Which Pi for PVR?

    I currently have a Pi 3b running Pi-hole and a Pi 4 running LibreELEC both working fine.

    I fancy having a play with a new device and feel like setting up a PVR.

    Do I get a Pi 5 and use that for PVR or move everything around?

    Plus which USB device(s) would be the best for UK Freeview? Multiple if needed so that I can record more than one program simultaneously.

    I'd use the RPi5 as the main device as it's a nice bump on the RPi4, and recycle the RPi4 as the Tvheadend server (as RPi3 is working with pihole and doesn't need speed). No idea on what USB tuner(s) device to use though, as not a UK resident.

    With the Pi5 for LibreELEC have you noticed any improvement in video scanning?

    Myself and my wife both have hearing issues so rely on subtitles, when a file doesn't have subs we occasionally have to rewind (we have it set for 10 seconds) to try and decipher what's been said. Sometimes though the Pi4 struggles with continuing to play the file.

    • New
    Quote from ian_j

    I currently have a Pi 3b running Pi-hole and a Pi 4 running LibreELEC both working fine.

    I fancy having a play with a new device and feel like setting up a PVR.

    Do I get a Pi 5 and use that for PVR or move everything around?

    Plus which USB device(s) would be the best for UK Freeview? Multiple if needed so that I can record more than one program simultaneously.

    Why not go for a TV HAT rather than a usb one.

    I recently bought the Raspberry Pi TV HAT from Amazon just because it was so cheap at £6.99.

    I set up a tvheadend server on the RPi5 in the living room (where the best tv signal strength is) and installed the tvheadend client on a RPi4 in the bedroom and a RPi2 in the kitchen.

    All works great.

    Of course this would only give you the ability to record one channel at time - or buy 2 since that would still be cheaper than a usb twin tuner.

    • New

    I do have a TV HAT that I used in the Pi3 before I repurposed the Pi3 for a pi-hole but only being able to record one channel was too restrictive.

    • New

    I am in the UK and do get Freeview off the Rumster Forest transmitter.

    When I started recording/watching TV on computer I had an August T202 on an old Toshiba laptop. After I started using Kodi on an RPi3 I bought another RPi3 and added a TVHat to the second one. I switched to a Hauppauge WinTV DualHD TV Stick. The setup with 1 RPi3 running Kodi to watch DVDs, ripped DVDs and recorded TV and the other acting as a TVHeadend server worked well.

    I then bought an RPi4 hoping I could go to a single machine - not to good if I tried recording 2 TV channels and watching from ripped DVD.

    Currently I use a Dell Optiplex i5-6500 (second hand from Amazon) which runs Kodi and acts as the TVHeadend server - it works really well.

    I also have Kodi and TVHat on the RPi4 in my "office" totally separate from the main system and that's OK.

    • New
    Quote from ian_j

    What OS do you run on the Dell?

    LibreElec of course. Its one of the nightlys 2023-11-something. I got it working nicely and there doesn't seem to be anything I'm bothered about in the more recent builds to make me want to update.

    One reason to stick with LibreElec is this forum - pretty good support