Post your XBMC PVR + Backend Experiences
#16
Bonzi Wrote:I have since purchased a Avermedia Volar Max. Couldn't be happier, works without any issues with XBMC and tvheadend.
I see this is on sale now and I might want to buy one. Is yours USB? What version of Linux are you running? Was it difficult to install drivers and get it working with XBMC?
My Theater: JVC X790R + Peerless PRG-UNV | 120" CineWhite UHD-B Screen | KODI Nexus + PreShow Experience | mpv | madVR 204 RTX 2070S | Panasonic UB420 | Denon X3600H @ 5.2.4 | 4 x ADX Maximus w/ Dayton Audio SA230 | 3 x Totem Tribe LCR + Mission M30 Surrounds + SVS PC2000 + Monolith 15 | 40" HDTV w/ Z83 + MoviePosterApp | 40TB Win10 SMB Server over Gigabit Ethernet
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#17
Single seat setup

Machine Specs
Celeron G530, ASUS P8H61-M LE/USB3, 4 GB RAM, NVidia GT430 Silent
Silverstone GD05B Case

DVBS2 Tuner: TechnoTrend Budget S2-1600
Cardreader: Easymouse 2 USB

Sony PS3 Remote control + Logitech Cordless Mediaboard Pro for PS3 [Bluetooth]

Software Specs

Xubuntu 11.10 (suckz - will be replaced by AptoSid)
XBMC PVR Build - (http://packages.pulse-eight.net/)
TVHeadEnd Backend 2.12.99~pulse-4 (http://packages.pulse-eight.net/)
OSCam Server 1.10

Confluence Skin

Yeah .. mostly harmless Laugh - atm best setup compared to: WMC7, DVBViewer Pro, MythTV, MediaPortal ...

Installation and maintenance is easy, relatively stable ..

Cons/Missing features:
- timer management is very basic, wakeup and shutdown events are only supported by an addon
- basic EPG information

So long

LastCoder
HTPC Specs: Silverstone GD05B Case, ASUS P8H61-M LE/USB3, i5-3470S, GT1030, 8 GB RAM , 2 TB HDD, iHOS104 BluRay Drive, TT DVBS2-1600, Sony PS3 BD Remote control
PS3 BD Remote Control Daemon for Kodi/Linux
UNCHAINED Demo Group
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#18
This is my test setup, not my main HTPC.

XBMC PVR + MediaPortal + Windows 7 Pro 32bit
HP DV6-2167us Laptop
AMD Turion II Dual-Core Mobile M520 2.3GHz
4GB of PC5300 DDR2 RAM
320GB Hard Drive
Windows 7 Pro 32bit
Media Portal V1.2.2.0
XBMC Eden-pvr Beta2 - build 65 - git rev. 62ff5bd
ATSC TV Stick UB435-Q KWorld

I haven't had that much time to experiment with all of the recording/scheduling/timeshifting functions so this is really just to say that it works. I simply followed the instructions on the WIKI for XBMC PVR. I installed MediaPortal on my laptop, manually added the Add-On for XBMC PVR, then installed the Eden PVR build. The only issue I had was the Eden Beta 3 could not find any channels. I uninstalled it and installed the build listed above and it found all the channels first try. Since this is the system I use mainly at my office, I have only used it to watch the local news during lunch. I actually receive 34 OTA channels (the major network affiliates with the exception of NBC and all the local channels). It seems rock solid. Changing channels takes about 3 seconds. The HD channels look beautiful on my 20" Widescreen second monitor.

This works so well, that I am looking into a Quad tuner for my HTPC and dropping cable alltogether. Looking forward to the release version of Eden. Will hold off until then on the HTPC.

Keith Skaggs
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#19
I can see channels and EPG of my IPTV provider (Movistar Imagenio) thanks to the Addon developed by INFINBOX and their IPNA (IPTV to DLNA) Module, that works as the backend.

IPNA Addon for XBMC PVR and Module backend (trial version) can be downloaded for free at the spanish web page of INFINBOX (SPAIN).

Youtube - INFINBOX video demo
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#20
CPU: amd 64x2 4850e
RAM: 2GB
HDD: 2(80gb,500gb)
GFX: ASUS gt210
OS: W7
TVtuner: technisat cablestar 2 HD
xmbc: eden (margo's build)
tv add-on: tsreader
remote: harmony with flirc reciever

i switched from boxee to xbmc a couple of months ago because of the lack of updates.
and for a little over a month ago i startede using it for watching tv and must say that i was very surprised how well it works!

i have not experienced any crashes while watchning tv..
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#21
Front End:

CPU:2500k @ 4.1GHz
RAM: 8GB
HDD: 1x 1.5GB
GFX: Nvidia GTX 420
OS: Windows 7
XBMC: Eden beta 3 (upgrading to RC1 tonight)
Remote: Harmony with HP IR Receiver (ehome type?)

Backend

I have a strange setup for this, currently it's in a VirtualBox image of Ubuntu 11.10. I'm using tvheadend (pulse build so that I can use the schedule recordings from the EPG in XBMC features). I have EPG data from schedules direct and everything is properly mapped. The machine running this is at a remote location so I can ingest all the IP streams at that site and I'm connected to it over a VPN using a Cisco ASA 5550.

This works better than I could have ever expected, granted, I'm not a typical user. I've got 100mbps of upload at the site where I've got my tvheadend box and I've only got 10mbps bandwidth in at my viewing location, so some of the HD channels get a little sketchy. I plan on upgrading to 20mbps to fix this.

Since tvheadend sends me RTSP streams one at a time I don't have to worry about having enough bandwidth to push several hundred multicast streams across the internet.

The only real issue with tvheadend I've found is that if I change a previously mapped stream (change in bitrate, encode settings, encapsulation, etc) it will no longer work in XBMC. I have to delete the channel completely from tvheadend and readd that channel and then it'll work. Seems that when tvheadend first maps a channel it maps exactly what the stream type is and can't handle that changing, no big deal.
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#22
MB: ASUS AT5ION - ION2 - VGA G210
MEMORY: 2GB RAM
OS: OpenSuse 12.1 - 32bit
TV : 46"LED Samsung over HDMI

Satix-S2 Dual - 2x DVB-S2
BACKEND - VDR - 1.7.24 (now ..)

Audio - over HDMI to TV and simultaneosly to AV receiver WITHOUT PULSEAUDIO !!!!!!

For the first , thanks for excellent work with this project!!!!!!

The backend VDR is fairly reliable now - works perfectly. The picture quality with vdpau is much better on xbmc than vdr-sxfe with interlaced material ( MPEG2 ) from TV. The picture quallity is very good for HDTV material as same as over vdr-sxfe.

I'm still using vdr-sxfe as primary frontend, but sometimes i switch to XBMC-PVR over xvdr plugin and then I'm using xbmc for a few days

Last version XBMC from opdenkamp ( for month ago ) is very stable and works perfectly....

VDR-SXFE(or xine-vdr) is still much better and faster for watching only TV, with comfort of VDR's plugins, EPG, recordings,creating DVD e.g. ...
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#23
anyone here using vnsi+cccam that could help me out?
currently i use

xbmc+vnsi+vdr+oscam
but wanted to use cccam.
Image
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#24
Frontend:
Raspberry Pi model B
4GB SD
PS3 BD Remote

Backend:
Ubuntu Linux running in VM on ESXi Server
Access to 1 vCPU (clocked at 3.2Ghz)
1GB RAM
20GB HDD
Tuner: 2x ITE 9135 Generic DVB-T - This is what linux says, i picked up 2 of them on eBay for like £7 each
Country: UK - Receive Freeview

File Server:
2x Intel Quad Core Xeon 2.6Ghz w/ HT
16GB RAM
8x 1TB in RAID5 (Provided by an Areca ARC-1120 X-PCI) (and 1x Hot Spare)
6x 3TB in RAID5 (Provided by another Areca ARC-1130 X-PCI) (I'm building this array)
Dual Gigabit NIC


File server takes a lot of the brunt, i can technically watch anywhere up to 8 channels at any one time (I can tune into 2 multiplex's, each multiplex can hold 4 channels -- So you can't chose which channels you can watch, but you can watch) - on average pushing around 15mbps just for Live TV (multiple rooms) - I am also looking at adding an additional DVB-T2 so I can receive the HD channels on freeview (This will suffice as only 1 multiplex streams all 4 available HD channels)

TVHeadend has its problems. It has problems with reboots, you may well reboot and have to setup all your tuners again (this can be a pain at 4am when all I have to hand is my phone). If you do too much, it will refuse to let you reconnect (usually resolved by resetting the PVR database). However, it has 1 single concept I don't see many TV Servers do and have the right concept for channels (I will explain in a second). Perhaps the biggest point to using it as well is the faster channel switching.


Before using TVHeadend, I tried MediaPortal and ARGUS TV Server. They were OK, but the concept tvheadend has for channels is the logically right one. To use MediaPortal/ARGUS you start by scanning for services. After that you create channels based on that service. You then apply the channel numbers. If you crazy (which is me) you get your channel logo's. Oh and (I cannot stress this enough) Permissions! Permissions! Permissions! - I had spent days trying to get this to work to realise that a local user account is better then a domain account (it should probably also have a password) If you find problems with getting XBMC to work with them, I would bet that it's due to permissions.

Outside of those problems with MediaPortal/ARGUS. The one niggling problem that you really don't think will bug you too much, slow channel changing, let me tell you. It does bug you enough. TVHeadend doesn't pose these problems however, I setup xmltv with the radiotimes using the webui, that did its magic and got 99% of the logos. Channel switching is fast (not blazingly, but more manageable) and best of all. I did not enter a single channel number. All I did was tell it where I was and hit a few buttons.


Sorry its long, but in conclusion, even with it's problems, TVHeadend offers something far superior to the rest I have tested
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#25
Hi all,

Backend.
Intel core duo 1.86
1gig of ram
Dvb-sky s952 dual tuner pci-e
Openelec os
Tvheadend service

Frontends
Acer revo 3600
Openelec

Raspberrypi
Openelec

Win7
Standard xbmc

The story so far.
We started with a cheap Optibox EVO E3HD Linux/enigma2 reciever as a backend. Just to test the pvr water. Unfortunately it wasn't much cop. And with so many frontends to serve a single tuner would never have cut the mustard. It also had issues while streamng hd comtent. And with the overall speed of the GUI left a lot to be desired. With it grinding to a halt if the box was doing anything else. Channel zapping also took upwards of 10 secs. What we did like with enigma2 were the easliy available channel bouquets and picons. I'm sure a properly spec'd enigma2 machine would be great but they are expensive

The second act
While experimenting with this setup we also installed tvheadend to our nas and hooked up an old Sony dvb-t play tv USB tuner. This worked straight ot of the box so we flogged the optibox and picked up the DVB-Sky s952 dual tuner DVB-S2 pci-e card. Installed oscam to the nas and waited for the card to arrive. When it arrived we realised our epic fail. No pci-e slot on the nas mobo. Schoolboy error. Luckily we had an older 1.86 core duo and a gig of ram lying around. So we installed Ubuntu server to that and then failed again installing and patching the cards driver. Athe this point we had pretty much given up when one of us remembered reading that openlec had tvheadend built in as a service.

Cue the montage
It took a few attempts to get a working openelec using a generic build however when we had it up and running tvheadend picked up the card with no need to faff around trying to install the driver. We' pretty much wasted a fortnight dicking around with whole satellite thing and could have had it sorted in fifteen mins. Oh well, you live and learn. The price you pay for that easy initial setup is the hours that are then needed to source the channel logos and re-order the channel list as per a large uk satellite provider run buy an Australian power hungry sociopath

The clients
Nothing to report here except activating the tvheadend client is as easy as entering an ip. However the version of xbian on the raspberry didn't play ball so I've had to change that to the 3.1.5 build of openelec.
On our lounge xbmc we are running aeon nox with a liitle epg tweak that highlights the selected item, which looks very nice. Recording works fine although live pause doesn't yet, which is a shame. Channel zapping is nice and fast with maybe a second buffering when starting the stream.

That is all
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