Posts by DeltaMikeCharlie

Quote from emveepee

Why not just merge your addon in the python addon that already exists when the server gets installed?

I assume that you are referring to the LE Setup Wizard: Although I have now abandoned this plan, my original idea was to add a question at the end of the LE Setup Wizard with a menu - 'Install PVR?':

• No PVR (Default)
• TVH PVR
• NextPVR
• etc

The LE Setup Wizard would then either load and execute the required separate script or exit accordingly.

Quote from emveepee

What do you think would be reasonable for a new user to accept?

It will take as long as it takes. I feel that giving users feedback is important, as the script scans and re-scans looking for LCNs, it updates the percentage complete on the screen. The user can cancel during this process if they become impatient.

Quote from emveepee

I still want to test ATSC

I plan to cripple the existing addon to restrict it to DVB-T. I have a python file with some constants, the cripple flag will be added there. Those people keen enough will be easily able to hack this file and re-enable non DVB-T tuners.

Quote from emveepee

Also how would you handle inevitable questions like, it didn't find any/all the channels, the guide is incomplete etc and my tuner wasn't discovered?

With my normal grace and poise.

Quote from emveepee

You do need to support the source on a own GitHub repo though not just a pre-built package.

I had always planned to publish the source on my GitHub repository once it had been tested and worked OK.

Quote from emveepee

I can submit issue's and PR's there as things mature if I feel that it is worth adding NextPVR support.

NextPVR would have been a separate addon, perhaps build on the same core, but a separate stand-alone addon.

Quote from emveepee

For the subset of users with who just plugin a single supported DVB-T card and have a good tuning file PVR could be easy.

Thank you for your advice, I was just trying to be helpful, but now I understand that this is not enough.

My recent experience with CrazyTurk’s testing on a DVB-S system showed me that although DVB-S shares the ‘DVB’ name, its setup is more complicated than DVB-T.

Because I will only ever have access to DVB-T equipment, this is the only platform that I will truly be able to support in any meaningful way. My current thought is to rename the addon and only allow it to work on simple DVB-T systems.

Quote from emveepee

No doubt some people will figure "why not" and install it without the required knowledge

Good point. I can see how this could lead to potential problems.

I briefly considered countering with 'what about a splash screen explaining what a PVR is', but the likelihood of an inexperienced person just pressing 'OK' would also be high.

Once tested/vetted/working, what is your opinion of adding it to the LE repository for easy installation by those who want it?

Quote from petediscrete

I’ll be back soon at my setup as soon as an unexpected arrival of relatives depart

OK, Thanks.

Quote from petediscrete

Have you introduced it to the Kodi community yet.

No not yet. I know that it is technically a Kodi addon, but its primary purpose is to help setup LE as a PVR. Broadening its scope would mean having to deal with external TVH IP addresses, not just localhost, etc. Perhaps I could try to detect if it is running on LE and if not, add some more logic.

TVH advertises using Avahi / ZeroConf. I have been thinking about making ZeroConf available to Kodi binary addons so that pvr.hts client can auto-configure like the NextPVR client can. It would not be too difficult to allow Python addons to get ZeroConf data too.

Quote from petediscrete

I’d stick with the emphasis on LE for your Wizard addon

I agree in principle, however, if there is an issue with the Kodi version, regardless of the underlying platform, then I'd like to get that resolved because one day LE will probably upgrade to Kodi v21 and beyond.

crazyturk - Thanks you for testing. You seem to be running a beta version of Kodi v21 on CoreELEC with TVHeadEnd v4.3.

One of the last messages in the log is ‘unsupported protocol(script)’. As I have developed and tested this script on LibreELEC using Kodi v20, I suspect that perhaps there could be an issue with the Kodi version. There is also a small possibility that CoreELEC vs LibreELEC could also be contributing to the error.

I will install Kodi v21 on a test machine and see if the script fails.

From your screen print of the TVH adapter page, there is also a very good chance that I am handling the satellite setup incorrectly too. I will add some more debugging information to the script and ask you to rerun in in the next few days.

Quote from Grarea

Out of curiosity, how are you looking to implement it?

Thanks for your feedback.

My personal vision is that once the normal LibreELEC Setup Wizard executes its current final step, the user will be asked if they want to configure a PVR. If they answer ‘Yes’, this script will be run.

Before this can occur, I think that much more testing against a wide range of different systems will be required to prove its resiliency and stability. This could take some time.

At the very least, it would nice to add it to the LibreELEC repository for easier installation, however, it is still very early days.

Thanks for the log. I'll look into it over the next few days.

Quote from crazyturk

First of all thank you for your work.So I tried to test it.My impression is that TBS USB dvb recognizes and scans C-T and S tuners.I'm using a motorized system, but I couldn't adjust it.

Thank you for trying to test.

The Quick Start Guide should work with any tuner type that TVHeadEnd recognises. This includes: DVB-T, DVB-C, DVB-S, ATSC, etc.

When you say that your system is ‘motorised’, does that mean that you have a DVB-S system with a motorised satellite dish? (Please excuse my ignorance, I only have DVB-T in my country.)

Can you please tell me what steps you took?
Did you get any error messages displayed?
Are you able to post a copy of your Kodi log taken immediately after trying to run the Quick Start Guide?

I'm glad to hear that you got your system up and running.

Thanks for doing the testing.

Did you find the steps easy to follow and logical?

Did it give you sufficient feedback as it ran?

Just to help your understanding, LibreELEC is basically 3 pieces of software bundled together.

1) Unix Operating System.

2) Kodi Multimedia player, which is the GUI that you normally see and interact with.

3) TVHeadEnd (in your case). Does the live TV tuning, recording and playback.

Kodi has addons to talk to YouTube and TVHeadEnd so you get a seamless experience.

I want to give very little instruction to see how hard/easy the process is for a noob.

Go to the web site above and download the zip file.

Copy the zip file to your LE box or put it on a USB flash drive.

Go into addons and then load from zip. Navigate to location where the zip file is and select it.

Go into your addons and look for program addons, it will be in there. Run it once and follow the prompts.

How did you access YouTube? Was it via a Kodi add-on?

If you still have access to your old Raspberry Pi, you could go into ‘Video addons’ and see if you have a YouTube addon installed and also which version.

The duplicate channels issue seems odd. What type of Digital TV system are you using? Free-to-air, cable, satellite? What country are you in? Do you know if you are using DVB-T, DVB-C, DVB-S or ATSC?

Are you able to browser to your LibreELEC box using: http://<LibreELEC IP>:9981

I also agree that TVH 4.3 is the preferred version.

I have written a Kodi addon that is designed to setup a simple TVHeadEnd PVR for a new LibreELEC user. I see it as perhaps one day being a follow-on to the existing LibreELEC setup wizard.

Thread

PVR Setup Quick Start Idea

I’ve been working on the concept of a PVR Setup Wizard to aid users in configuring a basic PVR using LibreELEC. The idea is that the users will be able to setup a simple PVR from scratch with little effort.

Bits and pieces of this already exist, however, I’d like to try to consolidate these pieces so that a new user can setup a ‘default PVR’ quickly and easily with LibreELEC out-of-the-box via the Kodi interface.

I have already built a prototype Python script to do this for Tvheadend. I’d…

DeltaMikeCharlie

December 20, 2023 at 12:55 AM

It seems to work well on my test system, however, I only have access to a DVB-T source.

I am seeking assistance from anyone who has a DVB-S, DVB-C or ATSC system and would be willing to test this addon for me. Other people with DVB-T systems can also assist if they are willing.

A word of caution: This addon will most likely mess up an existing system. It is designed to setup a new system from scratch and the results of running it on an existing system could be unpredictable. If you would like to help testing, you should either have a test system or be prepared to backup/restore/rebuild your live system.

If anyone is interested, the download link is here:

TVH-Quick-Start/script.quicktvh.zip at main · DeltaMikeCharlie/TVH-Quick-Start

TVHeadEnd PVR Quick Start Add-on for LibreELEC/Kodi - DeltaMikeCharlie/TVH-Quick-Start

github.com

Thanks for your feedback.

The idea of the addon is that a new user will be able to setup a basic PVR from scratch with little effort.

The way that I envision the final solution being implemented is that at the end of the existing LE Setup Wizard, the user will be asked ‘Would you like to configure a PVR?’ If the answer is yes, then this addon will be run. Later on, perhaps a choice could be offered between TVH and NextPVR. The addon will actually install the TVH Client and Server Kodi addon automatically for the user.

The URL at the top of the page shows the user the address that they will need to access further/advanced configuration options such as passwords, etc.

I have a huge number of TVH data directories on my test LE machine. In ‘/http://storage.kodi/userdata/addon_data/’ and I just stop the TVH service, rename them as required and then restart for my next test.

This test script is designed to be run on a newly installed LibreELEC system by a relatively inexperienced user.

Perhaps I should do some additional testing to see if TVH is already running and ask the user ‘Are you sure?’ before proceeding.

Quote from petediscrete

Travelling too for a week or so. I’ll grab a log as soon as I get back. Just curious why your addon doesn’t allow the user to supply the TVH server details rather than trying to auto discover it. The Config button on the addon screen remains greyed out as soon as the error message appears.

The addon is designed to be run on a newly installed LE system or a system where TVH has not yet been installed. The default configuration when installing TVH is to have it running on the same device along with Kodi.

When you performed your test, did you run it on a freshly installed LE device? If you used an existing device, did the TVH instance have a password set?

petediscrete - Thanks for trying. I am travelling at the moment and will be home in a few days. Can you please try again and have a look at the Kodi log file? The script has fairly verbose logging so hopefully something will show up there.

petediscrete - Some recent experience with a tangentially related project suggests that during scanning, if new services are encountered that contain accented characters, the script has a very good chance of crashing.

Here is a new and improved version that hopefully should not crash due to this issue. It also has some logging enhancements too.

script.quicktvh.zip

Quote from petediscrete

As mentioned above I’d be willing to give it a try with TVHeadend43 Alpha or whatever the hell it’s called these days. Zero point going backwards now.

Attached is v0.0.3 using the TVH43 Alpha addon as the default 'server'.

script.quicktvh.zip

Logging is currently fairly verbose. If you try it and something goes wrong, please send me your Kodi log. Actually, if you try it and it works, I'd also like to see your Kodi log just to see what the addon actually did on your system.