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Recommend Hardware

Added by Adam Sutton about 12 years ago

I've created a wiki page DVBCards to make a note about known working cards, and peoples general thoughts etc...

So far it only include TBS6981 as that's what I use, but hopefuly we'll add stuff over time.

If you provide a post here about a card that you like/dislike reasons why etc... Any pointers on getting it working, that sort of thing. I'll try and move stuff over to the wiki.

Regards
Adam


Replies (169)

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Jack Bamford over 5 years ago

Martin Walter, i originally thought he was talking about Terrestrial not Satellite, my bad for more than one Signals such as playback and recording a Dual LNB/Low Noise Block will be required or either a Quad LND if you're going to be using more two or 4 Tuners. Terrestrial with more than one Tuner will only work if the location has good Signal if bad signal then a Booster and a Splitter will be required.

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Gert Jansen over 5 years ago

Martin Underwood wrote:

[snip] Jack, if you're replying to Robert's posting, I think you're at cross purposes. Robert was saying that for satellite you need a dish with as many LNBs as you have tuners [snip]

That isn't exactly true either. An LNB can have more than one output, and thus connect ot more than one receiver/tuner - or diseqc switch.

In my case I have 3 quad LNBs (with the LNBs pointing to Astra 1, 2 and 3 respectively) and have set up the LNBs to connect to 4 disqc switches, which in turn provide access to all 3 satellites for my 4 receivers/tuners.

The number of tuners must (at least) be matched by the number of diseqc swichtes (if more than one LNB is in use) and number of outputs on the LNB

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Giles Puckett over 5 years ago

Only have experience with DVB-T as that is all we have here. TVH (on a Raspberry Pi) works beautifully with a HDHomerun Quattro, 4 tuners can be used at once with no stuttering of video served or dropouts in recordings. Also worked well on a Sony PlayTV dual tuner. All tuners are recognised immediately without need to install extra drivers, etc. (I installed LibreELEC to get TVH primarily)

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by V V almost 5 years ago

Hi all!
I need a confirmation that TVheadend is capable of doing this with proper TBS DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 capture cards:
1. Have 1 FHD (1080p) MUX via DVB-T2 and inputting at least 6 channels from them
2. transcoding those FHD (1080p) 6 channels to 6 multiple profiles (example bitrates, at high quality):
  • H.264 720p 3Mbps
  • H.264 720p 2.5Mbps
  • H.264 480p 1.5Mbps
  • H.264 480p 1.0Mbps
  • H.264 360 800Kbps
  • H.264 360 400Kbps

3. Streaming all those 6 channels with 6 profiles via UDP, separate unicast streams to another server per every stream profile
4. Same 1-3 points for DVB-S2 channels, also 6 of them or more.

Is it possible to do all of this via TVHeadend running on Linux?

And yeah, some recommendation for a sever hardware or PC specification that could cope with this would be great :) 
Also, recommendation for another alternative other then TBS cards are welcome too if such exists. 

​​​​​​​Thanks!

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by saen acro almost 5 years ago

V V wrote:

Hi all!
I need a confirmation that TVheadend is capable of doing this with proper TBS DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 capture cards:
1. Have 1 FHD (1080p) MUX via DVB-T2 and inputting at least 6 channels from them
2. transcoding those FHD (1080p) 6 channels to 6 multiple profiles (example bitrates, at high quality):
  • H.264 720p 3Mbps
  • H.264 720p 2.5Mbps
  • H.264 480p 1.5Mbps
  • H.264 480p 1.0Mbps
  • H.264 360 800Kbps
  • H.264 360 400Kbps

3. Streaming all those 6 channels with 6 profiles via UDP, separate unicast streams to another server per every stream profile
4. Same 1-3 points for DVB-S2 channels, also 6 of them or more.

Is it possible to do all of this via TVHeadend running on Linux?

And yeah, some recommendation for a sever hardware or PC specification that could cope with this would be great :) 
Also, recommendation for another alternative other then TBS cards are welcome too if such exists. 

​​​​​​​Thanks!

1. no diference
2. yes you can
3. under developing but TOMCAST can do that
4. same as 1

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by V V almost 5 years ago

saen acro wrote:

V V wrote:

Hi all!
I need a confirmation that TVheadend is capable of doing this with proper TBS DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 capture cards:
1. Have 1 FHD (1080p) MUX via DVB-T2 and inputting at least 6 channels from them
2. transcoding those FHD (1080p) 6 channels to 6 multiple profiles (example bitrates, at high quality):
  • H.264 720p 3Mbps
  • H.264 720p 2.5Mbps
  • H.264 480p 1.5Mbps
  • H.264 480p 1.0Mbps
  • H.264 360 800Kbps
  • H.264 360 400Kbps

3. Streaming all those 6 channels with 6 profiles via UDP, separate unicast streams to another server per every stream profile
4. Same 1-3 points for DVB-S2 channels, also 6 of them or more.

Is it possible to do all of this via TVHeadend running on Linux?

And yeah, some recommendation for a sever hardware or PC specification that could cope with this would be great :) 
Also, recommendation for another alternative other then TBS cards are welcome too if such exists. 

​​​​​​​Thanks!

1. no diference
2. yes you can
3. under developing but TOMCAST can do that
4. same as 1

Thanks for your reply :)

Can you recommend a hardware configuration that would do that? Would "Ryzen 9 3900x" CPU be capable of doing such a job with let's say 12 channels?
Also, which TBS card is approved that it works with TVHeadend and is capable of receiving simultaneous DVB-S2 and DVB-T2 channels?

Thanks!

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Martin Bednar almost 5 years ago

V V wrote:

Can you recommend a hardware configuration that would do that? Would "Ryzen 9 3900x" CPU be capable of doing such a job with let's say 12 channels?
Also, which TBS card is approved that it works with TVHeadend and is capable of receiving simultaneous DVB-S2 and DVB-T2 channels?

Linux support is what you need. Tvheadend sits on top of that.
From browsing the TBS web: https://shop.tbsdtv.com/multistandard-c-44.html
https://shop.tbsdtv.com/tbs6522-multi-standard-dual-tuner-pcie-card-dvbs2x-or-s2-or-s-or-t2-or-t-or-c2-or-c-or-isdbt-p-148.html

I also like products from digitaldevices. In your case something like :
https://digitaldevices.de/products/dvb_components/max_sx8/
https://digitaldevices.de/products/dvb_components/max_a8/
Beware that per their support the required signal strength for DVB-T is of at least '-44dBm for good reception'. (Cine-T2 card, but still)

Another thing to consider is whether you want to use unicable, or have one coaxial cable per sattelite LNB. DVB-S reception works completely differently from DVB-T. (4 disjoint possible tuner configurations -- V/H polarization + hi/lo freq).

As for transcoding hardware, I'd suggest you go with something that can do hw encoding. Check the number of encoding streams the hw supports. I'd also recommend a Ryzen, but an APU, precisely because some encoding/decoding could be offloaded the the integrated GPU. I myself have an Intel J5005 precisely for this reason (and low consumption).

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Joe User almost 5 years ago

You should better describe your requirements. Are you looking for continuous, concurrent connections or on demand? What is the "another server"?
12X6 = 72 concurrent transcodings - that will take a lot of power.

You would probably be better off using MuMuDVB with an FFserver, it would use UDP and it can take advantage of FFMpeg's aboility to produce multiple outputs from a single input - this would certainly help lower CPU usage.

Some of these may be outdated, but it should get you started.
http://mumudvb.net/
http://mumudvb.net/documentation/asciidoc/mumudvb-2.0.0/TRANSCODE_EXTERNAL.html
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Creating%20multiple%20outputs

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by saen acro almost 5 years ago

Joe User wrote:

You should better describe your requirements. Are you looking for continuous, concurrent connections or on demand? What is the "another server"?
12X6 = 72 concurrent transcodings - that will take a lot of power.

You would probably be better off using MuMuDVB with an FFserver, it would use UDP and it can take advantage of FFMpeg's aboility to produce multiple outputs from a single input - this would certainly help lower CPU usage.

Some of these may be outdated, but it should get you started.
http://mumudvb.net/
http://mumudvb.net/documentation/asciidoc/mumudvb-2.0.0/TRANSCODE_EXTERNAL.html
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Creating%20multiple%20outputs

TVH + Tomcast zero problems on multicast
https://tvheadend.org/issues/5723

GPU transcoding is recommended
ffmpeg can be managed by https://github.com/remux-io/remuxme

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by V V almost 5 years ago

saen acro wrote:

Joe User wrote:

You should better describe your requirements. Are you looking for continuous, concurrent connections or on demand? What is the "another server"?
12X6 = 72 concurrent transcodings - that will take a lot of power.

You would probably be better off using MuMuDVB with an FFserver, it would use UDP and it can take advantage of FFMpeg's aboility to produce multiple outputs from a single input - this would certainly help lower CPU usage.

Some of these may be outdated, but it should get you started.
http://mumudvb.net/
http://mumudvb.net/documentation/asciidoc/mumudvb-2.0.0/TRANSCODE_EXTERNAL.html
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Creating%20multiple%20outputs

TVH + Tomcast zero problems on multicast
https://tvheadend.org/issues/5723

GPU transcoding is recommended
ffmpeg can be managed by https://github.com/remux-io/remuxme

Remux.me sound as a great project. But no updates for 3 years doesn't sound good to me.
Also, their official site doesn't exist anymore, sadly...

Alternatives?

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by saen acro almost 5 years ago

V V wrote:

Remux.me sound as a great project. But no updates for 3 years doesn't sound good to me.
Also, their official site doesn't exist anymore, sadly...

Alternatives?

Why need to broke something with work?

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by V V almost 5 years ago

saen acro wrote:

V V wrote:

Remux.me sound as a great project. But no updates for 3 years doesn't sound good to me.
Also, their official site doesn't exist anymore, sadly...

Alternatives?

Why need to broke something with work?

What do you mean?
It works fine? Anyone using it in production, daily?

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Jack Bamford almost 5 years ago

Update, The QuadHD from Hauppauge is still working great, upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 recently and the card is still working great, All 4 Tuners works in Tvheadend. Using Kodi as the frontend on Pi 4 and 3, EPG Guide works as it should.

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Patrick Krause over 4 years ago

Hi There,

I'm in the process of putting together a setup for my house.

I've got my endpoints covered (Kramer KDS-DEC5 H.264 decoder), and also a Technogym treadmill.

What card would you recommend for UHD satellite broadcast?

Also, is Tvheadend able to transcode the streams? The Technogym treadmill is very specific in what it requires - resolution no higher than 999x999, and 1 IP address for each channel, here's a link to the user manual. [[http://www.tgdirect.technogym.com/upload/manuali/IPTV%20quick%20service%20man_1-7_ING.pdf]]

Let me know if you have any questions

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Craig Sutherland over 4 years ago

Hey There

I am running TBS5990 Dual tuner with Wintel W8 pro NUC. Debian 4.19.98-1 (2020-01-26) x86_64 and Tvheadend 4.3-1857.

Built with Crazy Cat TBS drivers, both tuners work flawlessly. Never got this tuner to work properly with Raspberry PI ARM, but hasn't missed a beat with the NUC.

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Marc Ominus about 4 years ago

How about those 2 cards?

#TBS6909-X V2 DVB-S2X/S2/S Octa Tuner PCIe Card - one PCI Express x1, x4, x8 or x16 slot
https://www.tbsdtv.com/products/tbs6909-x-dvb-s-s2-s2x-octa-tuner-pcie-card.html
https://www.tbsiptv.com/tbs6909-x-dvb-s-s2-s2x-octa-tuner-pcie-card
US$xxx.xx

#TBS6209 DVB-T2/C2/T/C/ISDB-T Octa TV Tuner - one PCI Express x1, x4, x8 or x16 slot
https://www.tbsdtv.com/products/tbs6209-dvb-t2-c2-tc-isdbt-octatv-tuner.html
https://www.tbsiptv.com/tbs6209-dvb-t2-c2-t-c-isdb-t-octatv-tuner
US$319.99

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Anders Gustafsson over 3 years ago

Hard to say "Recommend", but I just bought a TerraTec Cinergy T2 USb Stick and yes, It seems to work. Use it for DVB-T2.

tvburk:~ # uname -a
Linux tvburk 5.3.18-lp152.63-default #1 SMP Mon Feb 1 17:31:55 UTC 2021 (98caa86) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Bus 003 Device 009: ID eb1a:8179 eMPIA Technology, Inc.

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Martin Schlatter over 3 years ago

On the list with URL https://tvheadend.org/projects/tvheadend/wiki/DVBCards I cannot add anything. Does anybody want to add hardware or maybe delete the list?

RE: Recommend Hardware - Added by Rahul Paul over 3 years ago

It begin immediately after I enabled second tuner. Tuner is without (with fully configured is the same, of course) configured LNB, is only enabled...and stream from first tuner is frezing.

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