Tvheadend

Oliver Thomas wrote:

I'm looking at configuring a Raspberry Pi2, to use as a headless TVHeadend server and OSCAM server, interfacing with an Inverto IDL-400s SAT>IP device.

I would like to know what you would recommend for OS? I don't need a monitor, so it doesn't require a GUI. Ideally I just need something rock-solid and stable, which I can access via SSH.

The Pi and IDL-400s will both be hard wired via ethernet cat5e.

Would a Pi even be suitable for this? It will be serving numerous (approx 3-5 local) devices. Hopefully with HD!

Or is the USB-bus going to be a serious bottleneck? If so, what other devices would be a suitable (low-power) alternative? An ODroid C1 or something similar?

You've answered your own question, look into getting a Banana Pi M1 (anything with at least one giga port ideally more than one).

Thanks for the response. I'll give the Pi a miss for the moment and use my microserver.

I'm currently running TVh on a pi 2 with 2 usb DVB S2 (HD) feeds. It can happily record 2 HD streams, while showing a third to my Openelec kodi pi in another room. I'm also using a server for recording storage. Bear in mind that the USB bandwidth is 480 Mbps, and an average HD stream (Freesat) is approx 17Mbps

Oliver Thomas wrote:

Would a Pi even be suitable for this? It will be serving numerous (approx 3-5 local) devices. Hopefully with HD!

Or is the USB-bus going to be a serious bottleneck? If so, what other devices would be a suitable (low-power) alternative? An ODroid C1 or something similar?

I don't think the USB bandwidth will be a big issue - I run 3x DVB-T tuners on a Pi2.
Actually I'd be more concerned about TVH stability, 4.0.8 seems to be much more crash-prone than 3.4 was.

Chris MacIntosh-Dixon wrote:

I'm currently running TVh on a pi 2 with 2 usb DVB S2 (HD) feeds. It can happily record 2 HD streams, while showing a third to my Openelec kodi pi in another room. I'm also using a server for recording storage. Bear in mind that the USB bandwidth is 480 Mbps, and an average HD stream (Freesat) is approx 17Mbps

Yes - though the proposed tuners for the OP are Ethernet Sat>IP (which give you the best value for DVB-S2 tuners at the moment as they work out cheaper than USB solutions now on a per-tuner basis). If you use the internal Ethernet adaptor on the Pi / Pi 2 / Pi 3 you are limited to 100Mbs rather than 480Mbs for streams (though the Hard Disc recording will be outside of this and use the potential 380Mbs of 'spare' USB 2.0 bandwith - though in reality you won't max this out)

Personally I'd use a cheap x86 box for PVR Backend duties once you get over a couple of tuners or a couple of streams. If you can find a second hand Chromebox they work well (GigE, small 16GB SSD for system files, neat and quiet). I've got one with 6 Freeview / Freeview HD dongles connected to it and it works pretty well, though have used another one with a Sat>IP box. (I use external USB or NAS storage for recordings)

Stephen Neal wrote:

Chris MacIntosh-Dixon wrote:

I'm currently running TVh on a pi 2 with 2 usb DVB S2 (HD) feeds. It can happily record 2 HD streams, while showing a third to my Openelec kodi pi in another room. I'm also using a server for recording storage. Bear in mind that the USB bandwidth is 480 Mbps, and an average HD stream (Freesat) is approx 17Mbps

Yes - though the proposed tuners for the OP are Ethernet Sat>IP (which give you the best value for DVB-S2 tuners at the moment as they work out cheaper than USB solutions now on a per-tuner basis). If you use the internal Ethernet adaptor on the Pi / Pi 2 / Pi 3 you are limited to 100Mbs rather than 480Mbs for streams (though the Hard Disc recording will be outside of this and use the potential 380Mbs of 'spare' USB 2.0 bandwith - though in reality you won't max this out)

Personally I'd use a cheap x86 box for PVR Backend duties once you get over a couple of tuners or a couple of streams. If you can find a second hand Chromebox they work well (GigE, small 16GB SSD for system files, neat and quiet, decent Haswell Celeron dual core CPU). I've got one with 6 Freeview / Freeview HD dongles connected to it and it works pretty well, though have used another one with a Sat>IP box. (I use external USB or NAS storage for recordings)

Hiro Protagonist wrote:

Actually I'd be more concerned about TVH stability, 4.0.8 seems to be much more crash-prone than 3.4 was.

Just a note that since I compiled 4.0.8 for the Pi 2 it's been great stability-wise.