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Hi,
I recently had a go at putting Linux on my laptop and was so impressed by how much better it was, compared to Windows 7, that I got rid of Windows altogether. XBMC seems to run much more smoothly on a Linux machine and never crashes.
I then upgraded my desktop with Linux as well.
This got me thinking whether I might consider going all out and changing my main HTPC/Server in the living room.
It is currently a Windows 7 machine with 8GB of RAM (4GB used as RAMDisk for timeshifting) and an i3-2105.
I use Argus TV as the backend and have Mediabrowser 3 installed for my films and TV series.
As far as frontends go, I use XBMC for everything but I use Mediaportal for scheduling as the mediaportal Argus plugin offers a better degree of control.
My question, therefore, is whether I would be mad to switch to a Linux system instead.
Any advice from anyone who has tried both Windows and Linux PVR systems would be much appreciated:
A few things that are worrying me in particular:
1. I use Sky Go and Netflix, which uses Silverlight. Are there any successsful ways to view this on Linux?
2. Can I use Mediabrowser 3 on Linux?
3. Are there any Linux-based backends that offer the functionality and stability of Argus TV?
Thanks.
A
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1. There's Pipelight, from what I've heard it works great, but I haven't tried it myself.
2. No idea about this one, I've never understood why people need any form of media managers.
3. tvheadend is very good, though the scheduling capabilities are probably a bit simpler than Argus TV. On the other hand channel switching is way faster. It's very stable too (I've run it for months without restarting it).
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@LSU Jonno: that method of using Netflix isn't the best anymore, Pipelight should be much more efficient. Otherwise I agree that a separate device for Netflixing is probably the best option (I don't use Netflix myself though).
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Interesting, in that case I can see why people use it.
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Thanks for all that - it does look like it might be possible to get rid of Windows afterall then.
I have done a bit more research and it seems that as a Linux user, you have three main choices for Linux PVR backends - MythTV, TVHeadend and VDR.
I am going to discount VDR (for the time being at least) as there seems to be very little documentation on it.
So ultimately, it is making a choice between MythTV and TVHeadend.
Are there any pointers that guys might be able to give me in terms of which one to go with?
Timeshifting seems to be a plus point for MythTv whereas TVHeadend seems to have faster channel changes.
I think that most important to me is fairly flexible scheduling (which is why I am currently using Argus TV).
I currently have two DVB-T tuners and a single DVB-S2 tuner. I tend to get a lot of clashes, so I need something that can intelligently reschedule and recordings so everything gets recorded.
One other quick thing - how do you get EPG on Linux machines? I am currently using XMLTV and Webgrabplus+. Do either of these work on linux?
Thanks again for your help.
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But yes, you can use XML grabbers if you wish. However, like giaur, I'm using over-the-air EPG information in tvheadend, although tvheadend supports built-in XMLTV.
Myth has the reputation for being powerful but a swine to configure... I did try it once, along with VDR, and it's not as bad as people say - but tvheadend wins every time.
Scheduling... tvh isn't the best, but it supports series record, full regexp pattern matching of programme names and some other useful bits. Mostly, I just look things up in the EPG and record them, though - and I use the web interface 99%+ of the time versus XBMC, although the EPG is there is you want it. tvheadend handles clashes through channel names: one channel can have multiple services, so if you merge identically- or similarly-named channels then tvheadend will just find whichever tuner is free at that time. I don't know how any backend handles the "you can use A or B but I'll need A free in 20 minutes so B is selected" scenario you suggest.
tvheadend does support timeshifting, but it's a work in progress. That said, so long as you're not skipping back and forth, the simple pause seems to work successfully.
I'd happily recommend tvheadend to people as being pretty much the easiest way of getting a competent job with little hassle.
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I am a mythtv fan. It has a lot of smarts.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
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Many thanks for all your input.
I did try MythTV over the last few days and got so infuriated with it that I had to give up - I have been using PVR programs for years but this is by far the most difficult thing I have tried to set up. It just did not seem to work.
I decided to go back to Windows and Argus as it just works.
I wish I had tried tvheadend first as suggested - is there any way I can try it out without making any changes to my current PC?