[pixelriffic]

As Microsoft is dropping support for WMC, I'm looking for a suitable replacement. I have a Pi B+ running the Openelec version of KODI I tried plugging in a Hauppauge 950 usb tuner, and enabling live TV and the Myth TV PVR addon, and no luck. I assumed an option would be available on the main menu, and no such luck. Reading about this, as well as other backends, it all sounds pretty iffy the more I read.

I don't mind going through some extended configuration steps, SSHing into the PI and all that. My question is, is there a PVR solution for recording OTA programming on KODI that is as easy to use, and as reliable as WMC on a Windows box? If not, the wife will be unhappy, and I will need to go a new direction.

[negge]

You only enabled the MythTV client, you'd still need to run the server part (MythTV itself, aka. the "backend"). Openelec ships with two backends, tvheadend and vdr. You need to use one of those.

[ZwartePiet]

The Model B+ will struggle to run both a back-end and front-end on the same device. Upgrading to a Model 2 will solve any performance issues.

My experience is that no back-end matches both the feature set and stability of WMC. I favor stability and have been satisfied using IPTVSimple, but you'll need a network tuner (e.g. HDHomerun) and give up recording. Getting an HDHomerun also gets your foot in the door for Silicondust's upcoming PVR solution.

I found TVHeadend the easiest to setup, but time-shifting wasn't polished (as of a few months ago, at least) and it wasn't as rock-solid as IPTVSimple. Setting up VDR seemed like a lot of effort so I never tried, but I hear it's full-featured and stable. MythTV works if you favor watching recordings, but it's probably the most difficult to set-up and (as of a few months ago) channel surfing was slow/compromised.

If you want to keep the wife happy... buy a TIVO.

[pixelriffic]

Yep, I see a Tivo looming in the near future. WMC did take a bit of setup, and I did have a bit of fuss with the Windows box to get it to sleep and wake correctly on recording.
Overall, it worked wonderfully. The only DVR that held a candle was in fact Tivo. Again, I don't mind fiddly setup, shell commands, and so on. But the wife will not tolerate use or performance issues. ;-)

The Pi will still be my media playback / web scraper tool of choice. I mistakenly said I have a B+. We actually replaced it with a Pi 2. I actually considered using a Silicondust tuner as part of the rig, and would be very interested to see what they come up with as a DVR solution.

Thanks for the info!

[clarkss12]

I don't have a Pi, but I do have one of these $35 Android sticks (MK808B Plus) that is running OpenELEC and tvheadend server for my PVR/DVR and it works great for me. I have 2 different HDHomeRun tuners and OpenELEC includes the drivers for those tuners, making it very easy to create the tvheadend backend PVR.
Here are a couple of videos showing what the HDHomeRun DVR looks like (made that video a few days after they posted the DVR software), and my hardware to create my PVR/DVR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_nSaed-Pgg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfdKqnVXlYM