Upgrade TV setup

Wcool

hi,

I started this in Satellite forum but Johnboy1951 kindly pointed me to this forum which seems to be more appropriate.

I want to move from a separate Kodi and satellite box to a more flexible setup.
The architecture I had in mind is in the attachment (iptv1).

I want to put the TV tuner cards in a PC.

A colleague has the architecture as in iptv2 and says it's stable, fast, and relatively cheap. (As Johnboy1951 commented earlier, DVB-S cards are relatively expensive.

Any comments on this setup and what individual components would you choose? It should be Linux friendly.


Thanks in advance

Johnboy1951

OK, you called me out on it

My present set up is

Single 'Unicable' coax from Sat dish to Digibit R1 Quad DVB-S (€130) tuner box .....  ethernet cable to switch

Saorview aerial coax ....... to HDHomerun quad DVB-T tuner box .....  ethernet cable to switch 
(Twin HDHomerun available at less cost and is sufficient if only the Saorview two muxes are required)

Tanix Tx3 (€40) running CoreELEC with tvheadend to manage tuners, recordings, etc ..... ethernet cable to switch
(This can also serve one TV point ...  although I have it with other devices in a media press)

NAS/Server ..... ethernet cable to switch

All devices are powered 24/7.


Each TV point has a device such as Tanix Tx3, R-Pi etc running Libreelec or Coreelec with Kodi and can select any Live TV or recorded program or any other media stored to display.

Each mobile unit (laptop, tablet etc) can also access everything.

(I used Quad tuner devices, but dual devices are available and would probably suit.
Additional devices can easily be added if more tuners are required.)

I previously had TBS cards in a purpose built HTPC box, which was very costly to put together, as I did not properly understand how little power was required for some stages in the system.
I moved those cards to an old Dell P4 dual core machine and everything continued to work well.
I later experimented with, and have settled on (for now) the above set up, using very small devices with relatively low power use.

There is no requirement for transcoding so no powerful CPUs are required.

In addition to the above I have also intergrated (for as long as it lasts) the 'free' eir sports channels using a Sky+HD box and a separate feed from an older Sky dish which I left in place.

I have posted in this HTPC section about the set up and how it progressed over time, so the info should be there if needed.

Sorry, I don't have any fancy graphics for you to admire EDIT: See later post

Other posters here have similar, if different, set ups.

I use only Linux so everything had to be compatible with, and managed through Linux.

EDIT:

I probably should have added that both those tuner boxes have DLNA functionality so there are options available for viewing using .m3u files or similar. Kodi has a specific plugin for the HDHomerun device.

Also I can share some or all my content over the internet should I choose to do so, which could be useful for watching my content if abroad on hols or such.


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Wcool

Thanks John.

So correct me if I am wrong but is your homerun box the same as Sat-IP box in picture 2 (and I believe your setup is indeed similar to my colleages?)

AFAIK all the EPG data comes from the satellite in picture 2 but I am not sure if that is enough. On an enigma2 box I know you can use scripts to retrive the EPG from the internet, I presume that is still possible.

The La Frite is the same as a Raspberry Pi but with added HEVC and VP9 decoding in picture one.

La Frite Kickstarter

I don't care about DLNA, I use standard samba

captain_boycott

my set-up as follows;

Server:
Old Core i3 PC running Windows 7
500 GB disk for timeshifting and recording.
MediaPortal PVR server software
Blackgold DVB-S2/T2 card.
(have also set up a similar Freesat only system for brother using a TBS card).

Clients: Have used Raspberry PIs, Wetek, other Android boxes, Windows HTPC and most recently an NDVIA Shield, but regardless of hardware, all running Kodi for live TV.

Some things I have learnt over years running and evolving this setup;

- The server does not need any high end hardware, I recently tried using a wetek box running openelec/tvheadend as the DVB server and it worked fine, so no need to invest heavily in resources on the server side.

- In order to be family friendly, the critical components are the client and connectivity to the client. The server rarely causes any issues.

- I have found the Shield to offer the best client user experience by far, even better than a high powered HTPC. Its fast, and does not suffer from any colour bleed, tearing or audio issues that happened on cheaper android boxes. It has a good remote control UI, so it offers the easiest and quickest way to restart Kodi if/when it ever does mis-behave. (and switching from TV viewing to youtube/netflix or playing badland is easy!). It also is best at managing wake/sleep events. Everything goes to sleep when not in use. The server wakes up for scheduled recordings and the clients can wake the server using the Kodi "advanced Wake on Lan" addon.

- For me, the network was the hardest and most critical component to get right. Streaming internet content would work fine, but LiveTV from Freesat or Saorview would occasional stutter and freeze, or just abruptly stop. I finally realised it was not the server or client, but the network connection between them. Depends on your situation, but wired Ethernet is king if you can manage it. I found powerline adapters to be ok but not great as they do occasionally stutter. I am currently running over wireless but AP placement is critical and also ensuring you fix the wifi channel and don't leave it at auto.

Your maps look sound, I'd just wonder if you need a NAS for storage or if just USB attached storage would suffice. Not come across La Frite before, will need to look up that. I still use a Raspberry PI in one bedroom but TBH, would replace it in an instant with a Shield, if only I could afford it! The Pi works, just is sluggish and can crash a little too often to meet the spouse acceptance criterion, especially for the main TV.

Johnboy1951

I have had a similar experience as captain_boycott with regard to R-Pi. I even used an R-Pi 1 for some time in the bedroom, because there was generally no need to go through menus. It was used more as a comfortable location to watch a film and then sleep.
The R-Pi2 was much better and I have not tried an R-Pi3.

I note he also had the same experience as I regarding the CPU power needed for managing the server.

As a client device no doubt a Shield is way ahead in power and will operate much faster, particularly if you are inclined to have lots of graphics showing on the TV. That is where you see the R-Pi hesitate or even fall over.

I would guess that the Android device I use is much better than a R-Pi2 and probably R-Pi3, and is cheaper. No doubt there are much better Android boxes available also. The more you can pay the more powerful the client device can be.

I would want to get one that I can run a Linux JeOS on, as the Android OS (generally) does not get updated on the cheaper boxes. This also means I have almost the same OS setup on each device, including the server.

Wcool wrote: »

Thanks John.

So correct me if I am wrong but is your homerun box the same as Sat-IP box in picture 2 (and I believe your setup is indeed similar to my colleages?)

Not sure to what pics you are referring.

Here are some links to show the devices I use and a couple of alternatives. I use both 4 tuner models but only 2 tuners are needed for Saorview.

Tanix Tx3 Mini 2GB RAM + 16 GB ROM $30
https://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_009968859843.html?wid=1433363#goodsDetail

Telestar Digibit R1 €130.00
https://www.amazon.de/Telestar-Digibit-Sat-IP-Netzwerk-Transmitter/dp/B008OVPYCQ

Telestar Digibit Twin Satellite IP Network Transmitter €93.00
https://www.amazon.de/Telestar-Satelliten-IP-Netzwerk-Transmitter-Eing%C3%A4nge/dp/B016XL584C

HDHomerun Dual Tuner £100.00
https://www.amazon.com/SiliconDust-HDHomeRun-CONNECT-broadcast-2-Tuner/dp/B00GY0UB54

HDHomerun Quatro £160.00
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Set-top-Boxes/Silicondust-HDHR5-4DT-HDHomeRun-CONNECT-QUATRO/B07BFPWBNS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1542208705&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=hdhomerun+connect+quatro&psc=1

AFAIK all the EPG data comes from the satellite in picture 2 but I am not sure if that is enough. On an enigma2 box I know you can use scripts to retrive the EPG from the internet, I presume that is still possible.

Tvheadend takes care of the EPG data. It can grab that data from multiple locations through satellite.
If that is somehow not sufficient then you have the option to retrieve the EPG data over the internet.

The Saorview data is grabbed from the Saorview broadcast signal also by Tvheadend.

The La Frite is the same as a Raspberry Pi but with added HEVC and VP9 decoding in picture one.

La Frite Kickstarter

I don't care about DLNA, I use standard samba

I recorded a recent programme on one of the server boxes (partition filesystem is ext4) and wanted to move it to my own main PC.
I connected to the server using samba/smb and copied it across.
The copy failed. The file size was 2.5GiB but I could only copy 2.0GiB.
I was initially puzzled, but eventually put is down to the method of access and copying.
I much prefer to use NFS where possible. It is faster and has less 'gotchas'.

Kodi is the media player, but the grunt work is carried out by Tvheadend ..... tuning and allocating channels; grabbing EPG; giving access to stored picons; managing recordings including series etc etc.
There are still a few things it is not great at I expect, but it must be about the best out there, and is in continual development.
Kodi has addons/plugins for tvheadend both as a client and as a server.

There are other backend plugins available also.



.

Johnboy1951

For clarity, I thought it might be useful to show a graphic of the main items of my HTPC system, and how they are connected. The full LAN and broadband are also connected to the switch of course as is the file server/recording storage device.

graza

Hi, I'm Wcool's colleague. My setup is as follows:

Hardware:

Quad LNB
Grundig GSS.Box for Sat>IP streaming of Freesat DVB-S
HP Gen7 Microserver (AMD Turion ~2Ghz dual core I think) with 4GB ECC RAM and 250GB HDD
RTL2832U based USB DVB-T sticks (2) for Saorview
Rasp-Pi, one each of model 2 and 3
Panasonic 42" LCD TV
TP-Link SG1024 DE 24 port network switch.

Software:

Server runs Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with tvheadend (among other things like nginx, Docker)
Rasp-Pi 2 is running a fairly old version of OpenELEC / Kodi
Rasp-Pi 3 is running OSMC / Kodi. OSMC is pretty good at updating itself.
iOS devices can stream from tvheadend or directly from Sat>IP

Spousal acceptance factor is pretty good. My father in law never really took to it and used to go back to cable TV analog channels. Those are gone now! I think the issue is the channel changing too fast introduces instability. He uses channel up/down buttons whereas I go back to the channel list and choose based on the EPG info.

EPG all comes off air (i.e. on the DVB streams). It's fairly effective although I think I have some comfiguration tweaking to do so that all the transponders get scanned continuously. Certain Freesat channels don't have EPG info if I haven't been watching them.

The nginx web server serves up channel icons for Kodi to display. I got all the icons from Lyngsat and ran them through an ImageMagick script to resize them. This helped speed up the display of channel icons in Kodi. When I first set this up (about 4 years ago) I was running a Rasp-Pi model B+ but it didn't have enough grunt. The Rasp-Pi 3 is the best of the frontends I've used. The ability to have CEC go back over the HDMI cable to Kodi is awesome - everything is on one remote!

The thing I like most is the ability to cheaply add more frontend clients. My only big problem with all this is that Freesat channels move around or are added/removed. I don't want to have to tinker with it all the time - it's a household appliance, no more. I believe there are options you can set in tvheadend but so far I haven't found the magic formula. One of the Rasp-Pi's I bought had a dodgy power adapter and I didn't get satisfaction from the supplier. Now I just buy from Farnell.

I do have to restart everything from time to time, and I think it's sometimes the TP-Link network switch that is the culprit. At one stage I had two Wifi access points on the same channel and I think that caused packet storms that used to knock it out. Putting the access points on separate channels has made it much more stable.

Johnboy1951

Thanks for the set up details

I do have to restart everything from time to time

I have found that it is the Sat>IP tuner box that needs to be powered down completely every now and again.
I don't know what happens TBH, but this occurs less than once per month.
I have not been able to reproduce it deliberately.
If my memory serves your GSS is the same hardware with different branding, so that might be relevant.

graza

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I don't know what happens TBH, but this occurs less than once per month.

Yes I think mine needs its power cycled with about the same frequency. Similar to captain_boycott I was also using powerline ethernet adapters for a while. There was a capacitor inside that kept blowing so I ran a couple of Cat5e cables to the TV instead. With the Rasp-Pi zip tied to the back of the telly there's nothing to see except the TV. (Spouse very happy!)

captain_boycott

I was using TP-Link power-lines as well. There is definitely an issue with them. They are great when they work, but can't rely on them. Although I don't use them for TV streaming anymore, the kids still have then for their PCs, and from time to time they go crazy and flood the entire network and the only solution is to power cycle them.

Wcool

I think the homerun is serving the DVB channels? I do have ethernet everything. I think I will go with the SAT->IP as it seems it's cheaper then putting those tuners on a PC.

I will start ordering some stuff and just give it a go. As I only watch Freesat, I haven't spend more than 180 euro on the alien and 30 euor on a Kodi box in 5 years

Thanks for all the tips and the differnent hardware setups.

Johnboy1951

Wcool wrote: »

I think the homerun is serving the DVB channels? I do have ethernet everything. I think I will go with the SAT->IP as it seems it's cheaper then putting those tuners on a PC.

I will start ordering some stuff and just give it a go. As I only watch Freesat, I haven't spend more than 180 euro on the alien and 30 euor on a Kodi box in 5 years

Thanks for all the tips and the differnent hardware setups.

The HDHomerun has the DVB-T (terrestrial) tuners which I use for Saorview channels.
The Telestar Gigabit R1 has the DVB-S/2 tuners.

All are made available over the LAN to the server (Tanix) running CoreElec with Tvheadend, which then manages them, and integrates with Kodi on the client devices at the TVs, or Kodi in laptops etc.
These are all Free to Air channels only.

In the graphic above eliminate the Edision and Skybox and the aerial goes directly to the HDHomerun.
.