New Setup: Backend (LiveTV, Timeshift) to Multiple Frontend & IPTV Devices.
New Setup: Backend (LiveTV, Timeshift) to Multiple Frontend & IPTV Devices.
OK,
Where to start.....?
Im new to this whole backend / frontend thing 
but I have setup networks and very much into satellite and have configured dreamboxes / VU+ boxes and even servers with oscam / cccam, etc... so not a complete newbie 
I will try and outline what I woud like to do and list hardware I plan on purchasing but would much appreciate some input from you more experienced users!
Backend:
I am currently looking at a couple of Dell Poweredge servers either 2x dual core, 4gb ram etc.. or a slightly more expensive 2x quad core, 8gb ram etc..
In this I will put in either a dual or quad satellite pci card. ( will probably go for the higher spec server and a quad satellite card.)
Software:
TVheadend (I have read that there are a couple of other backend software such as: MythTV or VDR... but from reading it seems that TVHeadend is the solution im after)
Softcam:
I will be looking to utilise my exisiting sky card to decode premium channels so believe I will have to setup oscam/cccam, I have a few smargo's laying around & I have setup oscam/cccam before so that part should not be too hard.
Frontend:
Each bedroom will have an Android TV box which is capable of running XBMC & IPTV and will be connected via Cat6 into the local network.
Live TV QUESTION++: I would like for these to be able to timeshift / pause & record.. if possible... would these frontend's record onto there own storage or record onto the backend storage?)
VOD QUESTION++: Is it possible to host media on the backend so that the frontends could select and play media?
IPTV:
Now I would also like to setup a system so I could stream multiple channels over the internet to an IPTV capable device, mainly my iPad / iPhone but would also like to install a IPTV box in my holiday home so I can watch BBC etc.. without the massive dish required 
Due to having limited upload speed, I would probably be looking to utilise one of those stream providers which re-stream what you stream to them.... something like dacast.com? if possible.
Hardware QUESTION++: woud I need additional hardware for this type of IPTV setup? like an encoder? or can TVHeadend take care of this?
Diagram: attached, sorry for the crappy quality lol
If someone could help me answer the above questions and if the setup im looking to achieve is possible utilising MythTV.
Thanks for your time!
Replies (7)
RE: New Setup: Backend (LiveTV, Timeshift) to Multiple Frontend & IPTV Devices.
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Added by MrRepel Joooow about 12 years ago
You really dont need a dual quadcore setup for tvheadend. My server is a quadcore Atom board witch runs at a load avarage of 0,26%. ( dual DVB-S and Oscam on Ubuntu 12.04 ) This means a single core Atom would be enough and still would have 75% to spare. If your server runs 24/7 with a dual quadcore you'll pay $$$ to your energy provider...
Transcoding is a other story. I use VLC for simple encoding/transcoding jobs.
RE: New Setup: Backend (LiveTV, Timeshift) to Multiple Frontend & IPTV Devices.
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Added by Adam Sutton about 12 years ago
Scott,
I'll try and do my best to cover your questions, but there's a lot of them
Backend (HW)¶
As mentioned above the requirements for a DVB backend are pretty meagre. For the most part its doing very simple data shovelling, read from DVB/IPTV source and push to network (or record to disk). There is a bit more to it than that, but not a lot.
I originally tested TVH on a very old 800MHz machine, it more than easily coped with DVB-S. I had a couple of DVB-S HD streams that it did struggle with. Now I've moved it onto my NAS box, a simple dual core AMD E-350 and that barely breaks a sweat most of the time.
Again as mentioned above, if you want your TVH box to do on the fly transcoding (you'll need john-tornblom's fork for that) then you will definitely need more grunt.
Backend (SW)¶
As you noted there are 3 main options for SW, clearly tvheadend is the best But in all seriousness they all have pro's and con's and you really need to read up on what they are. But I know that MythTV is by far the most feature rich, but VDR/TVH both tend to be much lighter weight and generally TVH appears the simplest to get working.
Timeshift is not supported in TVH, however it may be soon, watch this space. The intention is that live pause/timeshift will be done on the backend, since the frontends are often thin'ish clients. Certainly mine are, with very small amounts of local disk space.
Descrambling is something I've never gotten into, but TVH certain supports most configurations, try asking in #hts.
IPTV¶
If you want to output IPTV currently its not supported in TVH, I have a feeling it was in the past and I know a lot of the code is. It might re-surface though.
If you want to capture IPTV, then it needs to be a MPEGTS stream sent via UDP/multicast.
Hopefully that's a start.
Adam
RE: New Setup: Backend (LiveTV, Timeshift) to Multiple Frontend & IPTV Devices.
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Added by scott oconnell about 12 years ago
Hi, Thank you for getting back to me.
So would something like this be suffeciant? - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140741350082?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
Also After further reading, would I require a graphics card? if yes is there anything specific that the graphics card would need (support wise) and again what sort of spec should the graphics card be?
The servers I have been looking at have the following onboard: Graphics Card: Embedded ATI ES1000 with 16MB memory
Highly appreciated you guys taking the time to answer my questions!
RE: New Setup: Backend (LiveTV, Timeshift) to Multiple Frontend & IPTV Devices.
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Added by MrRepel Joooow about 12 years ago
You dont need a high spec graphics card. The backend is only a "website" for tvheadend.
RE: New Setup: Backend (LiveTV, Timeshift) to Multiple Frontend & IPTV Devices.
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Added by Roland Rohde about 12 years ago
I'd like to chime in here and say that there is another backend solution that offers quite a few features that TVHeadend does not. Only problem is: it's not free (costs 15€) and it runs on Windows.
It's called DVBViewer (Backend is the DVBViewer Recording Service) and might be worth a look. If you are not going to use ultra-low power servers like the Raspberry Pi (which is what I am thinking about doing currently) this is a good alternative.
It should be able to do all the things you require and even supports SAT>IP already.
Your clients would have to either run Windows (then you can use the full featureset of the Software) or use VLC or XBMC, but then you won't have EPG and so on. There is an Android App (DVBViewer Controller) that works OK but is not really complete yet.
The advantage of DVBViewer is it's easy channel management, easy recording (you get a webinterface that is very well adapted for use on mobile phones and also a real full webinterface for regular browsers) and of course a complete featureset including UPnP/DLNA which makes it possible to stream to any DLNA compatible device (without EPG of course). Transcoding is also possible with this backend, including streaming to Android and iOs devices. For this you need beefy hardware of course. PayTV is also supported, can't give you any personal experience info on that though since I use only FTA.
There is an XBMC plugin currently being developed that works OK on my Raspberry Pi with OpenElec, currently XBMC support is not as far advanced as it is for TVHeadend.
I'm not trying to advertise this software here, just pointing out another option. I'm currently using both programs, one on a Windows 7 Server (Core i3) with a Dual DVB S2 card, receiving from 2 SAT positions and streaming to a Raspberry Pi a couple of computers and my Android, and one (the TVHeadend one) streaming Live-TV from the Astra 28.2 SAT over the internet to a friend who lives at the other end of town. Both solutions work, both have their pros and cons, for a larger setup I'd probably use DVBViewer since it is easier to manage (IMHO) when you have several receivers and SAT positions.
RE: New Setup: Backend (LiveTV, Timeshift) to Multiple Frontend & IPTV Devices.
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Added by Peter Errity almost 12 years ago
Backend:
I have an old Dell Poweredge (Dual 1GHz with 4GB RAM) in the attic, as a tv/media server, fitted with dual DVBS sat tuner and a hybrid Analogoue/DVBT tuner for digital tv.
Software:
TVheadend runs on the server (backend), it manages the tuners and epg using xml scraper and does a great job I might add.
I might have used MythTV for the frontend and backend (I had used it on a standalone desktop before installing the server in the attic) but it runs a GUI interface for configuration and I didn't want GNOME or other desktop software running on the server using up resources.
Softcam:
Have not tried this - so no idea.
Frontend:
I use XBMC on a number of machines usually running on Ubuntu (including a tiny asus eeepc with a 600MHz cpu. The asus can struggle with HD but otherwise its fine. XBMC is a very polished frontend and amazed me when it went off and catalogued my music and movie collection (that reside on the server).
Live TV QUESTION++:
Timeshift/pause & record not yet possible with XBMC but I believe it is on the way and possibly available in beta version somewhere - though I think XBMC wil manage these function locally on whatever frontend is being used at the time i.e. store the recording locally - so may not be the ideal solution. The pause button and timer function have appeared in "XBMC 11 Eden" & ":XBMC 12 Frodo" but dont yet work (for me as yet) TVHeadend can however be accessed via a browser page for configuration but you can also browse the epg and set up future or start immediate recordings. Once a recording has started it is available on any of the XBMC frontends for viewing and using it this way guarantees that all recordings and media can be stored on one machine i.e the server.
VOD QUESTION++:
As above - XBMC excels at this and retains the EPG info for any of the TVHeadend recordings and tracks what has been watched etc.
IPTV:
Have not tried this myself yet but maybe - just maybe - XBMC Frontend to TVHeadend backend wil work fine over wan or man and not just lan. Will be trying this out at some stage and looking forward to the result.
Due to having limited upload speed.... something like dacast.com? if possible. Hardware QUESTION++: woud I need additional hardware for this type of IPTV setup? like an encoder? or can TVHeadend take care of this?
Linux software "crtmpserver" - might fit in here somehow
I hope this is of some value.
RE: New Setup: Backend (LiveTV, Timeshift) to Multiple Frontend & IPTV Devices.
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Added by michele terzi about 4 years ago
hi maybe someone can help me, i have an iptv list how do i make it multivision?