Tvheadend

I don't have any experience with python but wanted to get the example running so I can port it to node, however, I can't get it working. I just added this to the end of the example htsp.py to get it to connect:

client = HTSPClient(('host', '9982') );
client.hello();

This gives me

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "htsp.py", line 113, in <module>
    client.hello();
  File "htsp.py", line 80, in hello
    self.send('hello', args)
  File "htsp.py", line 65, in send
    self._sock.send(htsmsg.serialize(args))
TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'

I'm trying to port it.. but without a working example it's difficult! It's probably a very simple problem but my python knowledge is non-existent.