HDHomeRun DVR software has been the focus of my attention in the past month or so and what I have...

[G+_Rud Dog]

HDHomeRun DVR software has been the focus of my attention in the past month or so and what I have been able to gather it can replace your Tivo box with the "HDHomerun Prime" hardware.

Both pieces of hardware require a small cable card which gets inserted into the hardware chosen and activated by the Cable company.

 

Now of course there is the cost for the hardware and HDHomerun Prime box is much cheaper then the Tivo box but Tivo has the recording media built in where as the Homerun Prime does not. So your recordings for the HDHomeRun are stored on a location of your choice; NAS or PC.

 

Both Tivo and HDHomeRun Prime come with a monthly service fee Tivo is I believe 10 dollars a month where HDHomerun Prime is 60 bucks first time charge then 30 bucks a year there after. This provides for the channel information used to decide your viewing selection or recording. Didn't know that was patented.

 

While doing this research found hints and comments eluding to the fact Microsoft Media Center used to provide this service and pay for the patented service on your behalf. Thus you had a software version of what the Tivo and HDHomerun do.

What I would like to ask you all :

 

Is Windows Media Center still available?

 

Is the TV guide service functional?

 

I am running Windows 8.1

 

Thank you for your time.

[G+_Mike Royal]

I was using this service up until a year ago, this was used for an internal TV card. I think win 8 still was able to get media center. I worked well I'm my win 7 and xp for my guide and for recording.

[G+_Mike Royal]

I hate auto correct sometimes

[G+_Rud Dog]

Mike Royal Thank you for confirming WMC did in fact record and provide the guide for free or for the price of the OS.

The end result in my scenario, if I can confirm WMC is still available with the same features as the original SW albeit with separate purchase. Then I would purchase both Win8.1 and WMC for loading on a, for example, NUC.

Now the research will have to include what kind of external tuners WMC recognizes or is it limited to on board tuner hardware?

 

PS

If you don't mind me asking why did you stop using this configuration "up until a year ago"?

[G+_Rud Dog]

While continuing my search for WMC found this link and it makes me ask a question. support.microsoft.com - {{offlineMessage}} Try Microsoft Edge, a fast and secure browser ...

 

 

So if you currently have WMC the service portion continues to function even though it is no longer available?

[G+_Mike Royal]

I basically stopped using the TV card when I upgraded my monitor to a 43 inch TV. It was nice to record but I also upgraded to win 10 at this time. I never bothered to get the card working. As drivers were ment for xp.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Mike Royal Thank you. My course has been set back to my original search for info on HDHR Prime and replacing Tivo hardware.

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

Have MythTV support for life at $10/yr for guide data for my HD HomeRun lol. Only catch no recording premium channels like HBO and Stars. Still can watch live with Android devices.

 

There was a beginners guide to linux and under Gentoo linux it said remember when I said Arch Linux is for people who know what they are doing well even if you know what you are doing don't.

 

I would say MythTV is kind of like Gentoo. I can get both to work but I will never say they are easy. Too many damn settings.

 

If crazy enough to try I will help. Suggest Ubuntu install of MythTV to help out beginners a bit.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Benjamin Webb Thank you, looking for something simple. This way if it ever needs to be setup again for what every reason, will be a snap.

[G+_T Burns]

Last year I made the move to HDHomerun Connect (I cut the cable a few years ago so I don't use the cable card) but I think my setup might answer some of your questions. I have the HDHomerun Connect attached to a OTA antenna and hard wired into my router. I purchased a RPi3 (and the additional codec packs for it) and installed a special version of Kodi called LibreElec. I use the beta because it uses kodi 17, which has been very stable for me so far. For storage, I'm using a 128GB flash drive.

 

The software side is a little more complicated for the TV Guide and recording functions. I use TVHeadend as the frontend software (to view the guide and set recordings) and an addon called Zap2XML which pulls the guide info for free from Screener.com (formerly Zap2it.com). It took me a while (i.e. a month or so) to get things working the way I wanted but it works flawlessly now.

 

Here's the end result -> HDHomerun Connect converts OTA signal to a network stream (wish I had the HDHR Extend that transcodes to mp4). I use the web interface for TVHeadend running on the RPi3 and choose what I want recorded. The RPi3, using TVHeadend, pulls the network stream and records my shows to the 128GB flash drive, which I then move to my networked media drive.

 

There's a few more steps I've added to remove commercials and compress into mp4 files but I'll wait for you to ask for it before giving unwanted details.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Thank you T Raburn you have done your homework and it shows in your setup. Thinking might go with HDHR Prime and pay the fee for yearly service as it is as close to the tivo service found so far.

For now searching for videos demonstrating the TV guide service for HDHR Prime and Synology NAS hardware so I can get a feel how these two items work together.

Thank you again for taking the time to fill me in on your experience and setup, great job.

[G+_Ben Reese]

T Raburn your setup sounds very interesting. I finally took the time last night to try NPVR on Windows again and was very successful! Since I'm using OTA, it's able to pull all the programming guide from the OTA signal.

 

I think the part of your process that interests me the most is removing commercials and compression... Compression would be easy with FFMPEG, but do you have an automated commercial removing process or just do that manually?

[G+_T Burns]

I have struggled to get NPVR to work on my Win10 desktop. I haven't broken the code on it yet.

 

I'm using the same software for removing commercials and compression called MCEBuddy. I tried the free version for awhile to make sure it worked the way I wanted and then dropped the relatively cheap donation amount for the paid version. MCEBuddy has the option of comskip or ShowAnalyzer to remove commercials. I was so pleased with the comskip option that I paid for the donation version of that as well (increases the speed of detection/removal). MCEBuddy has a lot of options for compression, including FFMPEG and handbrake with a ton of presets that uses the wide variety of formats that both of those can output.

 

The results I've gotten have been pretty good except when there is a weather warning or something that causes the station to put a permanent banner at the bottom of the screen. Occasionally I'll use avidemux to find the commercials manually and create a EDL file for MCEBuddy to use to strip the commercials more accurately.

 

Links:

MCEBuddy2x.com

Comskip: http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/

[G+_Rud Dog]

Honestly did not believe it was going to be this difficult to find a video tutorial showing the use of Synology NAS and HDHR prime. Seeing lots of Plex setups but correct me if I am wrong, Plex is for placing your videos manually on a server and accessing via client plex? In other words it does not do the DVR portion similar to the Tivo via guide and scheduling recording.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Sidebar: If anyone knows how I could load HDHomerun DVR software on a End of Life Drobo please let me know it could possible save me purchasing a new NAS. If you need any infor on the Drobo would be glad to post.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Oh and it sits on top of something they called Drobo Fileshare think it was called which gives it LAN connectivity.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Rud Dog have you tried this on the Fileshare?

forum.silicondust.com - Drobo 5N for DVR Storage? - Silicondust

 

I suspect that will be where the DVR software will have to run since it probably can't run on the storage array directly.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Ben Reese The Drobo and Fileshare hardware are so old the GUI interfaces are not supported or available. SSH, telnet or any other cmd line access simply will not work, connection refused.

I can access the unit as a drive from my windows machine assigning it with a drive letter. So it is not a complete waste as a fileserver.

[G+_Rud Dog]

In parallel with HDHR Prime hardware have been looking at Nvidia SHIELD TV at this point not sure if this is a direct replacement for the HDHR Prime hardware. But it sounds like it will:

Store recorded programs on a NAS or PC

Has options for TV Guide service

Headed back to visit his video posted link below for your perusal.

 

[G+_Rud Dog]

It is reviews like this one that slow down my project not sure why this owner of the Synology 1515+ has this problem

 

Yes, this works as a Plex server. However, it doesn't always work well with various units due to continuous stuttering and buffering. I am able to use Plex on Samsung smart TV's and it works just fine. However, when I try to use Plex from my iPad and using the Synology NAS as the server it gives a message that the server is not powerful enough for transcoding. Thus, I resorted to installing Plex server on another computer and pointing it to the NAS library where all my movies are stored and this has resolved all transcoding issues. It's also a lot faster loading and no stuttering or glitches. Note that all my movies are HD MKV's. Other than large MKV movies, music is not an issue at all.