Problem with minix x8-h & saorview from tvheadend server

Lochlannach

I've started down the road of converting a pretty much unused PC into a media server. It's an i3 with 4GB RAM and two tuner cards - a TBS6981 & TBS6280 So far I've put Ubuntu server 14.04 and tvheadend on there.

This is currently being used as the backend to a Minix x8-h (with plans for a couple of other clients).

I'm using the opensource drivers for the tuners which built and installed flawlessly.

Focussing on the 6280 I've encountered a problem. It appears to be working fine in tvheadend (selected Kippure and it found all the current channels plus a load of radio & test channels).

However when I try to use the live tv on the x8 I find I can watch the first channel I select but after that channel changes are a huge problem - I get a black screen (mostly with the correct audio for the new channel but not always).

I don't believe the issue is with the backend as exiting back to the xbmc main screen and then re-entering live tv I can select and play any of the channels and they will play perfectly when chosen independently like this.

Satellite (freesat) via the TBS6981 works pretty much fine - will be better once I tidy up the channels.

Has anyone got a similar setup? Any ideas?

Lochlannach

Ok so some tinkering with the X8 this morning has revealed that switching off hardware decoding goes a long way to solving the problem - I can now see and switch between all channels. However it is struggling with the HD channels (RTE 1 & 2) and these are basically unwatchable.

It looks like the X8 is not up to the job :-(

Johnboy1951

I suspect you are using wireless streaming ...... I never found it satisfactory for HD channels. It did not matter what hardware I used .... from a R-Pi to a 4 core Desktop machine ..... all had problems with wireless, and all worked fine on wired connection.

I suppose I could have tried improving the wireless .... maybe boosting the power output of the router etc ..... but it was much more definite to string a Cat5e cable and be done with it.

BTW ..... can you provide a link to the opensource drivers you have used?
Thanks.

Lochlannach

I am indeed currently using wireless - I'm in the process of sorting a wired network but need another cable run to be able to move the router to a different location or connect the router to a switch before I can get it working. Hopefully be able to solve that this weekend.

I installed the latest beta firmware and beta xbmc on the X8 last night and it was a significant improvement so hopefully a proper wired connection might be the final link in the chain.

The drivers I used can be got here.

Johnboy1951

Thanks for the link.

Presumably it is only the driver for the 6280 you need to build, as the driver for the 6981 is in-kernel these days.

I chose to use Openelec for both the server and the clients.
Very light on resources and built especially for XBMC.

There are community builds with the TBS drivers included which makes things easy.

Hopefully going 'wired' will solve your remaining problems.

Lochlannach

I followed the instructions which are not device specific so I ended up with new drivers for all the devices in that list including the 6981.

You are, of course, correct that the 6981 drivers are already in the kernel and only need a copy of the firmware to be placed in the appropriate directory to get it working.

Johnboy1951

Lochlannach wrote: »

I followed the instructions which are not device specific so I ended up with new drivers for all the devices in that list including the 6981.

All I wanted to do was build the single driver without interfering with other media drivers in the install.

Seems that cannot be done?

You are, of course, correct that the 6981 drivers are already in the kernel and only need a copy of the firmware to be placed in the appropriate directory to get it working.

Lochlannach

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

All I wanted to do was build the single driver without interfering with other media drivers in the install.

Seems that cannot be done?

I didn't really spend any time looking for a way to compile a subset of those drivers specific to the 6280 but went with the instructions provided and can verify that both the 6280 & 6981 work fine after.

Lochlannach

Lochlannach wrote: »

I am indeed currently using wireless - I'm in the process of sorting a wired network but need another cable run to be able to move the router to a different location or connect the router to a switch before I can get it working. Hopefully be able to solve that this weekend.

I installed the latest beta firmware and beta xbmc on the X8 last night and it was a significant improvement so hopefully a proper wired connection might be the final link in the chain.

The drivers I used can be got here.

Just to follow up on this...

I've now moved my router and connected the X8 and the TvHeadend server to it. This has certainly made a difference but it's still not 100%.

In live tv I can now pretty much watch all channels and change between them some of the time. However I still get occasional changes where the audio plays and the video doesn't but I haven't identified a real pattern yet. In some cases this locks up altogether and I've to reboot to solve it.

I've also rooted the device and modified the config files to force streaming to use a chunk of the RAM when buffering which has made a difference watching some movies etc. Unfortunately this hasn't helped the live tv issues.