Best Windows PVR Backend (Your choice and why!)
#1
So I just bought a Ceton InfiniTV 4. It comes tomorrow and I'll have my hands full setting this thing up. My BIGGEST problem is I just am clueless about this stuff. I can put a PC together, all types of things, but this PVR stuff really just the information on the internet is just limited. If you google PC assembly or Best CPU choice 2013, you find more information than you know what to do with . When you google this stuff it's just bits and pieces.

So what's your favorite PVR choice and why?

Hopefully it will help me pick one but I known I'm for a long ride. I hope to eventually write a full guide for this stuff so no one has to go through the pain I have gone through so far in some of the aspects of setting up my XBMC setup lol (None of course are XBMC's fault it's just the way this whole thing is setup!)
Reply
#2
I have used TvHeadEnd and Argus

TvHeadEnd I found flakey from both the management and tuning perspectives.

Argus I find rock solid. great scheduling options, and stable as a rock. Perfect tuning, no little video glitches as I kept getting with TvHeadEnd.

If you follow the Argus set up guide, it's really not that hard.
Addons I wrote &/or maintain:
OzWeather (Australian BOM weather) | Check Previous Episode | Playback Resumer | Unpause Jumpback | XSqueezeDisplay | (Legacy - XSqueeze & XZen)
Sorry, no help w/out a *full debug log*.
Reply
#3
I've pretty much tried them all, Media portal is pretty good, Myth TV is good but a steep learning curve to set up, my current favorite is Windows Media Center as a PVR backend. Nothing touches Media centers ease of use, easy setup and it just works unfortunately anything but TV on it is kind of second rate. Recently a PVR add on for XBMC was released and its really going places it combines the reliability of WMC with the awesome XBMC front end
If I have been of help, please add to my reputation as a way of saying thanks, it's free.
Reply
#4
I've been using ArgusTV and I'd echo Bossanova's comments. Once it's configured, it's pretty solid. It has a pretty good web UI as well. I'm very tempted to try MCE as well.
Reply
#5
Argus TV is rock solid. A bit tricky to setup (you must follow the steps, and require a windows machine). The web interface is superb and very extensible. For example I can trigger comskip after each recording so it remove commercial ads from my shows.

Argus TV is rock solid. A bit tricky to setup (you must follow the steps, and require a windows machine). The web interface is superb and very extensible. For example I can trigger comskip after each recording so it remove commercial ads from my shows.

Argus TV is rock solid. A bit tricky to setup (you must follow the steps, and require a windows machine). The web interface is superb and very extensible. For example I can trigger comskip after each recording so it remove commercial ads from my shows.
Reply
#6
Ya I'm setting up Argus right now. I didn't realize NPVR didn't support Ceton (obvious....) so doesn't leave much options left for Windows lol.
Also installing Media Portal to see how that works as well although we'll see which downloads first. My 1GB download of SQL server is going faster at the moment...

Edit: Really wish I had known NPVR didn't work with Ceton lol. I don't have SQL setup and now have to set it up to use mediaportal or argus lol. I spent have the day trying to get .net framework 3.5 to install ended up reinstalling windows becuase NPVR HAD to have it and then couldn't even use it lol. Oh me.... So silly.
Reply
#7
So I installed Media Portal (Argus was frustrating me lol I'll come back to it)
And I can't view any channels. Nothing shows up. Anyone know where I should start?
Reply
#8
I've not been impressed with anything so far. Still using WMC as that does the job flawlessly.
Reply
#9
A couple weeks ago I was quite happy with ArgusTV. However I had to get a CableCARD tuner because my channels became encrypted recently. Despite my best efforts I could not get ArgusTV to work with the HDHomerun Prime, and I didn't receive much help in their forums. So I have since switched to NextPVR and it's been pretty reliable as a backend for XBMC. Setup is certainly a lot easier. The web interface is really ugly, but it seems to get the job done. LiveTV works fine and my recording tests seem to be working (I don't record much TV, so I don't know how robust it is in daily use).
Reply
#10
I have to second the suggestion for ArgusTV if you are sticking to a Windows box. I would say nothing is as flexible and powerful but you must feel comfortable setting up a SQL server.

I have previously used Media Portal but by that time the front end didn't meet my requirements and it was when I started the swithc to XBMC. To be fair also the PC had hardware issues and I ditched Metida Portal TV server while investigating the issues.

I used WMC and as people have mentioned it is very straightforward to set up but there is no way to avoid the initial channel set up no matter what software you use.

Then the issue came where WMC as well as previously Media Portal are not good enough to know that a TV Show has been rescheduled and away we go, missing recordings every now and then. It becomes a pain if it was your favourite show.

Nowadays I barely remember the reason of setting up NPVR but I think it was mainly for the dynamic scheduling issues. Anyway NPVR didn't help much and the UI was very primitive.

Then I finally landed in 4TheRecord (now Argus) kingdom and even though Argus didn't have a frontend itself, the solely reason it was such an excellent product as TV server didn't stop me to switching to it and setting up XBMC with PVR beta support.

XBMC scheduling capabilities seems to be inferior to what native ArgusTV can offer through the Web UI or Windows console, however something that nobody has mentioned is that there is a mobile app (in case you are lucky and use an Android phone), its name is ForTheRecord mobile. I haven't seen an easier way to browse the TV Guide, search for programs, shecdule and show upcoming recordings.

Last but not least, wify has had no complains about missing recordings or not being able to browse the TV guide since we switch to ArgusTV. Of course she has the mobile app too.

Disclaimer: I have no relation to ArgusTV or recieve any money for this post, I just enjoy that amazing product.

Jav
Reply
#11
I use WMC. I have been using it for almost 6 years now. I still have an Xbox 360 hooked up as an extender, so I will continue with WMC for a while. It was easy to setup and the guide data is free.
TV Mosaic on Windows 10 as PVR Backend |  1 RaspberryPI 3 Client (LibreElec) | Amazon FireTV box | 5 Amazon FireTV sticks | FireTV Cube | 2 Nvidia Shield TV
Tuners: HD HomeRun 4 ATSC (OTA) | IPTV
Reply
#12
I have very happily been using WMC for about 5-6 years for TV recording and playback of torrented TV series (the ones not screened where I am from!!). The only reason I'm looking at changing now is I have an Android set top box that I want to use to playback recordings as well, and I want to use XBMC to play them... when it works it's brilliant, better than anything else I've tried on the Android box. The only problem is XBMC doesn't seem to like the WMC playback format much (on the Android) and constantly crashes back to desktop. It will play some recordings but not others. There's no rhyme or reason! Have worked out now how to use log uploader and submitted a crash report so hopefully the community can come up with an answer for me. I'd still prefer to use WMC on my Win7 media PC and load the WMC back end for the other TV!

I had a mess round with Argus before and was pretty impressed. Worked well. Not as east to set up as WMC but hey, once it's on it goes well.
Reply
#13
I use WMC. It's the only option for cablecard copy-once/copy-never content
Reply
#14
(2013-12-11, 00:37)MrCrouton Wrote: I have very happily been using WMC for about 5-6 years for TV recording and playback of torrented TV series (the ones not screened where I am from!!). The only reason I'm looking at changing now is I have an Android set top box that I want to use to playback recordings as well, and I want to use XBMC to play them... when it works it's brilliant, better than anything else I've tried on the Android box. The only problem is XBMC doesn't seem to like the WMC playback format much (on the Android) and constantly crashes back to desktop. It will play some recordings but not others. There's no rhyme or reason! Have worked out now how to use log uploader and submitted a crash report so hopefully the community can come up with an answer for me. I'd still prefer to use WMC on my Win7 media PC and load the WMC back end for the other TV!

I had a mess round with Argus before and was pretty impressed. Worked well. Not as east to set up as WMC but hey, once it's on it goes well.

I was unable to get high definition TV to work on my three Android devices (including the high powered HTC One). I asked about it on the Libstagefright forum and the developer didn't think that 1080 MPEG2 hardware decoding is in the libstagefright spec. I also can't get it working with Mediacodec. It's unfortunate.
Reply
#15
I am setting up a Windows PVR box at the moment and trying out various backends as well.
WMC is a very easy setup. However (for UK/Irish users anyway) I note their web based channel setup download seems to be very slow to update channel changes (RTE1 & BBC3 being current examples) and there is no obvious way to manually map or use the transmitted EIC that I see.
Am currently trying Mediaportal & while setup is more painful & buggy (still haven't got my MCE remote working right), I have to admit the front end (Titan skin) beats XBMC hands down for a TV experience.
Have also given MythBuntu and TVHeadend (Openelec) a whirl, but (different) hardware compatibility issues have put them on the back burner for the moment.

I guess from the above Argus should be next on the listSmile
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Best Windows PVR Backend (Your choice and why!)0