OTA viewing/recording replacements

T

Thall860

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
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After about 4 years of my multi-HTPC + Server setup I have decided to tone it back a bit and look at some ways to simplify things. I switched from Home server to a DS213j Synology NAS that houses my movie files. I have two HTPCs remaining, the main I use to schedule OTA recordings, guide and live TV with a HDhomerun backend. This HTPC also hosts my Emby server that I use to organize everything and make it look pretty. I am switching the second HTPC to a Roku 3 running the emby app.

What I would love to get to is no HTPC's and only run something simple like a Roku at each TV with the possibility of TV guide/recording happening in the back end. But this is where I am stuck. I have looked at Tablo and it seams to have a lot of mixed reviews, I have looked at integrating live TV into Emby and I have considered upgrading my Synology to run the TV trascoding through that for the Roku's using DS video.

Also, I would like to note that I would love to keep it at a NAS and not build a new server to run something like Plex.

Does any one have any suggestions or have gone down this road?

Thanks!
 
Following this thread in hopes of finding a pvr replacement for WMC. I messed with Nextpvr in both Emby and Kodi in Win X and found Nextpvr very buggy and not usable for me. Ended up reinstalling Win 8.1 and WMC for pvr functions until something better comes along for windows.
 
I still run a centralized HTPC backend with MythTV + 6 dual-tuner cards (12 effective tuners). this machine is headless and sits in a closet. All of the front-ends run Kodi w/ the MythTV plugin.

I use this setup for a number of reasons:

1) centralized recording repository -- any TV can watch any recording
2) centralized schedule repository -- any TV can schedule a recording
3) Kodi is a much better front-end then MythFrontend ever was.

I know a lot of people complain about MythTV but it's usually about the frontend stuff. If you abandon MythFrontend and just go with Kodi, all of that goes away. Managing the backend is a minimal task (at best) and usually only involves about 20 minutes during the *initial* setup phase. After that, you're done.
 
How do you handle live TV svet? That setup sounds pretty ideal, but is live TV with time shifting possible?
 
y0bailey said:
How do you handle live TV svet? That setup sounds pretty ideal, but is live TV with time shifting possible?
Click to expand...

Oh yes, quite. We time shift all the time on live TV. that's functionality built into the Kodi subsystem / cmyth plugin. Also, since 15.1, closed captions work for live tv (a big deal in my house with two hearing impaired folks).

I also forgot to mention that all of my KODI-based front-end machines are Raspberry Pi2's running OpenELEC.
 
Nice thanks for the response. Any good Myth TV guides you can point me to? I'm running a windows 10 server and I would love to move the Hauppague 2250 tuners from my dedicated HTPCs (2 of them) to my main windows 10 server.

I will mess with it this weekend, but if you have a good resource it may save me some trouble.
 
MythTV does not run on Windows -- it's Linux only for the server components.

That said, I prefer CentOS and this is a good getting started guide: http://centhtpc.blogspot.com/

Read through it a couple of times to familiarize yourself with it.
 
svet-am said:
MythTV does not run on Windows -- it's Linux only for the server components.

That said, I prefer CentOS and this is a good getting started guide: http://centhtpc.blogspot.com/

Read through it a couple of times to familiarize yourself with it.
Click to expand...

Whelp crap! There goes that solution. I need the HDHOMERUN DVR software to "mature" a bit more so I can just run it on my windows 10 server full time and not have an always on/sleeping win7 WMC PC handling the recordings.

There just isn't a perfect solution for me at this point.
 
y0bailey said:
Whelp crap! There goes that solution. I need the HDHOMERUN DVR software to "mature" a bit more so I can just run it on my windows 10 server full time and not have an always on/sleeping win7 WMC PC handling the recordings.

There just isn't a perfect solution for me at this point.
Click to expand...

Not if you want to stay on Windows. I can tell you from personal experience that going the Linux+MythTV route is better in the long run because (IMHO) Linux is just much more reliable and dependable when it comes to the TV part of the equation.
 
svet-am said:
Not if you want to stay on Windows. I can tell you from personal experience that going the Linux+MythTV route is better in the long run because (IMHO) Linux is just much more reliable and dependable when it comes to the TV part of the equation.
Click to expand...

At this point I've so many failed attempts at getting everything exactly as I want with Linux I have sworn it off. This win10 server was originally a failed FreeNas attempt, followed by a few failed linux setups. I know I can do it, but I just don't have the time/patience I used to. It took me minutes to throw windows10 on, setup a plex server, setup File History as a constant backup for all the PC's in the house, and setup a teamspeak server/Tight VNC server. It took me HOURS to even get my freaking ethernet adapter installed/recognized on linux (this was awhile ago and my AMD apu chipset/nic card drivers weren't "just there" yet even with newer linux distros).

Hell, I have even mostly sworn off Kodi at this point after HOURS spent trying to get Netflixbmc/Amazon to reliably perform within Kodi. Major WAF issues and WMC is hard to beat in that department.

I know Linux can be done, but I never manage to get things as I like before I rage quit and go back to windows.
 
no disrespect meant, but it sounds like you've set your WAF too high and thus made things harder on yourself then they need to be.

I told my wife point blank that I WOULD NOT get Netflix, Amazon, or XFINITY working in Kodi. There are links on the desktop of the HTPC that go straight to these services. If she wants them she knows to exit Kodi and launch them there.
 
svet-am said:
no disrespect meant, but it sounds like you've set your WAF too high and thus made things harder on yourself then they need to be.

I told my wife point blank that I WOULD NOT get Netflix, Amazon, or XFINITY working in Kodi. There are links on the desktop of the HTPC that go straight to these services. If she wants them she knows to exit Kodi and launch them there.
Click to expand...

Yea...maybe I'm blaming my wife for my OCD. We watch a lot of TV in bed, and I despise grabbing my K400 when I want to jump to netflix/amazon. With WMC, I've got netflix/amazon/plex all control with my harmony remote and NEVER need to touch a keyboard. We also watch a fair amount of live TV (sports) and live TV/time shifting/1.5x speed watching WITH audio just doesn't work with other setups.
 
I spent a whole afternoon setting up Myth in Ubuntu only to have the db become corrupt after a improper shutdown due to a power outage a week later. Everything I have read, this is very common and you need to have it running a server with ECC ram connected to a UPS.
 
RickyRoma said:
I spent a whole afternoon setting up Myth in Ubuntu only to have the db become corrupt after a improper shutdown due to a power outage a week later. Everything I have read, this is very common and you need to have it running a server with ECC ram connected to a UPS.
Click to expand...

1) when was this? MythTV has a LOT of redundancy.
2) even if this is true, it's not a MythTV problem, that's a MySQL problem. MythTV stores everything in MySQL tables and uses standard queries. If you're losing data in MySQL you have bigger issues with your install
3) what took you all afternoon. There are literally 5 things to set. Just this morning I re-imaged my main MythTV machine and went from formatting the hard drive to recording shows in under 45 minutes.
 
svet-am said:
1) when was this? MythTV has a LOT of redundancy.
2) even if this is true, it's not a MythTV problem, that's a MySQL problem. MythTV stores everything in MySQL tables and uses standard queries. If you're losing data in MySQL you have bigger issues with your install
3) what took you all afternoon. There are literally 5 things to set. Just this morning I re-imaged my main MythTV machine and went from formatting the hard drive to recording shows in under 45 minutes.
Click to expand...

This was back in Oct. I'm not familiar withe Linux so I had to use a youtube tutorial to get it working. Here is another users comments when he set up his Myth Box.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1847507&highlight=myth+tv
 
Not a free solution, but you could try JRiver. They are working on a kickstarter for DRM copy once if that is needed. It also is a bit tricky to setup, but once setup it works pretty well.
 
vonmolk said:
Not a free solution, but you could try JRiver. They are working on a kickstarter for DRM copy once if that is needed. It also is a bit tricky to setup, but once setup it works pretty well.
Click to expand...


Have you or are you using the pvr function in Jriver and how is it in your experiance. I was not aware of that functionality in the program until you brought it to my attention. I don't care copy once DRM. I get everything from OTA or streaming.
 
RickyRoma said:
Have you or are you using the pvr function in Jriver and how is it in your experiance. I was not aware of that functionality in the program until you brought it to my attention. I don't care copy once DRM. I get everything from OTA or streaming.
Click to expand...

I did try it out, but haven't purchased it yet. It does have a learning curve to it. It's a bit of a complicated thing to get setup, but once done it works well. It has my movie collection and all my recording from WMC. I only did one test record and it seemed to work well. Also does support commercial skipping that I have setup with comskip. The jriver forums seem fairly active and they respond to questions pretty fast from what I can see.
 
vonmolk said:
I did try it out, but haven't purchased it yet. It does have a learning curve to it. It's a bit of a complicated thing to get setup, but once done it works well. It has my movie collection and all my recording from WMC. I only did one test record and it seemed to work well. Also does support commercial skipping that I have setup with comskip. The jriver forums seem fairly active and they respond to questions pretty fast from what I can see.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. I am also trying it out right now after installing it yesterday. I have the pvr setup along with a trial sub to Percdata for the EPG.
 
No problem at all. Yeah it is a pretty complex setup, but once it is setup you shouldnt have to monkey with the config. I saw a few complaints about the recording rules which I read they are revamping. I'll probably be switching over this weekend from WMC to full JRiver as Kodi seems to be crashing more often now.
 
I have been playing around with Emby and an HD HomeRune tuner that supports DLNA. Emby is not bad, but the TV interface is kind of unstable (at least for me). Emby has a Roku app, are working on an AppleTV app, and possible they have other options.

The HD HomeRun is available over my network. I have a dual tuner - but I could have bought a better model or can add additional devices. It's relatively cheap (think I paid $85 for the new one).

I might revisit MythTV and Kodi. I had switched to Plex a few years ago and loved it. Kodi (XMBC when I last used it) wasn't bad, just needed a keyboard to use it and a PC. Slap a Raspberry Pi2 with it, wireless keyboard with trackball builtin - might not be a bad solution at all...
 
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