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tomoqv
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Hi there,
I have been running MediaPortal server on an old Windows machine for a long while. When that solution broke, I replaced it with an HDHomeRun box. It worked fairly well, although the integration with Kodi isn't optimal. Unfortunately, the antenna socket on My HDHomeRun box fell apart yesterday and is beyond repair as it needs some serious soldering.
When I now start to look around, again, for a new PVR backend solution, I thought I'd ask the community here for some advice.
Preferably, the solution shall be in a small form factor, but still be able to record to channels simultaneously. I could consider a small form factor pc like the Intel NUC and run e.g. TVHeadend. I would like to avoid Windows, Apple or Android if possible.
Which boxes are available? What solutions do you have? What do you recommend?
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2018-11-11, 17:21
(This post was last modified: 2018-11-11, 18:00 by tredman.)
It depends on how many simulataneous streams you will need. The PVR server can be anything, a nuc (expensive option imo), raspberry pi, Chromebox, Nas etc.
Is it dvb-t2 you will be using? If so another hdhomerun is a decent option for multiple tuners. Use it with tvheadend on any *nix box for a much better PVR experience than direct hdhomerun support.
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noggin
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The HD Homerun is a decent tuner solution - but is best integrated into a separate PVR solution like TV Headend. This avoids the need for using USB, PCI-E etc. tuner interfaces connected directly to a PC or ARM SBC. You can run TV Headend on some NASs, or an unRAID server, for instance - and if you use an HD Homerun as your tuner you can site the TV Headend box anywhere you like that has a network connection, rather than near your aerial/antenna point.
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tomoqv
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Does anybody have any experience with Xoro boxes?
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tomoqv
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How about Hauppauge WinTV dualHD or does anybody have any experience with Xoro boxes?
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If you are going to use a Pi, take a look at the micro hat.
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noggin
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2018-11-11, 19:29
(This post was last modified: 2018-11-11, 19:31 by noggin.)
X Box One TV Tuners are DVB-T/T2 and are often available for £5-10 or so in the UK - you will need a small distribution amp to feed multiple USB tuners. There is driver support in recent Linux kernels ISTR - there's a thread over at TV Headend about it. The WinTV Dual-HD is a neat solution with two DVB-T/T2 tuners in one USB package meaning you don't need to split your RF feed. However like the Xbox One tuner driver support is quite new (single tuner support was implemented a while ago, but dual tuner support is more recent) TV Headend forums, again, are useful.
I'd recommend using a small x86 box running Linux if you go down the USB tuner route as driver support on x86 is almost always better/easier than some of the ARM SBCs or NASs (the Pi is an exception but has bandwidth limitations that mean it's not a great platform for multiple streams and recordings) The Pi Foundation TV uHAT + a UGreen Ethernet OTG adaptor is a very neat solution on a Pi Zero if you only want to stream from one mux and don't mind recording to uSD card.
And HD Homerun via TV Headend (running on an ODroid HC1 in my case - which is a neat ARM SBC with integrated SATA interface) doesn't buffer significantly on my home network - but I'm all cabled and don't use WiFi.
Sweden is DVB-T2 720p50 H264 for SVT1 HD and SVT2 HD, SVT1/SVT2/TV4 SD are still DVB-T 576i25 MPEG2 last time I checked - though may be migrating to H.264 and DVB-T2 eventually? All the Boxer stuff is encrypted - as I'm sure you know as you already have a T2 set-up.
