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!

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.