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deadlast · 2018-10-19, 02:39

Hi All,

I'm trying to changeover the house from legacy Windows 10 Media PCs to Nvidia Shields, but having nothing but headaches with LiveTV.
(Both Media Portal and NextPVR via Kodi freeze when I select a channel most of the time, and pausing LiveTV is flakey as, as well.)

What are peoples experiences like with LiveTV support with TVHeadEnd via Kodi on an NVidia Shield?

Obviously I'll have to rebuild my Windows 10 x64 HP Microserver to Linux, what are the suggestions for this? Ubuntu?

Thanks all for the assistance.

hoppel118 · (This post was last modified: 2018-10-19, 12:32 by hoppel118.)

I am using the nvidia shield and the apple tv 4k in combination with kodi 17 and tvheadend.

TVHeadend works as expected, no problems at all. I also used vdr for a very long time. It is also very stable with both devices. Apple tv 4k is not the perfect solution to watch livetv. It has some problems when skipping. Picture sometimes gets some kind of slow motion after skipping. But it can be solved with a short pause. It‘s the same for TVHeadend and vdr by the way. Kodi 17 for the apple tv 4k is highly experimental and not stable. But frame rate switching for native apps like, amazon, netfilx, youtube simply works at the apple tv 4k, which is not the case for the shield. So, at the moment I use both devices: Nvidia Shield mainly for Kodi use and the Apple TV 4K for the use of native apps.

I also use permanent timeshift without any problems. I read about a general issue of TVHeadend for timeshift-on-demand. I don’t know if this is solved nowadays.

For the backend I use openmediavault and I can also recommend it. It has a stable Debian 9 as a basis. Linux knowledge wouldn‘t be bad. TVHeadend operates in docker container from linuxserver.io.

Regards Hoppel

AshG · 2018-10-21, 20:53

I'm using Ubuntu 16.4 as my TVheadend server, it's a old intel 3i machine I have about 16 GB of ram as I save my timeshift buffer to RAM, Im using the latest unstable TVH which seems pretty stable...

I use a Nvidia shield on my main TV and it's flawless, I also use 3 RPi's upstairs and they work flawless Nas well if you want a cheaper option

deadlast · 2018-10-22, 00:22

Cheers for the information all, definitely considering the changeover. The only issues I have are the Live TV freezing at random (a channel change or stop and select channel usually fixes it) and Timeshift/Pausing/Skipping usually freezes and crashes.

If this is generally more consistent under TVHeadEnd, sounds awesome.

Final quesiton, is TVHeadEnd to to to for Linux or is there another non-Windows product people recommend?

hoppel118 · (This post was last modified: 2018-10-22, 04:49 by hoppel118.)

I recommend you TVHeadend.

VDR is also a linux solution and very stable, but it has no web interface. You have to configure it by command line. If you got it, it is the most stable solution in my opinion. I used it round about 8 years at different platforms and decided to try TVHeadend some month ago, because it’s supported by dedicated apps at the Apple TV 4K and iOS devices.

My timeshift buffer is written to a separate SSD at my server.

I don’t know anything about NextPVR.

Regards Hoppel

fredfred · 2018-10-22, 11:49

Depending on what tv tuner you are using, mine is network based (hdhomerun) so I can do some fun things like run tvheadend on the Shield if I'd like to do that: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic...e-shield-/

My choice however is to run a virtual Debian server on Hyper-V on Windows 10, that way I have most things on Windows that I kind of know about and still being able to use tvheadend.
Attaching physical devices to virtual machines is a challange, but if it is usb based virtual here might be useful to you: https://www.virtualhere.com/home

Best of luck!

deadlast · 2018-10-23, 00:27

Once again, cheers for all the info.

Put Ubuntu 18.04 on yesterday and got TVHeadend up and running without much hassle.

I'm just trying to workout Channel Logos at the moment.

Also, via Kodi 18, is there a workaround for NVidia Shield and aspect ratios for a lot of the channels (9life example), they are all compressed with blackbars where-as the same channel on a Windows PC is fullscreen.

Cheers!

hoppel118 · 2018-10-23, 00:53

Great, you got TVHeadend to work. What about your issues with timeshift?

Which version of TVHeadend did you install?

Maybe you can try the latest stable Kodi 17 to locate if this issue comes from your TVHeadend Server or from Kodi 18 (and/or it’s TVHeadend Client).

I don’t see this behavior in my solution.

Regards Hoppel

deadlast · 2018-10-23, 01:02

(2018-10-23, 00:53)hoppel118 Wrote: Great, you got TVHeadend to work. What about your issues with timeshift?

Which version of TVHeadend did you install?

Maybe you can try the latest stable Kodi 17 to locate if this issue comes from your TVHeadend Server or from Kodi 18 (and/or it’s TVHeadend Client).

I don’t see this behavior in my solution.

Regards Hoppel

I just got the basic setup going last night, so still gotta test timeshift more indepth. Its soo much quicker on channel changes and the Resolution changes (60hz to 50hz) are instant instead of delayed with NextPVR/MediaPortal.

Installed the latest stable version of TVHeadend (HTS Tvheadend 4.2.6-91~g2b8d8923e)

I have 2 Windows PCs running the lastest Kodi 18 and they don't have issues with aspect ratios, its specifically the Nvidia Shield, so don't believe its TVHeadend's issue.

Otherwise, gonna finish setting up recording and other bits and pieces today.

hoppel118 · 2018-10-23, 01:21

Ok, I don’t have this issue with Kodi 17.6 and TVHeadend 4.3.1292 on my shield.

deadlast · 2018-10-24, 00:53

(2018-10-23, 01:21)hoppel118 Wrote: Ok, I don’t have this issue with Kodi 17.6 and TVHeadend 4.3.1292 on my shield.

Gather TVHeadend 4.3 is the "unstable" release.

Any notable issues?

Is it easy to upgrade?

Thanks again!!

deadlast · 2018-10-27, 13:42

Just a follow-up, definitely a winner with no more channel freezes and a consistent TV experience, thanks again for all the advice.

Definitely have an issue with Kodi 18 and aspect ratios on the Shield though, some channels instead of showing 16:9, compress to 4:3 with black bars and looking at info on the tv stream shows an aspect ratio of 0.

This is my last outstanding frustration with Kodi 18/Shield/TVHeadend. My Windows x64 box with Kodi 18/TVHeadend does not have this issue.

Cheers!

andiewill · 2018-10-29, 12:58

(2018-10-23, 00:27)deadlast Wrote: Once again, cheers for all the info.

Put Ubuntu 18.04 on yesterday and got TVHeadend up and running without much hassle.

I'm just trying to workout Channel Logos at the moment.

Also, via Kodi 18, is there a workaround for NVidia Shield and aspect ratios for a lot of the channels (9life example), they are all compressed with blackbars where-as the same channel on a Windows PC is fullscreen.

Cheers!

Did you manage to get the tv logos to show, i have been trying for ages to no avail, server Rpi running Librelec / tvheadend, client Shield, tvheadend and live channels, as stated all works fine except not receiving channel logos which would be great to get this finalised in my setup.

deadlast · 2018-10-30, 01:50

I ended up putting the TV Logos on a Network Share and pointing the Kodi TV Settings Logos to that share.