Tvheadend

Can anyone help me?

Chris V wrote:

First post here. I'm looking at cancelling my cable service and use TvHeadEnd. I need some help on the setup guys.

My hardware:

• HD antenna in attic
• Media server in basement equipped with dual tv tuner
• 1 TV equipped with raspberry pi B+ (with usb tv tuner if needed)
• 2 TV no pi

I plan on running the coax cable from the antenna to my media server with an hauppauge dual tv tuner.

It's best to try and keep all tuners in one location you don't have to but it saves running cables EVERYWHERE.

Then this is where I need help. How do I get the signal from my server to all the TVs/Raspberry pi? I thought I could have a cable out from the tv tuner and broadcast the tv signal through coax like a normal tv service but I believe that is not possible? Or maybe ethernet?

Yes Ethernet (or Wifi if you really must) I'm afraid, you'll also need something at each end able to interact with Tvheadend, Kodi, Movian or another client.

Make sure that you have enough tuners. Generally people have 1 tuner per multiplex this allows receiving and recording of all available services at the same time. You can get away with less tuners but it'll limit the number of people able to watch and record at the same time.

If you don't already have coax running to each TV location, then you will need to ensure you have ethernet at each location. Use wifi only as a last resort.

Put a Pi running OSMC or Openelec on each TV, install TVHeadend client. They can access live or recorded TV via the network, no extra tuners required.

Do you have wired ethernet and power available in the Attic? If so I'd consider putting a HDHomeRun Dual up there (assuming it doesn't have extreme temperatures, otherwise on the floor below as close to the antenna as you can get) to minimize the coax run from the antenna. That would give you two tuners. But even if you plan on doing it the way you are thinking about, TVHeadEnd is going to take the signal from the tuners and change them to a digital stream that is then sent via Ethernet, and at your TV's you will need some type of media center box (could be a Raspberry Pi 2 but you might want something with just a bit more CPU power) at each TV, in order to run Kodi or VLC (I'd suggest Kodi). There are a lot of relatively inexpensive Android-based boxes that run Kodi (but I would look for recommendations on the Kodi forum). Of course if the Raspberry Pi performs well enough for you, than you could just get a couple more of those.

Not only will Kodi give you more viewing options (for example if you have video files saved to a hard drive on your network or a local hard drive, Kodi can access and display that, and Kodi also has a repository with several LEGAL addons that will let you view online content from various sources, though in that regard they don't provide the variety of, say, Roku or FireTV). Just be sure you get Kodi direct from the kodi.tv site and any addons from the official Kodi repository; there are a lot of other sites out there that will try to fool you into thinking they are Kodi sites but they aren't, and the software they offer can damage your system and/or get you in trouble with the copyright cops.

VLC will also work for displaying live and recorded content from TVHeadEnd and your tuners, but on a regular TV it's not nearly as easy to use, and on some systems the video output of VLC is much more "jerky" than with Kodi.

So basically the idea is you run coaxial cable (preferably as short as possible, but as long as you get adequate signal strength then the length doesn't really matter) from your antenna to your tuner(s), then (if using a HDHomeRun) the signal travels via Ethernet to your TVHeadEnd backend (otherwise your tuners will likely be installed in your backend system), and then from there via Ethernet to your media center PC's, which are then connected via HDMI cable to your TV's. For alternate viewing options, you can install Kodi on your PC, laptop, or on some tablets. You configure TVHeadEnd via a web-based interface so once you have your backend server set up you do not need to leave a monitor and keyboard connected. It is possible for your backend server to do double duty as both a backend server and a media center PC (in other words, you have both TVHeadEnd and Kodi installed on the same machine, and you have it connected to one of your TV's). But many of us just prefer to keep our backend servers separate, in a location near where the antenna wires come in, though again I would not put it anywhere there are temperature extremes or high humidity.

One last point, some tuners work better with TVHeadEnd than others, and even with HDHomeRuns, some people find that TVHeadEnd works with them with no additional software installation, while other have reported they've had to install the HDHomeRun Linux software (which brings in a bunch of dependencies, so try without it first) to get them to work. In theory any TV tuner that is recognized by Linux should work (if they only say they support Windows they may not) so before you buy anything you might want to try to find out if others have been successful in getting it to work with TVHeadEnd. We have three HDHomeRun Duals (so, six tuners in all) and they work fine in TVHeadEnd (this all assumes you are in an ATSC country such as the USA or Canada, if not then make sure before you buy any tuner that it supports the local TV format, whatever that might be).

Ok that clears up a few things. I'm definitely going the PI route. I love that thing.

I think I prefer using a coax to my tv tuned media server with TVHeadEnd that then distributes Live TV via ethernet.

• How is the speed of the channel change, pausing, stop, play actions?
• Kodi will be my front end, no additional software/plugin needed?
• My media server is Windows 7, should I replace it with Ubuntu server or replace TvHeadEnd for a Win7 equivalent?
• I was thinking of Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 for my tuner. I believe it works well with linux also. Any thoughts?

Usually about a second, maybe two at most to change channels, although it might take a little bit longer on a Pi due to the low CPU power, but it's no worse than most cable boxes and actually I think it's noticeably faster, although if the backend has trouble locking onto a channel due to weak signal it can take longer. Pause/stop/play are all almost instantaneous, at least on my HTPC, except when you first hit play at the start of a recording, then it might take a second to buffer enough of the recording so you don't get annoying pauses during playback (or only very rarely see them).

You would need Kodi and the Kodi PVR addon for your particular backend, such as TVHeadEnd. This is a simple download, or under Ubuntu it's just another package you get from the Kodi repository. On OS X it's actually included in the Kodi app bundle, so you just need to enable it.

You could go either way on the server; I prefer using Ubuntu Server and TVHeadEnd but if you really want to stick with Windows you could use a Window-based backend, maybe something like MediaPortal. The reason I prefer TVHeadEnd is because IMHO nobody should use Windows for a server, it's not reliable enough and you have to be much more vigilant about security, such as running anti-virus software. Kodi actually has PVR addons for several different backends but I believe TVHeadEnd is the most widely used Linux-based PVR backend.

Your Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 is listed on this page https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_PCIe_Cards as being one of the confirmed working ATSC PCIe cards. So I would say it is very likely it will work with TVHeadEnd, but since I don't have one myself I can't say with 100% certainty. But usually if a tuner is listed on that page (or one of the other pages on that site) as confirmed working, that means that Linux will recognize it and therefore TVHeadEnd will also.

Oh, and to answer a question you haven't asked yet but probably will, here is an article I've used in the past, that shows how to get free EPG data into TVHeadEnd. It's a little disjointed and is aimed at free-to-air satellite TV viewers, but the instructions work just as well for over-the-air channels that you get with your antenna: https://freetoairamerica.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/some-hints-for-getting-free-to-air-satellite-channels-into-the-electronic-program-guide-in-kodi-or-xbmc-or-another-frontend/

I can confirm that the WinTV-HVR-2250 works fine with TVHeadend, just needs the firmware found here: [[https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-2250]]
Using lubuntu 15.10 personally.