Calling all MP New Zealanders (Both of you!!) (3 Viewers)

[Benoire]

Hi Bopfrog,

It sounds like you want a server/client relationship setup. As an example, I have a Windows Server 2012 Essentials unit with 4 x DVB-S/S2 server currently 2 clients. Timeshifting and recording plus media serving are done from the server, with the clients being simple small units designed for HD playback.

You could use a NAS with USB tuners, or build your own server out of cheap trademe hardware and windows 7 license with drivebender for drive pooling.

With respect to Sky, yes you can do this as that is my reason behind the 4 tuners. It's a bit of a taboo subject here due to the legal greyness so if you want to know more PM me.

You'll also need to use EPGCollector if you want to access the sky channels as at present MP TVServer cannot get the correct EIT EPG data (it is repeated twice) nor channel numbers. I'm hoping that DJBlu's custom data grabber work is incorporated in to TVE properly, then we might get a true STB replacement server!

 

[bopfrog]

Thank for that. Any thoughts on small PCs for the rooms? I want them to be more or less out of they way so they can't be fiddled with, but so the TVs can be run either on remotes or from android/iPhones/tablets. I've used aMPdroid reasonably successfully and unified remote.

 

[kiwijunglist]

For Clients:
AMD A6-5400K + Cheapest FM2 motherboard on pricespy + cheapest DDR1600 RAM (2x2GB) on pricespy + MCE compatible remote from ebay/aliexpress.com. Cheapest HDD.
PSU only needs to be 100-200W -ish can use PICO or integrated with case.

EDIT: I don't recommend going any lower spec than above. AMD A4-5300 is not worth the meager additional savings and decrease in performance. Once AMD A6-5200 / A4-5000 become available I will probably recommend those instead, depending on price.

 

[Benoire]

Raspberry Pi's with XBMC with TVServer as back end is really the only cheap way of getting a small client, and even then it really is quite poor for TV services. Your best bet is fusion based mITX systems... but they won't be cheap for all the rooms.

Edit: Agree with Kiwi above [DOUBLEPOST=1373097699][/DOUBLEPOST]How soon are you going to be doing this? Gigabyte have an AMD unit that is similar in size to the Intel NUCs but should be a lot cheaper, that might be of benefit.

 

[kiwijunglist]

Does decrypting sky on the server require much CPU power?

 

[Benoire]

@kiwijunglist it does require some. My System is a AMD Phenom II x3 720 with 12GB ram... It will often run 15% decoding HD channel on sky with MDApi. My card server is run of a raspberry pi.[DOUBLEPOST=1373097883][/DOUBLEPOST]However that said, I've had 8 HD channels on decode and it hasn't killed the server yet with both clients connected and recording the rest.

 

[kiwijunglist]

I meant decryption not decoding, is the decryption done on the Pi or the server?

 

[Benoire]

Pi does the card server and gets the key, decrypting is done on the server with other software not created or affiliated to the MediaPortal Team.

 

[kiwijunglist]

are all your tuners in the Pi? I've never heard of that... does the Pi create network tuners? (or is it just for reading the card). Can you explain in more detail.

 

[Benoire]

Sure things boss

All the devices are connected to a single 8 port switch. The Pi is running a custom build of a card server software on Linux (I removed the need for all pincodes for R18 programs). The sky card is connected to the Pi via a USB Omnikey 3121. The Pi is then connected to the switch with a dedicated IP address. On the Pi, it reads the card, sets up the access users and gets ready to distribute a key every 10 seconds or so to each connected 'user'. In my case, I have 8 users, 2 for each DVB-S2 tuner.

The server as mentioned is an AMD Phenom II x3 720 with 12GB Ram, (4GB Mem, 8GB Ramdrive) running Windows Server 2012 Essentials with Drivebender for drivepooling and balancing. 2 x TBS 6981s sit in this along with an AMD Radeon 5450 (but the server is headless). Uses around 100W on full load with 3 drives currently running.

Using the clever software, the server grabs the stream, detects its encrypted and requests a key from the pi. Pi serves key, clever software inbetween decodes stream for TVServer, TVServer writes timeshift file or directly records. Clients are connected and every one is happy. Main advantages are a) unified central server b) do not need HD package to view HD channels (but do need blue sky card), c) don't need to purchase pvr box from sky (or rent) d) unlimited storage for recorded stuff, e) most importantly a unified client front end for doing all the entertainment... TV, movies, videos, pictures, online vids, hopefully EPL now that sky doesn't have the license any more.

Edit: As long as I have PCIe ports spare, I can run 16 to 20 tuners if I bought the 4 tuners in a card ones... At present, MediaPortal doesn't allow multiple servers but I know that Argus scheduler is looking at this option (connect different servers to scheduler, allow that to do the load balancing and then connect to client).