Tvheadend

You can do it directly from within tvheadend to VLC, Kodi or similar if you compile it with the right options and if your server is powerful enough to transcode in realtime. It's been discussed many times on this forum, so I'd suggest searching a bit and reading up on what you find.

if you compile it with the right options

So for the majority of TVHeadEnd users, the real answer would be, "you can't do it from within TVHeadEnd."

Developers compile software. Users get it pre-compiled from a repository.

Would it really be asking too much to include this in the standard builds?

What rattled your cage? 3.9.x isn't even in alpha release yet, and you're complaining that it doesn't behave the way you want? Because a feature is relatively new, still has bugs, is being worked on but it's not perfect and not available to you, now - that's a problem?

Hmmm...

I just don't understand why you would reply that way to someone who fairly obviously isn't a developer. It's a strange quirk I have noticed about some programmers and Linux "experts".

If you were talking to your car dealer, and you asked him, "is there any way to make this car get better gas mileage?", and he replied by saying that is possible if you tear down and rebuild the engine using some specific additional part, you'd likely not be happy with that answer, especially if you are the type of person that brings your car back to the dealer for oil changes. Yet some Linux people seem to assume that if someone has managed to install Linux from an ISO, they are magically imbued with the knowledge and desire to compile software. That may have been a valid assumption of Linux users a quarter of a century ago, and there was probably also a time when you could assume that most car owners did most of their own mechanical work. Neither of those assumptions are still valid.

And then there is the fact that in replying to me, you say that this feature "is relatively new, still has bugs, is being worked on but it's not perfect". Don't you think that might have been useful information to impart to the OP? To me, it just seems like your answer was incomplete, and that you just dashed off a quick answer without considering that the person you were replying to might not have the level of expertise required to compile software, as would likely be the case of most TVHeadEnd users. I was just trying to help clarify that. And really, if it's not ready for the standard builds because it's still buggy, that's something else that probably should have been mentioned. No, I would not want a buggy feature included in a standard build, but you neglected to mention that, and it's pertinent. Even if I knew how to compile software, I wouldn't knowingly choose to introduce bugs into the software just to get an additional feature!

The only way to enable transcoding - the only way to even know it's there beyond reading this forum - is either to compile from source or install from the unstable PPA. That means you've already stepped into a world of development - otherwise, you'd use the stable/packaged versions of any software shipped with your distro. I'm not aware of anywhere where the unstable builds are in 'standard builds' other than OpenElec, and it's been dropped out of the normal repositories for just this reason.

If you don't like the software, you're free to use something else; if you don't like the responses I've offered in terms of trying to endlessly help people on this forum then you're also free to add your own. Your response was not 'trying to help clarify', it was a directed complaint at the developer(s) of this software, "is it too much to ask (that you spend even more of your spare time getting this all polished to my satisfaction and) included in the standard builds". Yes, actually, it is.

I don't know why you're so angry at this project, or at me, but this isn't a helpful conversation and I won't continue it.

Prof Yaffle, I don't know why you choose to read everything I write in the worst possible way. I am NOT angry at this project. I am, however, a little put off by the way you respond to people. Even your comment, "If you don't like the software, you're free to use something else" is wrong on a couple of levels. I DO like TVHeadEnd, and honestly there is nothing else like TVHeadEnd so I have no idea what you think I'd use if I didn't like it. Installing from a PPA does not make one a developer; there are pages aimed at rank newbies that show how to install from a PPA. That said, if I did have one complaint about TVHeadEnd it would be that they don't update the stable version more often. All the new development seems to go into the unstable version. But that's a moot point in this discussion because the unstable packaged versions don't (yet) include transcoding either.

If you don't like the software, you're free to use something else; if you don't like the responses I've offered in terms of trying to endlessly help people on this forum then you're also free to add your own. Your response was not 'trying to help clarify', it was a directed complaint at the developer(s) of this software, "is it too much to ask (that you spend even more of your spare time getting this all polished to my satisfaction and) included in the standard builds". Yes, actually, it is

You say "if you don't like the responses I've offered in terms of trying to endlessly help people on this forum then you're also free to add your own", which is exactly what I did. But then you complain about my specific comment, adding words to what I said (the part YOU added in parenthesis) to make it sound like I was deliberately trying to be a jerk, but in fact those are YOUR words, not part of what I said. Are you really the kind of person that goes out of their way to make someone else look bad by putting words in their mouth that they never said in the first place? As I already explained to you, you didn't say in your original post that the transcoding feature "is relatively new, still has bugs, is being worked on but it's not perfect" (note I do NOT add words when I quote you; I'd appreciate the same courtesy) and that makes all the difference, because I would have never said "Would it really be asking too much to include this in the standard builds?" had I known that it's not yet ready.

By the way, just so we are on the same page here, when I say "standard builds" I'm including all builds that can be installed from a PPA, stable or unstable alike, as long as you don't have to compile it. Compiling software is a really daunting process for many users, myself included. Adding a PPA to add a repository is FAR easier. To go back to my car analogy (admittedly imperfect), if being told to compile something is like being told to rebuild an engine, adding a PPA is like being told to pour a can of fuel injector cleaner in the gas tank. It takes someone with considerable skills to do the former, but almost anyone with a brain and a little information can do the latter.

The reason people are using unstable builds (and probably the reason OpenElec uses them, though I can't speak for them) is that there has been a lot of hardware support added in the unstable versions that is not in the most recent stable version. Recently much work has been done on various DVB implementations, and it is much appreciated, but since that support isn't in the stable version, people who have that hardware are pretty much forced to use an unstable version. Personally, if a new stable version were released sometime soon (with at least the hardware support in the current unstable), I would use that and not even attempt to run an unstable version, as long as it worked with my tuners.