Tvheadend

Probably Wetek Play as you can add on their DVB-S2 tuner for around $20.

Wetek is good, but I need more tuner. Is there another option with more tuner? (Usb, pci-e, sat>ip box, etc.)

Take a look at the PCIe cards from TBS Technologies, specifically those at http://www.tbsdtv.com/products/dvb-s2-tv-tuner-pcie.html - they work pretty well once you make a tweak to insure they are not using shared interrupts (see https://freetoairamerica.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/do-you-run-one-or-more-tbs-pcie-cards-under-linux-check-your-irqs/), but the only downside with them is that every time you install a Linux kernel update you also have to rebuild the TBS drivers (not difficult, but not something you'd normally have to do with a hardware device - see https://freetoairamerica.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/a-bash-script-to-rebuild-the-tbs-tuner-drivers-after-linux-kernel-updates/). They also make USB devices and even what I think you would consider a SAT>IP box (check out their MOI devices) but for reliable the PCIe cards are probably the way to go, since there have been reports of the USB tuners getting quite warm and eventually self-destructing (also you are not limited by USB throughput). I use the TBS6905 which has four tuners. They work pretty well with TVHeadEnd in my experience, provided your dish and LNB's capture sufficient signal strength, however at least in the version of TVHeadEnd that I have (4.0.8) you can't scan for new muxes with them. I also have an older TBS6985 (also with four tuners) and I can use that one to scan for new muxes, and it also works quite well. So if you have a choice, get the TBS6985. Also, there are alternative open source drivers available for some of the older cards (example, https://bitbucket.org/CrazyCat/linux-tbs-drivers/overview), but not for the newest ones, if that matters to you.

Unfortunately they are probably not the cheapest solution. There may even be other PCIe cards that work well and are less expensive, I just don't know about them, or they aren't available where I live. You could perhaps start at https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB-S2_Devices to search for others but be aware that just because a card or device appears on that site doesn't necessarily mean that it will work with TVHeadEnd, and also I don't know if that site is regularly updated with fresh information.

thanks guys, wetek is nice but a little bit expensive for the hardware it offers
TBS Tuners are among the best but very very expensive
the real problem is to find and affordable USB DVB S2 tuner, the cheapest one that I found was the Mageica HDStar for arround 40$
I like to make some very compact and basic set up, like a DVB S2 tuner connected directly to my OPENWRT router, mips configurations are very cheap and power efficient
another suggestion, if we can Run OPENWRT on a 20-30$ DVB S2 receiver with ALI3510 chipset for example, it will make a very affordable and capable set up, but needs a lot of developpement
in fact TVHEadend is very very light and work fine on very weak cheapsets, I looking down that road, if we can make it, it could be a hell of a device, really, for a single tuner we shouldn't spent hundreds of dollars for a tvheadend set up

I know of people running a USB tuner on a RPi. The cost of the USB tuner is going to be the biggest thing.

TBS had the 5980 on sale for about $50USD over the holidays plus shipping but it's hard to find any for much under $100 most of the time.

The TBS tuners using STV chips are very good. Only ones I would recommend.

The Wetek tuners are only $22 but AFAIK they will only plug into a Wetek box.

So either way you are up over $100. Then you still need another box to play and display the video.

What I built myself is a complete HTPC box with TVH and tuners all in one. Used an ASRock Q1900M Pro3 mobo. Has PCI, PCIe and USB so I could use my old Prof 7301 and TBS 5980. Fanless and silent. More expensive way to go but much more powerful and easy to set up. I have about 10TB of external storage so it's complete UPNP media server and TVH server. Plus I had one extra PCI slot left for my Delta sound card so it's also DAW. Runs my guitarix amp sim and my USB midi keyboard for samplers and synths.

yami yu wrote:

TBS Tuners are among the best but very very expensive
the real problem is to find and affordable USB DVB S2 tuner, the cheapest one that I found was the Mageica HDStar for arround 40$

I just did a search on AliExpress and couldn't find anything that is not TBS with multiple tuners that was cheaper than that. Cheapest I found was a DVBSKY S952 at $85.90 which is about the same price as an equivalent TBS card (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/All-discounts-Free-shipping-DVBSKY-S952-DVB-S2-PCI-E-HD-Dual-Satellite-TV-Receiver-Digital/536754062.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_6,searchweb201644_1_505_506_503_504_502_10014_10001_10002_10017_10010_10005_10011_10006_10003_10004_10009_10008,searchweb201560_8,searchweb1451318400_-1,searchweb1451318411_6449&btsid=bc449e02-8efc-4fbe-8f4a-ceaf9de84cb2).

You know these would be a lot cheaper if they were mass-producing them but apparently there is insufficient demand to do large runs. So if you find one at a ridiculously low price, don't expect it to be super reliable, or have good support. Remember that computer operating systems are constantly being upgraded so if the card manufacturer doesn't keep their drivers current, in a few months or a couple of years you may find the card stops working. Or if you like the card so much you'd like to buy another to have more tuners, you may find the drivers don't support having more than one card of the same model in a particular system.

To say that TBS Tuners are among the best is doubtless true but also somewhat of a sad commentary on the type of hardware we're stuck with using for now (it's particularly annoying that they have apparently made no effort whatsoever to get their drivers included in the Linux kernel, or that they have not elected to make any of their drivers open source so others could fix their bugs easily). But unfortunately TBS seems to be the only company making a DVB-S2 card with quad tuners at a somewhat reasonable price these days. The only other quad tuner packages I have seen are these from Digital Devices which are much more expensive than the TBS cards after you convert Euros to Dollars:
http://www.digital-devices.eu/shop/en/cine-series/sets-und-bundles/15/dd-cine-s2-v6.5-und-duoflex-s2-v4-set-4-tuner-dvb-s/s2-for-pcie?c=160

By the way, I realize that I am talking PCIe tuners and you are talking USB tuners, I understand why but after hearing about all the problems people have had with USB tuners failing prematurely, I just REALLY don't care for that option at all.

That's kind of why I like the embedded Intel board solutions because you can use PCI and PCIe cards.

Getting DVB driver support into mainline kernel is a lot of politics, so not necessary easy to do. I use STV chip based tuners but the mainline kernel driver doesn't work on any MUX with a bitrate over 65mbps. In North America that is most of them. A simple patch fixes it but in years of trying it has never been accepted into mainline. So we now run a forked v4l. It has a bunch of improvements and adds in support to use the tuner as a software spectrum analyser. Makes pointing your dish so easy.

You get what you pay for. Sure Chinese boxes are cheap, but first thing you know the caps blow and it's dead.

Ron L wrote:

Getting DVB driver support into mainline kernel is a lot of politics, so not necessary easy to do. I use STV chip based tuners but the mainline kernel driver doesn't work on any MUX with a bitrate over 65mbps. In North America that is most of them. A simple patch fixes it but in years of trying it has never been accepted into mainline. So we now run a forked v4l. It has a bunch of improvements and adds in support to use the tuner as a software spectrum analyser. Makes pointing your dish so easy.

You get what you pay for. Sure Chinese boxes are cheap, but first thing you know the caps blow and it's dead.

THIS is why more people don't do this. Most users are not Linux gurus (just because you managed to set up a Linux server doesn't automatically make you a Linux expert) and they guys who know how to do this sort of thing seem to have their own exclusive little club, where they have all this stuff figured out but won't share what they know in such a way that a typical user can understand what the heck they are talking about. I'm not talking about you specifically, so don't take it personally, I'm just ranting a bit because even the terminology is a barrier to some of us.

As an example, I have no idea what an "STV chip based tuner" is, and I certainly would not have any idea how to install or run a "forked v4l", whatever that is. Even when I mentioned that site that has open source drivers for older TBS cards, I did that mainly for people like you would would have the foggiest clue how to install them, because they certainly don't seem to feel the need to give instructions on that page (in fact I was looking for a list of supported cards and could not even find that).

The ones that really get me, though, are the guys who run hacked kernels (which may or may not be what you are talking about, I really don't know) and promote that as the solution to everything. They just don't seem to get it that many of us are doing well if we can install Ubuntu Server and get it working. Where are the YouTube videos or the comprehensive instructions for doing all this? They don't exist because I guess these guys assume that if you don't already know how to do it, you don't need to know, and it's beneath them to explain as if they are talking to someone who never even touched Linux until they installed Ubuntu Server and TVHeadEnd (using directions that someone else was kind enough to post).

I'm guessing I probably couldn't use most of this anyway because I have the TBS6905 which is too new to be supported by the open source guys, but it's still frustrating that so many of these solutions seem inaccessible. Anyway THIS is why people buy the cheap Chinese boxes with the bad caps, because setting up a real satellite backend system can get complicated quickly if you happen to choose the wrong hardware.

A certain auction site will be you best friend. I got my setup for less than £50 in total.
I won a hp workstation for £15 spec was half decent to, core2duo 4gb ram etc.

I then won the first tuner card, a Hauppauge twin tuner for a few pence less than £10.

The second card I won was a tbs twin tuner card, which was just a little over £20.

Install Linux server distro and job done :).

Perfect little setup up for streaming to all tv's around the house, and also the kids tablets when we are out.

I have two Wetek OE boxes, 160$ incl. shipping, 4 DVB-S2 tuner and a perfect running TVH setup. A server or pc with a Core2Duo or similar use much more senseless power then this two boxes, i can record, watch and so on without problems. It's nearly plug'n'play and the hardware is more then fast enough for a TV server with TVH.

Running OE 6.0.1 and TVH 4.1.1258

Geniatech HD Star DVB-S2 is pretty hard to beat for the price, add a couple to a Raspberry Pi and you've got the cheapest setup I can think of.

That´s a DS3000 chip device. I had that chip in a PCI card tuner. The linux driver was really buggy. SD channels would play OK, most HD channels had TS discontinuity. For DVB-S2 I think it only worked for SRs between 10,000-30,000. DVB-S I could tune once then the machine required a cold restart before you could tune a different mux. Bug reports for the driver go to /dev/null.

I tossed that card and went with the STV0900 device instead.

Ron L wrote:

That´s a DS3000 chip device. I had that chip in a PCI card tuner. The linux driver was really buggy. SD channels would play OK, most HD channels had TS discontinuity. For DVB-S2 I think it only worked for SRs between 10,000-30,000. DVB-S I could tune once then the machine required a cold restart before you could tune a different mux. Bug reports for the driver go to /dev/null.

I tossed that card and went with the STV0900 device instead.

I have a Tevii S471 (PCIE) here that uses the Montage DS3000, have been for a few years without too many issues. There have been problems with the kernel driver in the past which I think got fixed fully in 3.14.

The Raspberry Pi 3 came out today, but so did this which I suspect might be an even better choice for a low-cost backend using USB-connected external tuners (which I don't recommend, but I would still be interested to hear the result if anyone actually uses one of these):

$40 ODROID-C2 is faster, has more memory than Raspberry Pi 3 - http://liliputing.com/?p=84966

Check this box we made U4 quad with twin tuner support (Twin S2, or S2+T2/cable)

I'm the only one who can't find the link?

Not sure I can do this:http://www.aliexpress.com/store/1987779

PS: If the link violates forum rules, I will delete it.

K Shea wrote:

THIS is why more people don't do this. Most users are not Linux gurus.....

There is a recommended hardware thread on this forum. There are a whole bunch of devices that you just plug in and work. If anyone had to do extra things to make a certain device work they will state so there. There is also the hardware section on the linux tv wiki. The patches for the Prof 7301, 7500 and other STV0900 devices are listed on the wiki page. There is also a link to Rick's Satellite forum where people will talk you through getting any of this going. You can avoid those and just use the ones that work out of the box. With the right device there is nothing simpler than setting this up in linux.

Devices also have issues in windows. Many only work properly with drivers hacked by CrazyCat. You have to run the machine in test mode to use them. Then they will only work with software that supports that particular card as windows has no DVB API standard. Getting windows going on any lower power ARM or MIPS device is pretty much impossible.

anyway guys, the real problem is the DVB S2 USB Tuners, very expensive with buggy linux drivers
the odroid C2 would be an excellent platform if hardkernel releases a DVB S2 tuner as GPIO module, it would be cheap (no USB controler cost) and very stable

Ron L wrote:

K Shea wrote:

THIS is why more people don't do this. Most users are not Linux gurus.....

There is a recommended hardware thread on this forum. There are a whole bunch of devices that you just plug in and work. If anyone had to do extra things to make a certain device work they will state so there. There is also the hardware section on the linux tv wiki. The patches for the Prof 7301, 7500 and other STV0900 devices are listed on the wiki page. There is also a link to Rick's Satellite forum where people will talk you through getting any of this going. You can avoid those and just use the ones that work out of the box. With the right device there is nothing simpler than setting this up in linux.

Devices also have issues in windows. Many only work properly with drivers hacked by CrazyCat. You have to run the machine in test mode to use them. Then they will only work with software that supports that particular card as windows has no DVB API standard. Getting windows going on any lower power ARM or MIPS device is pretty much impossible.

First of all since you mentioned the Prof 7301 and 7500, I will just say that having known someone who purchased a Prof 7301 at one time I would not recommend it for the typical user. I am not talking to the gurus here, I am talking to people like me (and the guy who bought that card) who really don't understand much about Linux. The problem with them is the Prof tuner people haven't updated the drivers in years, and also they apparently never anticipated that anyone would want to run two of their cards in the same system, so their drivers refuse to recognize more than a single card (at least in Windows, which is what he was running). This person purchased a second Prof 7301 card and wound up selling both of them on eBay at a big loss, even though they had only been used for about a month (less in the case of the second one he bought because of the driver issue). A single tuner was way too few for him, and probably would be for most users that are interested in receiving more than one channel. I understand that in Linux there is a different problem with the Prof tuners, something about that they won't receive high-bitrate signals unless some kind of patch is applied (but don't quote me on that, but I believe that's why he was using Windows and not Linux). Also they are older PCI cards, not PCIe cards. In short they are (in computer terms) ancient cards with ancient drivers. I know there are folks who think they are great but again these are the Linux gurus who know how to do all kinds of magic things in Linux that they seem incapable of explaining in such a way that the more simple-minded of us can understand.

As for the other cards in the LinuxTV wiki, most are either not available in the USA and Canada, or if they are they are very expensive compared to TBS cards. Unlike people in other parts of the world many people in the USA are reluctant to order from overseas, in part because if we get a defective unit we really get soaked on return postage.

As for Rick's there are a couple things I don't like about that forum. First you may not be aware that Rick actively censors moderates that forum. If you say something he doesn't approve of your post may vanish into thin air, or you may be put on moderation where everything you post sits around for a day or two until he gets around to approving it. This actually happened to someone I've been in contact with; he attributes it to the "ham radio mentality" where amateur radio operators are so used to the government telling them what they can or cannot say on the airwaves (nothing that might be considered commercial traffic, for example) that they see no problem in censoring moderating what others say when they run a forum, not realizing (or not caring) that people's expectations for an Internet forum are a lot different than those of ham radio operators for amateur radio BBS's. I don't know if that is the case or not, but beyond that the guys that hang out on Rick's are exactly the type I am talking about that won't or can't seem to explain anything in a simple manner, that someone who knows little about Linux could understand. Those guys are building their own Linux kernels and (sometimes) hacking drivers, but when you read that forum you are often left scratching your head wondering what the hell they are talking about. For anyone who doubts this, the forum in question is at http://rickcaylor.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=106995 - just pick any of the most visited threads (the ones with over 1,000 replies) and if you can follow along in any of those conversations (without skipping over large parts that make no sense at all to you) then you are an advanced Linux user.

While I am glad these guys are willing to push the limits and try to improve upon the drivers and such, it is clear they do this for their own enjoyment and amusement, and occasionally share dribs and drabs of what they discover but only in such a way that other gurus such as themselves can understand, let alone make use of their discoveries. What I really wish is that they would offer one of two things, either a drop-in replacement driver package for the TBS drivers that supports newer tuners such as the TBS6905 as well as the older ones, or an ISO file containing the modded kernels they use with Ubuntu Server (or whatever you'd need to install and run TVHeadEnd. The problem is they are compiling software from source and not many Linux users do that anymore, since the wide availability of distributions such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian, etc. all have package managers that make that mostly unnecessary. And it's one thing if the compilations are almost always successful (as is generally the case with the standard TBS drivers) and quite another if the compilation fails for some reason and the user is expected to try to figure out why. I don't use Linux because I want to solve puzzles or go on a quest, I use it because when running a server it is the OS that makes my life easiest. For my desktop system I use OS X because I find that easiest to use (although that's sadly becoming less and less true with each new version they release, but that's irrelevant to this discussion).

I don't want it to sound like I'm mad at those guys or that I think they have any obligation to simplify things, but all I am saying is that if you are not the type of person who started using Linux in middle school, but instead used Windows or maybe Apple products most of your life, it's frustrating to know that there might be better drivers and software out there but you can't use it because no one will post a simple set of steps on how to install and use it. Take the patched kernels as an example, I have read there are many benefits to running those but as far as I can tell no one has posted even the most basic explanation of exactly why they are beneficial and what they do, and how to install them (and I mean cookbook-style steps, not just something like "compile and install" which is meaningless to people who never do this). These guys all have a certain knowledge level and its as if they assume than if you don't have the requisite knowledge then you can probably just get by with the stock operating system and software and be satisfied with that. I don't think they are being mean or malicious or anything, I think maybe they are genuinely incapable of either simplifying what they are doing so the rest of us can understand, or else they just don't get it that not every Linux user is an Einstein.

K Shea wrote:

What I really wish is that they would offer ...... or an ISO file containing the modded kernels they use with Ubuntu Server (or whatever you'd need to install and run TVHeadEnd.

There is a guy on Rick's forum who builds and distributes complete images for the Rasp Pi. Just write it to your card and go. He has the fully patched drivers and everything you need to use your STV0900 device (Prof 7301, 7500, 8000, TBS 5980, 5925, 6925 etc...) as a software spectrum analyser with updateDVB app. If you need additional drivers or applications just ask and he will build them for you.

Another guy maintains a media_build system with patched drivers and TBS open source drivers. Install into any x86 computer is identical to installing the media_build drivers from linux TV.

I spent a whole day once setting up a tool chain to build a guy a patched module for MIPS so he could run his Prof 7500 on an AzBox and tune the 80mbps CBS national feeds MUX.

Saying we don't help people is pretty unfair. If you got booted off the forum I'm sure you deserved it.

I would not even attempt to run TVHeadEnd on a Raspberry Pi, how would you install tuner cards? I know there are USB tuners but I have heard that some of them have short life expectancies due to overheating, and anyway I would not try to pass significant amounts of data through the Raspberry Pi's USB port. That might work for people who only want to use one or two tuners and watch only low bitrate signals, but I sure wouldn't try it if you want to record multiple high definition signals at the same time. Not saying anyone else should or shouldn't, just that I wouldn't.

But as for the other guy that maintains a media_build system, who is that, and does he have a page explaining his project? And more importantly, do his TBS open source drivers support the TBS6905 and similar newer tuners? The last time I was looking at an open source TBS driver, my impression was that they support the older tuner cards just fine but not the newer ones. But if you can point me in the right direction, and assuming he has some contact information, I'd like to find out if support for the newer tuners have been added. Open source tuner drivers are a great idea, particularly if they improve upon the standard drivers from the manufacturer, but if they don't support your tuner card then you still can't use them. And I understand that these guys may simply not have access to the newer cards; it's not like TBS in any way supports third party driver development, and I'm sure they don't send out engineering samples to the open source driver developers.

I have no idea what a "tool chain" or a "module for MIPS" is so your third paragraph pretty much went right over my head. However I'm surprised to read that someone could run a Prof 7500 on an AzBox, because I thought an AzBox was just a fairly expensive receiver that had the unique distinction (among standalone receivers) of being able to receive and display 4:2:2 feeds in real time, and from what I read it doesn't do much else particularly well. The impression I got was that it was kind of a single-trick pony, so I'm a bit in awe of the fact that you could make it do that.

As for your last paragraph, in the first place the guy I mentioned never got booted off Rick's forum. I just said that Rick censored his posts or delayed them for a considerable period of time, so he gave up and moved on, because it's pretty hard to participate in discussions if everything you post is delayed by a day or so. Anyway I would not be so quick to assume he deserved anything because I've read similar complaints about American satellite forums in general; it seems like all of the major ones are run by hams, and they all have particular ideas about what should or should not be allowed. You can post things on Rick's that would be censored on SatelliteGuys and vise versa, and they don't always explain the particular things that will tick off a moderator. Also I have seen the accusation, and I believe this, that on most of the forums satellite dealers can write things that would get any regular user's post removed. I do know that guy is not into any kind of pirate or hacking crap, so that couldn't have been the problem. Anyway it is water under the bridge now, he wants nothing to do with that forum. My reason for staying out of that particular forum is that I just don't understand most of what they are writing about.

And I did not say that they don't help people. But there is help you can understand, and then there is help that is not really helpful because it all flies right over your head. If you try to help someone who knows little about Linux using the same language and minimal instructions you would use if they were a Linux guru, that's not helpful at all. I'm sure the people who offer that kind of help go to bed feeling good about themselves because they think they tried to help, but really they didn't, but I don't think they even realize that.

To give you an example of what I would love to see, there is a PBX (software telephone switch) program called PBX in a Flash, and what happens is you download an ISO file and burn it to a CD or DVD, or transfer it to a bootable memory stick, and then on the computer you want to install it on you boot from that media and it wipes and reformats the hard drive (it warns you first!) and then it installs the Linux operating system of your choice (I think you can choose Ubuntu or Scientific Linux), a firewall that is preconfigured, the Asterisk PBX program, the FreePBX GUI and configuration progroam for Asterisk, and various other software programs that assist in running a PBX or providing security. The big advantage is that after the install completes, everything works. You don't need to know how to set up Linux, it does it for you. You don't need to know how to install Asterisk or a firewall; it does all that for you. A half hour later you have fully functional PBX. Now I am not promoting that program, but I sure wish there was something like that for TVHeadEnd users, that perhaps would include the following:

Ubuntu Server (maybe Debian as a second choice) with whatever kernel hacks are necessary for the additional software to work
TVHeadEnd (NOT the OpenElec version, but it maybe should give you a choice which branch you want to install, such as the stable branch).
Third Party TBS drivers for the cards supported, and the stock TBS drivers for the cards only supported by TBS
Webmin (or something similar) for GUI based server configuration
A firewall that by default restricts access to devices on the same local network as the server
Help files that are actually understandable and show how to do common tasks.
And all the little extra addon utilities that can assist in tuning in a dish or tweaking the system for best performance.

Now I am under no illusion that anything like that is going to ever actually exist but that would be the ideal for people who are not Linux gurus. I don't think there are enough knowledgeable people in the hobby to create something like that. In a way it's a chicken and egg problem; if few people understand this stuff to begin with then even fewer would be capable of coming up with a distribution such as that, and I think it would be more than a one person job to maintain it.

Again I am not accusing people of not trying to be helpful. What I am saying is they have their own jargon and their own assumptions about what people already know, and if a user doesn't know the jargon and doesn't have the knowledge they think he has, then their best intentions to help won't really be helpful.

I don't think any user of open source software can expect to be spoon fed, it's nice when it happens but the investment in time must be huge.
Building an 'Appliance' is a nice idea but for which platform?
For myself I've stuck to x86 as the likes of Atom desktop boards have been cheap and have the hardware to make the make good use of the two Skystar USB s2 tuners I have.
The last rebuild prompted by Kodi 16 and an incompatible hts pvr plug-in was painless, it took far longer to read up on the new (to me) 4.08 UI.
The only tweak I have made is to up the 'nice' level to -15 for the hts process. this stopped the pauses in replay when typically streaming one HD recording and recording or starting to record two others.

I've just re-skinned Kodi with Titan and think the whole thing is brilliant, In the past I've worked with software that cost 20M to develop and by comparison was sh1t

Strebor