[vskatusa]

I am a long time user of XBMC and love it!

But for one thing... it is NOT all inclusive like windows media center - I am not saying WMC is great! But I keep using it because this is one front end that I can browse media, play music and watch TV and record TV as well! Something like going to super walmart where I am confident I can get everything!

I would like to see the following in XBMC to be all inclusive:

1. TV functionality and PVR

2. This functionality needs explaining: Assume a household is multi-lingual...Right now the only way one can have different MOVIE library (based on each language) is to have different profiles....The downside is that one has to logout and login every time to change profiles! Instead The MOVIE must allow tabbed browsing based on SET OF FOLDERS pertaining to one language! As an example one tab for MOVIE (english), one for MOVIE (German) etc.. In other words each folder is a separate library

[TugboatBill]

Pvr is part of the pvr-testing branch, slated for the release after Dharma.

[barberio]

I think the poster is asking if there will be a full PVR solution with XBMC, rather than using XBMC as a client for other PVRs.

I've actually given a lot of thought to this recently, due to MythTV's problems with not playing well with third party clients and other stability issues.

Would any XBMC with some extra spare time, want to spend it on developing a cut-down linux PVR server intended for use with XBMC as it's front end?

I've already sketched out the system design for it, that would be frontend agnostic. It's relatively simple, if you don't need to make a new frontend, and use other systems file-storage and delivery to network frontends.

The only bits that need to be created are a scheduler that gets it's schedule information and can set up recordings, and a recording process that uses whatever hardware is present to save to a container with metadata.

I've created a set of simple use case designs that demonstrate how relatively easy it will be to set out an entire media center using TV as a source to provide a PVR system.

http://wall-e.deliverator.homeip.net/~ba...0Level.png

http://wall-e.deliverator.homeip.net/~ba...Source.png

In this, we only need to create a few of those boxes, and use an existing upnp/transcoding server for network frontends. Sadly, my coding skils have atrophied after spending so long not coding for a living, and I can't do much in the way of getting this all done myself. But I'd love to help get people started off on something.

[TugboatBill]

The comments posted by the developers was basically that the backends available are fully developed and it would be redundant to develop another.

That doesn't mean that someone couldn't develop one for XBMC, it just means someone will have to step up and start coding it.

The pvr-testing branch is the client for existing backends. From what little I've noticed, it seems the development is focused towards using TVHeadend as the backend. IIRC, the plan is to eventually support several back ends.

[vskatusa]

Having comprehensive TV functionality (as well as multiple language support in one login) will be a game changer for XBMC imo.

[avus m3]

I completly agree on the fact that having PVR would be a game changer as well. It seems it gets shelved allthough to many it seems to be the MOST important feature. This way we can dump WMC 7 and JUST use XBMC. Right now, I live in WMC and have to switch to XBMC when I want to watch a movie or play some music.

[barberio]

tvheadend looks like it'd make a great companion to XBMC as a slim TV recording server and live-tv feed.

http://www.lonelycoder.com/hts/tvheadend_overview.html

[barberio]

I completly agree on the fact that having PVR would be a game changer as well. It seems it gets shelved allthough to many it seems to be the MOST important feature. This way we can dump WMC 7 and JUST use XBMC. Right now, I live in WMC and have to switch to XBMC when I want to watch a movie or play some music.

It doesn't appear to be shelved, just not part of regular releases yet. You can find binaries of the PVR testing version, but it's pretty limited right now. The tvheadend client can't pause or rewind live tv with it yet, and tvheadend doesn't directly expose it's recordings. You can set up a upnp/dlna server to serve it's recordings, and that works well enough.

One problem for end-users is that tvheadend is not yet a mature PVR server. There is no conflict resolution yet, and there are still the issue with occasional bugs that prevent a recording.

However, it already plays better with XBMC than MythTV does, and produces files in Matroska format. It's also possible to set it up from a headless server, since it's set up via a web-app not MythTV's funky GUI only setup.

And of course, it doesn't have MythTV's "Patches or GTFO" and "Third party frontends Suck!" ethos. And it's tightly focused on being a PVR server, so doesn't have MythTV's code-cruft issues either...

Hopefully it'll be a fully featured PVR server pretty quickly. Especially if XBMC users and devs interested in PVRs help by doing testing with their local TV transmissions.

TLDR: All-In-One PVR and TV function in XBMC is going to be primarily dependent on tvheadend being usable as a backend, so help with its development.

[kortina]

I have been using an app called "TV Scheduler Pro" to fill the gap while waiting for the PVR stuff to integrate into XBMC.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tvschedulerpro/

I have a stand alone server (win2003), with TV Schedule Pro installed. I use epgstream.net (australian) to get the XML TV guide data.

With this app, my wife simple enters "http://pvr" into the browser on our main PC.

TV is regularly recorded, and saved into a share \\pvr\RecordedTV
XBMC has this share as a source (both Lounge room and Family Room)

This share has read\write so that we can manage the files from within XBMC. Typically after watching the files are deleted.

For a 2 meg download the software is great, and I have only missed about 10 shows in the last 4 years! mostly due to power failures and bad EPG data.


I think that this would be a great backend, and highly recommend it as an interim solution.

I just wish the XBMC Devs could take a look at TV Schedule Pro, and I wish that the TV Schedule Pro Devs would take a look at XBMC.

They are so well suited, but it doesn't look like many people have made the connection.

Anxiously waiting for Dhama so that I can install my new X25 SSD into my Zotac ITX box!

Keep up the great work XBMC Devs, you make my media centre kick ass, and my wife loves you for it too.

[vskatusa]

In case some developer is interested in taking this up.....the most critical success factor is to have discovery of TV tuners and program guide auto load feature incorporated. IMO windows 7 wmc has done a fine job doing this...

I have two tuners, one cable analog (yes analog free) and OTA silicondust and WMC discovered both the tuners and shows all the program guide automatically! And now windows 7 can play .H264 as well as ISO (using plugin).

However, XBMC skin is excellent and hope one day the TV functionality will be incorporated.

Right now I record the TV programs to my HP windows server - which can be accessed by XBMC

[gwillia1]

I have been using an app called "TV Scheduler Pro" to fill the gap while waiting for the PVR stuff to integrate into XBMC.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tvschedulerpro/

I have a stand alone server (win2003), with TV Schedule Pro installed. I use epgstream.net (australian) to get the XML TV guide data.

With this app, my wife simple enters "http://pvr" into the browser on our main PC.

TV is regularly recorded, and saved into a share \\pvr\RecordedTV
XBMC has this share as a source (both Lounge room and Family Room)

This share has read\write so that we can manage the files from within XBMC. Typically after watching the files are deleted.

For a 2 meg download the software is great, and I have only missed about 10 shows in the last 4 years! mostly due to power failures and bad EPG data.


I think that this would be a great backend, and highly recommend it as an interim solution.

I just wish the XBMC Devs could take a look at TV Schedule Pro, and I wish that the TV Schedule Pro Devs would take a look at XBMC.

They are so well suited, but it doesn't look like many people have made the connection.

Anxiously waiting for Dhama so that I can install my new X25 SSD into my Zotac ITX box!

Keep up the great work XBMC Devs, you make my media centre kick ass, and my wife loves you for it too.

agree. I have a similar setup, running XBMC and TV Scheduler Pro on the same box. A very good combination. The TV Scheduler Pro developer has posted that the concept there was to create a reliable recording and scheduling backend that had an XML interface, so could be front-ended by a number of apps. He has put his effort into the backend and considers the existing front end in TVSPro as a minimal demonstration capability. So, I agree, its a perfect match. XBMC has the first-class front end, TVSPro has a first-class back end (for Windows at least) which is designed to have a front end drive it . Should be a perfect match.

G