Kodi and UK Freeview TV

OK - so after a few months of not attempting to fix/get around some roadblocks in terms of streaming live TV to XBMC frontends, and no sound on HD channels, I decided to revisit my nearly complete HTPC for one last stab.

And, hey presto, I've made good progress and I'm really pleased with the setup as it stands - still some tweaks I intend to make, but I have a funny feeling I'll never be satisfied with the status quo.

So, I'm using Ubuntu 14.04.1, Kodi (formerly known as XBMC), MythTV as a primary backend server, UK Freeview DVB-T2 being tuned by TBS6285.

The rest of the kit can be seen in my previous posts.

I managed to resolve the HD audio issue simply by going into Cmyth-PVR addonn settings in Kodi, and under advanced, deselecting the de-mux option. I'm sure I tried this several months ago, to no avail, but it seems to have done the trick this time. So, now I can hear TV audio on all digital channels.

I'm able to stream to another PC in the house running Kodi as a frontend, simply by adding the CMyth-PVR addon. I couldn't achieve this using a Rasperry Pi with Openelec - for some reason that version of Cmyth just wouldn't allow primary backend and Rapsberry Pi to talk to each other.

All in all, I am really impressed. Live TV channel changing in Kodi seems to be quicker than when I last tried with XBMC in summer, and whilst not what I would called instant, it is acceptable - probably 2 - 3 seconds for the new channel to buffer and then play.

The picture quality is excellent, in HD. I did have to play around with a few variations of settings in Kodi's hardware acceleration settings section and in the onscreen display video settings section. I finally settled on auto interlacing, auto interlacing method, and auto video scaling. The quality and frame rate is excellent.

I also spent some time re-ordering channels on the mythbackend. I did this by opening a terminal and typing mythtv-setup. In the options menu that appears, select Channel Editor, and then work through the channels amending as you see fit. I've removed all the shopping channels, dating channels and all SD channels that have an HD alternative, and moved them into my preferred order. After this, mythbackend needs to be restarted, then open Kodi LiveTV settings and ensure "Always use the channel order from the backend/s".

I'm using a Logitech K400 wireless keyboard to control the HTPC and somtimes theYatse android app to control Kodi, This sounds complex, but it works really well. e.g. keyboard is on other side of living room, no problem - you can still control Kodi without the massive effort of rising from your chair and walking 3 steps across a lounge!

Silverstone Grandia GD09 - HTPC case

I really like the look of this Silverstone Grandia GD09 HTPC case. I was concerned that the GD07 and GD08, which were previously prime candidates to sit underneath my telly, would be too deep for cables, USB dongles etc to comfortably stick out the back of the case.

This case, the GD09, is shallower. The dimensions are 440mm (W) x 170mm (H) x 358mm (D). This makes it a similar size to other HTPC cases, but this has the advantage of being able to fit an ATX motherboard, whereas others of similar dimensions restrict you to mATX boards.

The price is very reasonable too, especially for a Silverstone case. Prices are around £50 currently, but it is hard to find in stock, so I suspect prices will rise soon.

The only issue is that, as with other HTPC cases, the height of the case restricts you to a CPU cooler height of 138mm. So, my Scythe Mugen IV will have to be chopped in for something a little smaller, but equally as quiet and efficient, like the Noctua NH-C12P SE14 or Noctua NH-L12.

Silencing kit for Silverstone Grandia HTPC case

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=121359887181&alt=web

Cheap XBMC remote control

The Telegraph: KAZAM releases phones for under £40. http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIww7b1nB8

The Trooper X 3.5 retailing at £39.95 could make an ideal XBMC remote control once Yatse is installed. Especially if it could be placed on a charging dock overnight.

TBS6285 Part 2

Following on from my previous post http://ubuntulinuxhtpc.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/tbs6285.html I've received the quad-tuner and installed it, having overcome a few hurdles. I've described the process I followed, below. If you can't get this card to work, feel free to get in touch, and I should be able to help you get up and running.

The first hurdle to overcome was installation of the linux drivers for the TBS6285. These can be downloaded from http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/. After help from Constantine, developer at Turbosight (TBS), it turned out that my motherboard (MSI 990FXA-GD65) is one of many faulty ones floating around (there is a buggy ASM1083 chip soldered between PCIe and PCI bus) which cannot handle IRQ from the card and causes an interrupt storm from the card. To overcome that I did the following (from http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=7631#p24903):

1. Create a .conf file 

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/tbs.conf

2. Edit contents of .conf file by inserting the following two lines and saving file

options saa716x_tbs-dvb int_type=1

options saa716x_tbs-dvb enable_ir=0 

The first line activates MSI (Message Signal Interrupts) instead of the older IRQ. The second disables remote control receiver on the card to make sure the interrupt storm is not coming from there).

3. Reboot to load the driver with MSI loaded.

Then, following intructions from http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TBS6285#Making_it_Work and http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TBS6284 with a few amendments for TBS6285 and some permissions problems, I managed to get the card working. These are the commands I used:

1. Extract the ZIP file tbs-linux-drivers_v[VERSION NUMBER].zip. As of 25 April 2014, the latest version is 140425.

unp -u tbs-linux-drivers_v140425.zip

2. Extract linux-tbs-drivers.tar.bz2 archive

cd tbs-linux-drivers_v140425 

unp linux-tbs-drivers.tar.bz2

3. Change ownership and permissions of extracted files

sudo chown -R <yourusername> tbs-linux-drivers_v140425

sudo chmod -R 777 tbs-linux-drivers_v140425 

4. Change to driver package directory

cd tbs-linux-drivers_v140425

cd linux-tbs-drivers

4.1 (If on fresh install on CentOS or similar)     

yum install kernel-devel-`uname -r`

cd linux-tbs-drivers

make clean

make distclean

 (move to Step 5)

  
5. Select platform architecture
(for any x86_64 kernel only)

enter into a terminal: 

./v4l/tbs-dvbc-x86_64.sh

and then:

./v4l/tbs-x86_64.sh

6. Build the driver. Recompiles v4l for a wide range of cards, around 500, will take many minutes.

make

        (I modify this to make -j7  to use all 6 cores of my CPU)

7. Install driver

sudo make install

8. Reboot, then
(Ubuntu-based distros only. See http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TBS6285#Making_it_Work for other distros)

sudo rm -Rf /lib/modules/<your kernel version>/kernel/drivers/media

9. Reinstall drivers

cd tbs-linux-drivers_v140425 

cd linux-tbs-drivers 

sudo make install

10. Load newly installed driver

sudo modprobe -v tbs62x0fe

insmod /lib/modules/3.(your kernel version)-generic/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/tbs62x0fe.ko

11. Check it loaded correctly

Reboot:

sudo shutdown -r now

After rebooting and logging back in, check to see if dvb adaptor nodes now exist:

ls -al /dev/dvb

You should see something similar to the following displayed in your terminal:

drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  120 Jul  9 21:12 adapter0

drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  120 Jul  9 21:12 adapter1

drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  120 Jul  9 21:12 adapter2

drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  120 Jul  9 21:12 adapter3

This should give you a correctly installed TBS6285 on Ubuntu 14.04 (after trials and tribulations, it did for me!)

TBS6285

Ordered a TBS6285 today.

Should arrive in a week or so.

This card, once plugged into a spare PCI slot, should allow viewing/recording of 4 different mulitplexes at the same, and can tune to 4 channels within each multiplex. So, it's technically possible to record 16 channels simultaneously with this card. I can't ever foresee the need for that, but the option to tune to 4 different multiplexes will be.

Once it arrives I'll post further updates on how I get on with using it in XMBC. I plan to do a fresh install of Mythbuntu, too, to see how it compares to XBMC as a back-end server.

What remote are you using with Kodi?

As mentioned in a previous post the Yatse app for Android has really impressed me and I've been using it as my main remote control for Kodi.

However, it may not be perfect for everyday use as I've regularly been running down my phone's battery, which is not ideal as it then needs plugging in to a charger, which then means it's not accessible as a remote control.

So, what is everyone using as their primary remote control for Kodi? I wonder whether the Logitech K400 keyboard is a viable alternative - it is smaller than a full size keyboard and includes a trackpad. I wonder whether it would be too unwieldy for day-to-day use though...

I've read about Logitech Harmony remotes, but am concerned about reports of button lag. Does anyone have any experience of using one of these with Kodi?

Maybe I should just nab a Microsoft MCE remote control for £20?

Please do comment on how you are connecting to Kodi.

Silence is Golden

In an effort to keep noise down I've replace the stock AMD CPU cooler with a Scythe Mugen IV which seems barely audible. The only other fan in the case is in the PSU (Corsair CX600M) and on the graphics card (MSI GeForce GTX 650 N650-1GD5/OCV1), both of which were chosen as they were described as low noise. However, there is still a noticeable "hum" coming from the case which can be heard when nothing is playing. This is not a problem when media is outputting sound but it can be heard during silent parts of films which is distracting, and is certainly distracting when TV is off (PC is left running 24/7).

I'll be investigating what the culprits and attempting to decrease noise either by looking at replacement fans, or by replacing the component itself.

According to Kitguru's review of the Corsair CX600M it is barely audible until being pushed hard, which mine shouldn't be as I have the motherboard (MSI 990FXA-GD65) set to run in ECO mode, and I estimate the total power draw should be less than 50% of the PSU's capacity.



To be continued...

Watch live terrestrial UK TV and catch-up TV on XBMC

As well as watching your film and listening to your music collection, XBMC's add-ons are a great way of being able to access content on the web including access to UK Freeview live TV and radio streams and catch-up TV including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

The process is straightforward enough, with plenty of guides on the internet, but here is one which I found really clear and easy to follow (thanks to Jamestonbradley).

Once you've added the relevant add-ons, you should be able to view UK TV (BBC content is intended to be viewed in the UK only, so if your IP address is non-UK, you may not be able to view BBC streams).

This should also give you enough practice with video add-ons to be able to search through the hundreds of other add-ons available to see if there is anything else that is of interest to you e.g. MTV music videos, IMDB movie trailers, various kids TV channels, classic movies, extreme sports, cooking, the list goes on... have a look here to see a list of some of the video add-ons available.

Yatse - XBMC/Kodi remote control app

I've been using Yatse remote control for several days now, and I'm impressed.

Yatse is an Android app which allows you to use your Android device as a smart remote control for XBMC. It stands for Yet Another Touch Screen Experiment.

The free version is very full-featured: it allows you to do what you expect i.e. control the cursor in XBMC and make selections, but also displays info on what you are watching (i.e. displays info, posters, fanart on the remote/Android device), allows you to search your media collection using your Android device, control several different XBMC devices independently of each other (all within the same WiFi zone), amongst many other things.

As mentioned, you get all this for free. There is another app from the same developer (Tolriq) called Yatse Unlocker which is £3.49 from the Play store, and this goes even further, allowing you to send your videos to XBMC, stream videos to watch on your Android device, download your media to your Android device for offline viewing.

You really do need to try it to see how slick it is. I briefly tried the official XBMC remote, but couldn't get it working. Because Yatse was so straightforward to set up and works so well, and seems to win when reviewed and compared against other remotes, I'll be sticking with it.

Gotham!

http://xbmc.org/xbmc-13-0-gotham-rises/

The latest version of XBMC is here, and it includes improvements in efficiency on Raspberry Pi:

Since the release of Frodo a lot of effort has been put into getting XBMC to run smoother on lower powered platform like the famous Raspberry Pi and of course Android. All this effort has paid off and the experience of using these devices has become much more polished and satisfying than ever before. In particular, opening your libraries, browsing through them, loading images and starting videos have all seen dramatic speed increases

This is good news and has confirmed in my mind that putting Raspberry Pis in bedrooms to use as set top boxes is the right choice.

XBMC 13.0 and Mythbuntu 14.04 working together will hopefully be a nice straightforward set up.

More soon...

The plan..

I've become unimpressed with the quality of pay TV, and find myself watching mainly free-to-air channels such as BBC, Channel 4 and Film 4. As a result I've decided to have broadband only and recycle an old desktop case I have lying around to build a media centre/HTPC for the living room, serving live and recorded TV and other media to 3 bedrooms.

The main goal is to try and keep the build cost of the living room backend server close to £700 (similar to the the annual cost of my current cable TV package and set top boxes), whilst striking a balance between power (for gaming), low noise and power efficiency as machine will be on 24/7. The bedroom PCs are to be less than £100 each, so probably Raspberry Pis running XMBC.

I'm looking forward to more geeking out on the research, build, and setting up of such a system.

So far, I have the following hardware connected to my living room TV:

• Case: ATX tower case, £0 (recycled)

• Storage: An old Western Digital SATA1 160 GB HDD, £0 (recycled)

• Motherboard: MSI 990FXA-GD65, £57.98

• CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz Socket AM3+, £80.99

• RAM: 8GB Kingston low-profile (so Scythe heatsink fits) RAM, £60

• PSU: Corsair CX600M, £52.96

• Graphics: MSI GeForce GTX 650 N650-1GD5/OCV1, £51.98

• CPU Cooling: Scythe Mugen IV, £37.11

This is a working system, but not the final build. I am outstanding a TV tuner to be able to receive Freeview broadcasts, SSD on which to install the OS (Ubuntu) and Steam files to ensure system is spritely, larger HDD to store media (music, films, TV), and some peripherals such as a wireless keyboard.

• TV Tuner: TBS 6285 T2 PCIe card, £125.00

• SSD: Crucial M550 250GB, £107.94

• HDD: WD Caviar Green 2TB, £65.00

• Wireless Keyboard: Logitech K400, £29

Total price should be not far off £668.00

In it's current form (i.e. without SSD) Ubuntu and Steam are rapid, even with the motherboard set to ECO mode.

The Scythe Mugen IV was money well spent, as it is virtually silent - the noise that the stock AMD cooler made was really loud!

The machine now emits just a low hum, which is imperceptible when sat more than a few feet away from the case.

I should be in receipt of my TBS 6285 tuner card very soon; once I have I will post a progress update on setting up MythTV as a backend and XBMC as a frontend.