Rasberry as DreamBox? Network version.

@mebepi, the main idea, at least mine, is to let Pi record and stream the channels directly so i wouldn't have to keep HTPC running all day, all the time. The idea of vTuner seems fine, but won't help to transform Pi into PVR. Out of curiousity, what's gonna happend when 2 or more "clients" will try to access shared DVB device?

Hi,

Once you start the vtunerc (client) it look for an available tuner of the type you define on your internal network and it lock it for its own use. So 2 clients cannot access the same tuner at the same time. But once you stop the vtunerc the tuner is back available for others on the network.

So no the goal of vtuner is not to turn RPi into a PVR, but if you are running a PVR application that can handle DVBAPI on your RPi, you don't need to physically install a tuner on your RPi. You can use the tuner of your Enigma2 STB for example, or tuners installed on a Linux PC, or use a NessieDVB hardware box.

This is something to keep in mind, I think, when we build a HTPC around RPi.

Mebepi

For those of you that are interested on checking RPi performance with PVR funtionalities i've written this article.

Thanks for the article! Can you provide us with the images of Openelec and TvHeadend?

What's the way to go when compiling for Arch Linux? I've seen a number of methods to compile for Debian, but none for Arch. E.g. what packages should you install before compiling TvHeadend?

BTW, has TvHeadend moved from Git repo?

What's the way to go when compiling for Arch Linux? I've seen a number of methods to compile for Debian, but none for Arch. E.g. what packages should you install before compiling TvHeadend?

BTW, has TvHeadend moved from Git repo?

In fact on Arch you need to install gcc (and it's dependancies) and you're ready to go. Something seems to happen with GIT repo so here's the source i was using ( http://arcain.atomix.in/tvh/tvheadend-07242012.zip ). Just unpack, run "./configure --disable-avahi" and then "make" and finally "make install". Once done, binary should be in /usr/local/bin. Remember to start it with "-C" parameter for the first time to be able to log in via www.

Thanks Arcain!

Has anybody run into 'broken pipe' errors in TvHeadend?

For those of you that are interested on checking RPi performance with PVR funtionalities i've written this article.

Thanks for the article! Can you provide us with the images of Openelec and TvHeadend?

Here it's the link of my OpenELEC image. Later i'll provide my TVheadend add-on compiled and ready for the RPi.

What's the way to go when compiling for Arch Linux? I've seen a number of methods to compile for Debian, but none for Arch. E.g. what packages should you install before compiling TvHeadend?

BTW, has TvHeadend moved from Git repo?

I'm guessing you're trying to built it on the RPi, i haven't done that way. I've compiled both OpenELEC and TVheadend on a virtual machine running Ubuntu.

Thanks Arcain!

Has anybody run into 'broken pipe' errors in TvHeadend?

When does this errors occur? If during streaming it might be due to tuner loosing power. Pi gives max 100mA on USB ports instead of standard 500mA. In that case you might need an USB hub with external power. I haven't seen that error myself at all, even despite the all the problems i had.

Thanks Arcain!

Has anybody run into 'broken pipe' errors in TvHeadend?

When does this errors occur? If during streaming it might be due to tuner loosing power. Pi gives max 100mA on USB ports instead of standard 500mA. In that case you might need an USB hub with external power. I haven't seen that error myself at all, even despite the all the problems i had.

I'm already using a usb hub unfortunately. I guess I'll just need to keep looking.

hi tpires

Thanks for your howto and the comparison
And for the openelec image, because the compilation? (right word?) doesnt work for me
BUt now i am missing the tvheadend plugin.

Can you upload this also? Thanks.

One question:

What driver are included in the openelec image?
I habe a haupauge 930c tv Stick, for dvb-c and dvb-t and this link (http://michael.fuckner.net/me/blog/index.php?/archives/501-DVB-C-unter-Linux-mit-WinTV-HVR-930C-HD.html explains what drivers are needed. Are these included?

Finally got an IT9135 based DVB-T srick (so called Wand TV). After compiling the whole new media_build drivers and finding correct firmware stick reports as 'ITE 9135(9005) Generic' and can be used for backend. Sadly, it didn't help. Still getting a lot of issues with tvheadend and again it's better, but still not perfect in mumudvb and vdr. In fact i don't see any difference between that and my previous tuner and again, that new stick works perfectly on OpenELEC based HTPC that stands next to my Pi. Even got a 7 port D-Link USB HUB to provide more power to the stick but it's a no go.

Last thing i might try is to check tpires OpenELEC image for Pi but hardly believe it'll change a thing in my case. Seems i have to pass on PVR on Pi in my conditions.

do you now this distributon: http://www.minidvblinux.de/

i will try it as i find some time

There is also a thread about the raspberry pi in the development section of 3.0.1 in the forum,
but all in german, sorry.

Finally got an IT9135 based DVB-T srick (so called Wand TV). After compiling the whole new media_build drivers and finding correct firmware stick reports as 'ITE 9135(9005) Generic' and can be used for backend. Sadly, it didn't help. Still getting a lot of issues with tvheadend and again it's better, but still not perfect in mumudvb and vdr. In fact i don't see any difference between that and my previous tuner and again, that new stick works perfectly on OpenELEC based HTPC that stands next to my Pi. Even got a 7 port D-Link USB HUB to provide more power to the stick but it's a no go.

Last thing i might try is to check tpires OpenELEC image for Pi but hardly believe it'll change a thing in my case. Seems i have to pass on PVR on Pi in my conditions.

Or try a different approach: I have a Synology NAS running 24/7. On this NAS, I have TVHeadend running, streaming the DVB-T content to my network. My PI runs Raspbmc and shows all files like photo's and video's. And yes, it can show Live TV, provided the GPU can decode the stream (MPEG-4). Unfortunately, my DVB-T provider is only using MPEG-2, so I have audio, but a black screen....

If we could get a decoding license for MPEG-2, we would be all set...

That's different goal. I'd like to have my Pi to work as both PVR and streaming server 24/7. I do have 2 HTPCs running OpenELEC with Live TV support so i'd like to connect to tvheadend (preferably) on Pi to stream channels to those HTPC clients. I simly cannot understand why there's so many issues with that in my case, like video buffering and artifacting, sound freezing and stuff like that while same tuner connected to HTPC with same driver and same version of tvheadend works perfect.

The only thing that changed when using ITE based tuner is that XBMC Live TV plugin reports better reception (95/95 on ITE and 39/85 on RTL one) so it seems that new one is in fact more sensitive and should cause less problems.

Dear forum

I hope you can help me out

It is my goal to use the rpi as a server for streaming TV (Netherlands)

I have a IT9135 based DVB-T USB dongle, it is working with my WinXP machine and Ubuntu machine. The Ubuntu machine loads the module dvb-usb-it913x. Also the firmware dvb-usb-it9135-01.fw is loaded. The dongle works fine and I can stream TV over the internet.

I already have a history with the RPI trying to get it to work with this usb dvb-T dongle, I downloaded the Raspbian Wheezy. Than I downloaded the linuxtv dvb media modules and tried a build. Alas errors beyond my knowledge occurred. I than downloaded the 3.2.23 kernel that is supposed to have the modules already in the kernel. Configured the kernel for the IT9135 and compiled it (yes I used the Rpi to compile it. Took about 8 hours or more).
Ok that worked, installed the modules and restarted. I have a working Rpi with kernel 3.2.23 Hurray
Then I inserted the dvb-t dongle using a usb-hub. The device is listed in in the lsusb command.

But alas, the firmware is not loaded, the module is not loaded and in the /dev directory there is no dvb device.
Ok just modprobe the module then
The module is then loaded, but still no /dev/dvb or firmware

Next I again downloaded the latest dvb-media module sources. Now the build works and I could install the modules. But now i get failure when I try to modprobe the module dvb-usb-it913x. Googled it and it points out to be a mismatch between kernel and latest drivers.
Finally a installed the modules again from my initial compilation of kernel 3.2.23. The error is now gone, but I am still at a loss. Firmware is not loading.

I read in this post that some of you got it working. Pls point me in a direction were I can find the solution.

Or maybe someone can send me the right module?

regards.

From the Netherlands

Well.. does this new mpeg2 licensed decorer take the load off, so that CPU can steream .ts more fluently? probably not.

Well.. does this new mpeg2 licensed decorer take the load off, so that CPU can steream .ts more fluently? probably not.

http://youtu.be/svTnVUW_mME

Magic happend recently. Been reading a lot about issues with USB and Pi which were most likely responsible for all those errors i had. After unplugging PI for few weeks i decided to apply full update on my Arch on Pi that included new kernel (3.2.27), recompiled back drivers for RTL tuner and try new tvheadend. Surprisingly everything works fine now, no artifacts, no trash in tvheadend logs, clear picture. Most of my problems is gone. New Tvheadend for some reason doesn't support recording and streaming different channels or watching 2 or more different channels from the same MUX at the same time but the older version (from the abandoned 2.x series) still works, allows that and produces no errors right now as well. Even recording to SD card inserted in Pi (33% CPU usage while recording and streaming one SD channel) works.

I'm not sure about HD, but that should be fine as well. It streams better than before (MPEG-4, 720p) at about 35-40% per one channel, but since i get bad reception on that MUX i can't test it properly.

Pi finally became usable for me, jupi

Thanks Arcain!

Has anybody run into 'broken pipe' errors in TvHeadend?

When does this errors occur? If during streaming it might be due to tuner loosing power. Pi gives max 100mA on USB ports instead of standard 500mA. In that case you might need an USB hub with external power. I haven't seen that error myself at all, even despite the all the problems i had.

I'm already using a usb hub unfortunately. I guess I'll just need to keep looking.

Actually it should not be connected with USB power, because I am using IPTV (no usb device connected) and I am also getting "broken pipe" errors. I am using latest RC5, even latest 3.3 TvHeadend..

Hi everyone.

I'm trying to set up something very similar to this on Rasbmc with Tvheadend and also with OSCAM (I will post more details in case of success). I'm about to get the DVB-S2 tuner but I am not sure about one thing. Do you guys think the Pi will be able to descramble the HDTV (MPEG4) signal in realtime? Is that a very CPU-intensive process (I've never tried it before)?

I heard that people are doing this on some routers that are still less powerful than Pi. As long as you're not gonna try to software decode (no idea if it's even possible) these channels it should be just fine.

Has anybody saw this?

Dreambox ReStream - Watch live TV over the internet

I just want to show my personal software package that allows you to watch tv from your dreambox over the internet.
This is done with VLC and Wowza Media Server 2. It supports multi bitrate, RTSP, iPhone and Smooth streaming. Thanks for the 10 connections developer license so that you can use Wowza for free.
Just select your channel and start streaming. This is all done with an AJAX website. A demo can be found here: http://theyosh.nl/speeltuin/restream_2.0/. It can be down from time to time because of the power bill.
You can download the restream software from http://theyosh.nl/projects/dreambox-restream/sourcecode

Source:
http://www.wowza.com/forums/showthread. ... e-internet

I haven't tried it out on the raspberry pi yet though..

Hi

I've been trying to get reliable recording on the Pi using an RTL2832U device (August DVB-T205) in the UK, and seem to have a bit more success than you.

I'm very new to this, but keen to learn.
I've juts ordered one of these and a Pi, were there lots of hoops to jump through to get this working with the PI?

Thanks!
Ivan

I managed to use the latest media tree with 2012-09-18-wheezy-raspbian. Here are some script that automates most of the build steps.

First, we need the source for the kernel that is used in that distribution (because it it not available in package on raspbian):
https://gist.github.com/3893319
It collects the Source, .config and Module.symvers.

Next step is getting the latest media tree:
http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/How_t ... ce_Drivers

git clone git://linuxtv.org/media_build.git

There is an update made in last month in drivers/media/i2c/smiapp/smiapp-core.c that is not compatible with the older kernels.
We need to revert it before build, so get the patch (https://gist.github.com/3961778):
wget https://raw.github.com/gist/3961778/038 ... port.patch

cd media_build
path -p1 < ../backport.patch

./build

If it succeeds you may run
sudo make install

reboot the device...

Also you need the firmware file for it9135r2 to copy to /lib/firmware.
wget http://dvb.drag2web.com/it9135/dvb-usb-it9135-02.fw
sudo cp dvb-usb-it9135-02.fw /lib/firmware

I tested the current media tree and the current tvheadend on my pi. It runs fine with af9015, but there are many continuity counter error and bad quality video with it9135
I don't know if it is because of usb-dvb-v2 related pid-filter warnings or a bug in it9135 driver. Also it could be caused by "hardfp".

If af9015 is used together with it9135 on tvheadend then the af9015 tuner also has the continuity counter error issue.

My rtl2832u device also have problems on the pi with the current media tree, but it works with separate driver:
https://github.com/ambrosa/DVB-Realtek- ... rnel-3.0.0

Regards,

Zoltan / azbest_hu

Thanks Azbest_hu This works! Finally I have a ''normal'' rpi distribution that supports my DVB-T it9135 usb stick.

For the noobs and the more lazy users here's what I did:

1 download 2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.zip
2 unzip 2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.zip
3 dd bs=1M if=2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.img of=/dev/sdb
Watch it! Mine was /dev/sdb might be some other device in your case.
4 startup rpi
5 do the voodoo at startup (like expanding to 8Gb, setting locales etc)
6 install git:
sudo apt-get install git
7 git clone git://gist.github.com/3893319.git
8 cd 3893319
9 sudo sh get-kernel-source.sh
10 cd .. (to home/pi)
11 git clone git://linuxtv.org/media_build.git
12 wget https://raw.github.com/gist/3961778/038 ... port.patch
13 cd media_build
14 patch -p1 < ../backport.patch
15 sudo apt-get install patchutils libproc-processtable-perl
16 ./build
17 sudo make install
18 reboot


Next I will try to stream the TV contents using tvheadend. VLC will not work because it is not hardware accelerated (yet?). I might try ffmpeg as well. Problem is that I cannot fully upstream the TV contents as is, because of limited up-bandwidth. I therefor need to transcode the signal to 1/4 of its original.

If someone has managed this already on the rpi I love to hear your solution.

Hi,
I'm not an expert so maybe u can help me
I tried to connect my dreambox 800 to the raspberry pi 512 mb, it sees the folder inside the dbox but when I start to play it crash. I use enigma2, can u tell me how to solve if is it possible ?
Thanks

@Beach
Are you trying to transcode a FULL multiplex received from DVB-T card? If yes, then forget it, RPi is too slow for that.
On the other hand the bitrate of a DVB-T multiplex is about 36 Mbps (at least here, in Poland), which shall easily fit into Ethernet bandwidth. This way the multiplex can be streamed untouched, then demuxed & decoded on some other, more powerful machine.
If you're trying to use WiFi instead of cable Ethernet, this might not work... The only way then is to do demuxing on RPi, then streaming a smaller portion of data, for example only one program with one audio track. For that, try this utility:
http://www.videolan.org/projects/dvblast.html