Is MPEG-2 Codec needed for Backend?

    Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction so I don't have to "experiment" for this answer.
    I have everything setup (front and backend) on a single Raspberry Pi 2 with the codecs installed. I also have a RPi 3 that I was considering using, but I don't have the codec license for that device.
    So the questions are...
    Is it better to have 2 separate Pi's for the backend and frontend?
    And does the backend need the codec installed for streaming and recording if I don't use it for playback on a TV?

    Only frontend needs codec if you want hardware decoding otherwise software decoding is used. I use frontend and backend on my pi2 with no issues.

    Edited once, last by polo_joe (September 25, 2016 at 6:59 AM).