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!