to go into sleep mode after idling for a certain period of time. However, sleep timers and Linux seem like a very complex issues, compared to when I was using Windows on my server.

(2017-05-18, 10:54)nickr Wrote: myth can sleep your computer when not recording or serving.

Not to go off topic too much but how does MythTV compare to TVHeadend? Is there a plugin that allows the server to wake up for recordings?
Mythtv is far superior to TVH.

As I said, mythtv will work to sleep and wake up for recordings. No need for a plugin.
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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#26
Running TVH on a RPi 3 here, timeshifting and recording to a USB-connected portable hard drive (keeping it off the net). Tuner is a HDHomeRun. It is a little jerky watching TV on the Pi's own LibreELEC, or to other clients connected over Wifi, but it's fine to clients on the wired network. (connected clients are all Windows PC's with much more grunt than the Pi)

Reason for that choice is again that it's on 24/7 so power consumption is an issue.
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#27
Having done lots of testing, I eventually came to the conclusion that I would just leave my server on 24/7.

Yes, it is a waste of electricity, but I just could not get WOL to work, nor get it to wake up from sleep mode for scheduled recordings.

The other thing, with using sleep mode, is that whenever the server resumed from sleep, all the hard drives would all spin-up unnecessarily - I only really use one of four of my hard drives (the one for recording), so the other three should keep spun-down, virtually all the time. With keep the server constantly on, I can make sure that unused hard drives are spun down for days at a time until used (saving some electricity and unnecessary wear and tear).

I might consider upgrading to an integrated passive CPU motherboard (preferably Goldmont) at some point in time, which could potentially get my power consumption well below the current 30 Watts.

Whilst it does seem wasteful to have my server idling for about 50% of the time, I might look into other uses for a server that is permanently on, e.g. using it as a security system, but adding a few external cameras to my network.
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#28
(2017-06-06, 08:38)aegidius Wrote: Running TVH on a RPi 3 here, timeshifting and recording to a USB-connected portable hard drive (keeping it off the net). Tuner is a HDHomeRun. It is a little jerky watching TV on the Pi's own LibreELEC...

I have noticed recently that it is more reliable on networked clients when the tuner is a USB-connected Sony PlayTV. I'm guessing that passing transport streams back and forth across 100MB ethernet from a network tuner and out to a client is going to be a little dodgy at times.
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#29
I am running on a Raspberry Pi 3 too. SAT>IP with NAS connected for recordings and 2,5inch harddisk on USB port for timeshifting. OScam running on with a USB cardreader as well. Running 4 decoded streams for different transponders at the same time with timeshifting with no real issues. Tested full load with all on timeshifting.
Pi running on 30% cpu usage. I have seen only a few (1-2) continuity errors sometimes on starting streams. No continuity errors while streaming and timeshifting.
....but....don't use a flashdrive. USB harddisk gives much better results. When using a flashdrive for timeshifting tvheadend process got killed a few times because of low on memory errors. When switched to USB harddisk all is ok and working brilliantly.
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#30
Hi wouter1971,

Another great-sounding setup.

What hardware are you using?
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Is anyone on here running TVHeadend on a Raspberry Pi?1