pidvbip / tvheadend as set top box

[wobinb]

I'm trying to use the raspberry pi as a set top box to watch UK DVB transmissions (freeview).

I have one pi setup as a server with TVheadend, this works fine, I can view tv really smoothly on any of my xbmc boxes, xbmcbuntu, samsung galaxy tablet etc around the house.

Trying to use another raspberry pi as a client seems to be full of problems....

I have bought the MPEG-2 codec licence, but openelec and raspbmc are just too slow and buggy.

I have managed to find PIDVBIP, a simple client for just connecting to tvheadend and playing the tv stream. This runs a lot smoother.

Is there a better solution out there, that I may have overlooked?

My current challenge is to have this controlled by IR remote control, will post separately about that.

Many thanks in advance

Robin

[gkreidl]

I'm using mumudvb for both dvb-t and dvb-s in unicast http mode. Works very well with omxplayer(GUI) for SD and HD.

Server and player can run on the same RPi, as long as you do not serve more than 4 channels (from one frequency/transponder) at the same time.

But it requires more manual work to do (creating config files for each channel etc.). I control everything from a web interface.

[sidbee]

Sorry I cannot help with your query, but I am looking at a tv headend and i wondered if you could advise me on your choice of pi compatible tuner.
Thanks

[wobinb]

I went for this one, quite cheap (in the UK at least):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002 ... ge_o01_s00

Don't think it can cope with HD transmissions, but it works fine with the MPEG-2 stuff.

[sidbee]

I went for this one, quite cheap (in the UK at least):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002 ... ge_o01_s00

Don't think it can cope with HD transmissions, but it works fine with the MPEG-2 stuff.

Thanks for that, I followed the link and Amazon offer an HD version T210 which looks very interesting.

[mikerr]

Old thread, but I found pidvbip to be a bit better than the kodi tvheadend plugin for me
- unfortunately the github seems to have been forgotten and no longer compiles with new versions of libavcodec

So I''ve made it compile and started updating some of it's code here:

https://github.com/mikerr/pidvbip

[mikerr]

The main piDVBip repo requires the hardware mpeg codec to be enabled / purchased on the pi

Newer pi2 & 3 are fast enough to do mpeg decoding in software, so there is a CPU version here:
https://github.com/mikerr/pidvbip-cpu

Both could do with updating, and will be now I have a shiny new TV HAT

[florca]

Built from your original (HW mpeg) fork and works fine (thanks..) on an original B+ with the codec licence - if you're making updates then maybe worth adding to the README that it needs gpu_mem equal or greater than 128MB to function. If this isn't set then it segfaults without much in the way of explanation...
Also could usefully add libavformat-dev to the list of pre-req packages for a clean build on a stock Raspian Lite install.

Thanks for keeping this alive...