Raspberry Pi as a MythTV frontend

[James Harris]

Some years ago I tried a mythtv frontend (from memory it was called XBMC
or something similar) on an early Raspberry Pi (PCB dated 2011) but
found it too slow to be usable. From memory I think video playback was
OK (I had bought the MPEG-2 licence.) but navigating the menus was slow.

I see there's now a mythtv-light frontend and I also have a faster Pi
going spare - a Pi 2B v1.1 dated 2014.

Do you guys have any suggestions as to what's the best way to go now?
Options seem to be to use the mythtv-light frontend or some non-mythtv
package, either of which will connect across the network to my mythtv
server. Or buy a Pi 3. Or wait and see if a Pi 4 is released.

My main reasons for wanting to add the Pi to my system are

1. the server's video card won't do full 1080 and for various reasons it
would be a pain to upgrade it.

2. I would rather locate the server somewhere away from the TV.

So, the basic query is: Do you have any suggestions on which package to
use, and on what Pi hardware would be needed for that package?


--
James Harris

[Chris Elvidge]

OSMC worked well on my 2B for watching TV and recording until I upgraded
to Pi3. Only use for recording in .ts or .mkv. Even on the PI3 .webm is
the only conversion that works well.

A lighter alternative (smaller sd card required) is LibreELEC.
See https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

(I also have a PiB in Spain running OSMC, but only use it to playback
downloads.)


--

Chris Elvidge, England

[Stefan Enzinger]

On 2017-03-12 18:00, James Harris wrote:
> Some years ago I tried a mythtv frontend (from memory it was called XBMC
> or something similar) on an early Raspberry Pi (PCB dated 2011) but
> found it too slow to be usable. From memory I think video playback was
> OK (I had bought the MPEG-2 licence.) but navigating the menus was slow.

XBMC is now called KODI. Menus were too slow on Raspberry Pi 1. At least
at the time when I tried it.

> I see there's now a mythtv-light frontend and I also have a faster Pi
> going spare - a Pi 2B v1.1 dated 2014.

I'm running openELEC on a rPi 2B and an ancient mythtv .27 on an old PC
in the network. openELEC uses KODI, I hear that libreELEC is the more
active fork but I didn't have time to try that yet.

Kodi now has built in support for PVR. So just enable the PVR support,
configure and enable the mythtv PVR plugin and you should be good to go.

The rPi is fast enough in the menus and for playing back mpg2-SD in
software. 720p h264 plays back fine as well. This is the highest
definition I can receive here. I've never heard of a mythtv-light
frontend and don't think it is needed on the rPi2

When turning on the Pi it takes some seconds to sync with mythtv and
switching channels during live tv has some delay. This is the same on my
laptop, so a faster CPU won"t help. The program guide works well for
setting up recordings and playing back recordings is smooth and without
delay. For more complicated recording rules I still use the old
webfrontend of mythtv, mythweb.

So I can definitly recommend using KODI on rPi2 as a client for mythtv.

[Gordon Henderson]

In article <oa3ulb$a2$1...@dont-email.me>,

I recently installed Kodi on a Pi v3. I started with bog-standard Raspbian
and simply sudo apt-get install kodi. I'm sure it'll work just fine with a v2.

This is working well. A little googling suggested there was a newer
(packaged) version of Kodi for Raspbian, so I followed their advice and
installed that one, but the stock one did work fine for me.

Of-course there is now a lot of negativity over Kodi - although it's
not really kodi, but all the plugins being supplied in a particular
bundle. I'm using the iPlayer WWW plugin to get live and catch-up BBC
which is working a treat.

Gordon
(in the UK with a TV license if anyone cares)

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

On 13/03/2017 1:00 AM, James Harris wrote:
> Some years ago I tried a mythtv frontend (from memory it was called XBMC
> or something similar) on an early Raspberry Pi (PCB dated 2011) but
> found it too slow to be usable. From memory I think video playback was
> OK (I had bought the MPEG-2 licence.) but navigating the menus was slow.

There is another similar tool called MediaPortal? :)

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[Another Dave]

On 12/03/17 19:03, Chris Elvidge wrote:
>
> OSMC worked well on my 2B for watching TV and recording until I upgraded
> to Pi3. Only use for recording in .ts or .mkv.

OSMC (i.e. Kodi) works really well. Don't forget to buy the license key
(£2.40) from

https://www.raspberrypi.com/

if you need to play MPEG-2 or VC-1 video, otherwise the hardware
acceleration uses the free driver rather than the proprietary driver. I
find the free driver too slow.

Raspberry Pi 1s are a little slow on the user interface, Pi 2s are fine.

Another Dave
--
Change nospam to techie

[jack...@gmail.com]

Il giorno lunedì 13 marzo 2017 17:35:08 UTC+1, Another Dave ha scritto:

> OSMC (i.e. Kodi) works really well. Don't forget to buy the license key
> (£2.40) from
>
> https://www.raspberrypi.com/
>
> if you need to play MPEG-2 or VC-1 video, otherwise the hardware
> acceleration uses the free driver rather than the proprietary driver. I
> find the free driver too slow.

nope.
the license enables HW acceleration to be used instead of SW decoding.
h264 HW acceleration is enabled by default (no need of license), and works without problems until 1080p.

[James Harris]

On 12/03/2017 17:00, James Harris wrote:

...

> So, the basic query is: Do you have any suggestions on which package to
> use, and on what Pi hardware would be needed for that package?

Thanks for all the replies. To summarise what I've understood, in case
it helps someone else. the package options seem to be:

Kodi (aka XBMC, the name of the developer) has mythtv and iplayer
plugins but doesn't directly support custom mythtv recordings.

OSMC is based on Kodi.

Mythtv-light.

Mediaportal (possibly).


I am not too sure at the moment what advantages the other packages would
give over mythtv but best seems to be to use Raspbian and to try them out.


--
James Harris

[Chris Elvidge]

If you're experimenting, try OSMC + TVHeadend


--

Chris Elvidge, England

[James Harris]

Well, I am going to experiment with how to manage my MythTV backend from
a Raspberry Pi. I have many recordings there and an extensive setup
which I want to keep.

I am not sure, at the mo, what extras the above packages might add
beyond the MythTV features I am familiar with.

--
James Harris

[Stefan Enzinger]

On 2017-03-15 22:05, James Harris wrote:
> On 12/03/2017 17:00, James Harris wrote:
>
> ...
>
>> So, the basic query is: Do you have any suggestions on which package to
>> use, and on what Pi hardware would be needed for that package?
>
> Thanks for all the replies. To summarise what I've understood, in case
> it helps someone else. the package options seem to be:
>
> Kodi (aka XBMC, the name of the developer) has mythtv and iplayer
> plugins but doesn't directly support custom mythtv recordings.

Just to be clear: Setting up single recordings in the guide works fine.
As well as pressing the rec button during live tv (as in: record this
show, from when I started watching it till it ends. Even if I stop
watching).

I see there are options for keyword search and daily, weekly...
recording rules in kodi. I have just tried them out for the first time
and some seem to work (daily, weekly...), some seem to fail (e.g.
keyword search, "sql-error: starttime cannot be null") but that might be
due to my ancient mythtv installation (.27)

Watching recordings works as expected.

[James Harris]

Thanks. I got the basics of the advice that it's either awkward or
impossible to set up custom MythTV recording rules from within Kodi.
Just about all of my rules are custom ones so that was an important point.

--
James Harris

[Jim Price]

On 15/03/17 23:47, James Harris wrote:

> Thanks. I got the basics of the advice that it's either awkward or
> impossible to set up custom MythTV recording rules from within Kodi.
> Just about all of my rules are custom ones so that was an important point.

Has anyone mentioned webfrontend? You can do a certain amount of
customisation of recording rules from that or Mythweb just using a web
browser. MythTV 0.28 has both, but webfrontend is supposed to replace
Mythweb entirely in some future version, so if webfrontend works for
you, use that for preference. This does not limit any of your choices
for using other frontends. If you already have a working MythTV 0.28
installation, you should be able to access webfrontend by pointing your
browser to:
<address of backend>:6544

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