PVR

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Revision as of 16:08, 2 October 2012 by >DonJ (→‎PVR FAQ)
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Template:Frodo As of v12 (Frodo), XBMC supports Personal Video Recorder (PVR) controls and features when paired with a PVR "backend". This allows you to watch live TV, listen to radio, view an EPG, schedule recordings and enables many other TV related features. A PVR backend is a second process/application that can either run on the same machine running XBMC, on a stand-alone device (able to feed several XBMC machines), or completely by itself with XBMC only running when needed. When paired with a backend, XBMC handles the interface, or frontend, allowing the user to watch live TV, scheduled recordings, time shift (not yet supported), etc.

Due to the somewhat complicated nature of setting up PVR for XBMC, this guide was created to help users from start to finish.

PVR History

XBMC has long had support for viewing recordings from backend recording services such as MythTV and TVHeadend through the use of specialized video sources that communicate with the backend software. This did not allow XBMC to be used a true PVR frontend since user still had to view EPG data and schedule recordings via the backend interface. These file sources were also part of the XBMC core codebase, so updates to the backend API often broke the integration until XBMC pushed out an update.

Serious efforts to create a PVR frontend for XBMC started with a project during Google Summer of Code 2008. Project student Alcoheca began the fork of what would eventually become the XBMC PVR branch. As this project became more mature it opened the door for skinners to start taking advantage of skinning interfaces for PVR and add them to various XBMC skins.

With the release of XBMC 10.0 (Dharma) came the addition of the addon framework to XBMC. Although binary addons were not available, the PVR branch of XBMC started to use these as a structure for having various backends plug-in to a common API structure.

During the development cycle for XBMC 12.0 (Frodo) the merge of the PVR and mainline XBMC branches was approved during the XBMC Devcon. This made the PVR API available to all mainstream XBMC users, although the addons are still to be maintained in a separate repository and not distributed with XBMC releases.

Supported Backends

If you want to use a PVR addon with XBMC, there are a few prerequisites. First, you need a TV tuner or IPTV source, and a working backend to connect to XBMC. Below is a list of currently supported backends. The source for these addons can be found in the XBMC PVR Addons Repo

1. HTS Tvheadend

2. VDR

3. MythTV

4. MediaPortal

5. For The Record Argus TV Server

6. DVBLink TV Server

Configuring XBMC

Once you have a working backend, you can begin the process of getting the matching PVR addon compiled and installed into XBMC. You must have a build version of XBMC compiled after PR:1357 was merged into the master repository. This should be any build after September 4, 2012. Once Frodo is released the PVR components of XBMC will become part of the official release. Until then you must compile XBMC yourself, or use a nightly build.

The PVR Addons are not distributed with XBMC. They reside in a separate repository located at https://github.com/opdenkamp/xbmc-pvr-addons

Windows

  • To compile PVR addons for Windows first make sure you meet the compiling prerequisites for compiling XBMC. The same features are needed to compile the PVR addons.
  • Once the requirements are met, clone the PVR addon repository: https://github.com/opdenkamp/xbmc-pvr-addons. For more information on how to use Git, see the Git_Usage page If using TortiseGit, follow the cloning instructions here, substituting the correct repository URL.
  • Download the build dependencies by executing the batch file found in project\BuildDependencies\
  • Open the solution file located in project\VS2010Express\xbmc-pvr-addons.sln
  • Select the wanted configuration "Debug" or "Release"
  • Press F7 to build the solution

Note: The build system does not yet generate .zip archives Workaround: copy the wanted pvr addons to your XBMC installation by hand. Example: addons\pvr.demo\addon\*.* => YOUR_XBMC_DIR\addons\pvr.demo\*.*

Linux

 $ ./bootstrap
  • To install add-ons into /path/to/XBMC:
 $ ./configure --prefix=/path/to/XBMC
 $ make install
  • To build all PVR add-ons as .zip archives:
$ ./configure
$ make zip

Configure Live TV

  • Enabling Live TV in XBMC


PVR FAQ

What is PVR?
Link
  • PVR (Personal video recorder) allows you to watch live TV, listen to radio, view an EPG, schedule recordings and enables many other TV related features

Which version of XBMC includes the PVR support?
  • The first official XBMC version to support PVR will be XBMC Frodo
  • If you can not wait until the XBMC Frodo is released, you may use (unstable) nightly builds or alpha versions of XBMC

What is a PVR Backend and why do I need it?
  • A PVR Backend is a TV streaming server which can support various input sources including DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB-C, DVB-T, ATSC, IPTV, and Analog video.
  • A PVR backend is a second process/application that can either run on the same machine running XBMC, on a stand-alone device (able to feed several XBMC machines), or completely by itself with XBMC only running when neede

What PVR Hardware/TV Cards does XBMC support?
  • XBMC itself does not support any specific PVR Hardware, it only outputs and interacts with TV streaming server i.e. PVR Backend
  • Each PVR Backend has different hardware and operating system requirements. Please visit the webpages of the indivual PVR Backends for more information

What are PVR Addons and why do I need them?
  • XBMC relies on addons to interact with each individual PVR Backends. Hence you need to ensure that XBMC has the appropiate addon for the PVR backend you are using installed.

Do I need to seperatly download PVR addons or do they come bundled with XBMC?
  • As of 2 October 2012, nightly only the OSX version of XBMC bundles certain PVR addons. All other addons need to be downloaded seperatly


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