MythTV Official Community Forum

I got a solicitation from Silicon Dust (maker of HDHomerun tuners): Connect and Extend tuners now feature "Premium TV," a smorgasbord of "channels" (such as MSNBC, SyFy, AMC,...) for $35/month.

With a tuner firmware update you can see demo versions of such channels, in the HDHomerun app on Android devices, for example, without paying anything.

I'm trying to see if I could somehow look at such channels from within MythTV.

Anyone have any ideas on the subject?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Bob

Some discussion on the mailing list a few days ago:

https://lists.gt.net/mythtv/users/619296

Craig

Hey, that thread contains a LOT of valuable info and tips.

Thanks!

So, it appears there are some changes needed for full (easy) support. I know one of the problems is some channels have west coast sources, some have east coast, and therefore the times are all messed up for recording purposes. Guide data will eventually become available to resolve that (one could craft their own too). Glad to see there is a workaround or two to make it work now. Being able to have recordings on my myth server is an awesome benefit, I can archive stuff I want to retain, etc. That would mean I'd have one platform for video, instead of multiple with different remotes, etc.

It's missing a few channels we watch, BBCA, AXSTV, Fox Sports, FS1,2, GSN, and Hallmark. But, would consider it at year end when our sub agreement runs out. I suspect it will be tuned by then, Nick mentioned quality improvements on the SD site, etc.

For me, based on current channel lineups, it's going to Sling TV or SD. Sling has the disadvantage of using their cloud DVR. But it currently has the advantage of having those channels that are missing. Sling is also missing DIscovery, Freeform, and TLC. Will be interesting to see how things might change.

On the subject of guide data I contacted Schedules Direct and asked about lineups for Silicon Dust's Premium TV.

They responded as follows:

"We have two lineups already created - USA-0000001-CUSTOM and USA-0000002-CUSTOM for East Coast and West Coast lineups on our JSON service."

Looks like I am going to have to learn how to get schedule updates using JSON. Whole thing looks pretty fearsome.

Agreed. Another difference is the ability to use programming when out of town, as we generally do. With Sling TV, I could use it anywhere. With Premium TV from SD, I'd have more difficulty since I would have my HDHR with me. I could VPN in, etc., but, not quite as nice. I can also transfer recordings remotely, but again, not as convenient. It's going to be a tough choice for me. It may depend on how good it is (SD) by the time my contract ends.

I am continuing to fiddle with Silicon Dust's Premium TV on my HDHomerun tuner. One problem I ran into today is a program I had scheduled to be recorded with MythTV suffered a "Recorder failed" error. Looking at the backend log I see that apparently having the HDHR app open and running on an Amazon Fire TV stick locks the tuner (even tho my Quatro has 4 tuners, and MythTV is only trying to use one of them, and 3 should be available.)

I did a quick Google but don't see any quick answer to preventing this problem. Anyone run across this?

Hello everyone, From the previous posting I would like to contribute what I have learned which I hope helps
My current setup uses capture card "IPTV recorder" with a m3u file. It works most of the time but does have some issues which I hope someone can help me tweak/fix.
Issue #1: Sometimes the selected channel shows unavailable and a constant retry is needed. I believe this is because of the Tuning timeout option which, maxes out at 65000ms, needs to be set higher.
Issue #2: I am limited to watching/recording 1 channel at a time. This is explained below under Mythtv locking all tuners.

Mythtv locking all tuners - Using the "5004/auto/v1111" method will create problems when you stop or change channels. This is more an issue when watching multiple tuners. My work around was to change "auto" to "tuner0" or "tuner1" (example: {ipaddress}:5004/tuner0/v{channelnumber}. This now limits me to use a specified tuner for all my streaming and does not interfere with my normal tv recording/watching on other tuners. Not a fix but a work-about

Schedule Direct Guide info - I have learned that comcast cable (Palm Beach Florida) channels line up with Premium TV channel listing (at least the few that I have been testing with). So I created my m3u file with all the info needed and import it...works nicely.

In contacting silicondust regarding support they pointed me to Mythhdhrrecorder (mythtv/wiki/Mythhdhrrecorder). I have not been able to get this to work nor any additional help on the topic.

Re Mythhdhrrecorder, just a guess, but the wiki page says:

This program requires python3, and a number libraries. It is useful to run it standalone with the --help option before configuring it in MythTV to determine if you have the necessary libraries installed.

The author of the script is frequently on the mythtv-users mailing list so you might try posting a request for help there if you still can't get it working.

Craig

I also have tried to get mythhdhrrecorder working, and failed. In the GitHub docs at:

https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/mythhdhrrecorder

I do not understand how to go about the directive to "Fetch Channels" under "Setup in MythTV."

Whatever I am doing now always gives no channels.

Silicon Dust has uploaded lineups for Premium TV (East and West), but I can't seem to figure out how to import these in the JSON setup.

Really, a more step-by-step guide is needed for the benefit of dummies like me.

yawlhoo wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:57 pm

I also have tried to get mythhdhrrecorder working, and failed. In the GitHub docs at:

https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/mythhdhrrecorder

I do not understand how to go about the directive to "Fetch Channels" under "Setup in MythTV."

Whatever I am doing now always gives no channels.

Silicon Dust has uploaded lineups for Premium TV (East and West), but I can't seem to figure out how to import these in the JSON setup.

Really, a more step-by-step guide is needed for the benefit of dummies like me.

I haven't done this, but...

The screen shot at the following link is from an older version (0.25) but I think it is largely the same.
https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/File:HDHR_P ... tup_15.png

If you have the JSON grabber configured, then Fetch channels should do just that.

Craig

Thanks for the suggestion. BUT, mythtv-setup seems dodgy, "fetch channels" doesn't seem to work, maybe because i am having to look at it via a forwarded X-session. (The backend server is headless.)

I finally got a little bit ahead by working between mythtv-setup and the command line. The attached screenshot shows a problematic "add lineups" dialog. I want to add the "West" HDHomerun Premium TV lineup, but maybe there is a screwup at Schedules Direct since both "CUSTOM" lineups are shown as "East." I added the second lineup and looking through the shows in the MythTV program guide, these look correct, so maybe it is actually "West."

BUT, if I choose a show and ask that it be recorded, I get failed recordings.

I think I will increase the verbosity of the mythhdhrrecorder and see if I can figure out why the recordings fail.

So, I reported the above problem to Schedules Direct and they apparently fixed it. I don't know whether it was their fix or further fiddling with the XMLTV schedules fetch, but I finally got the schedule updates sorted.

However recordings continued to fail.

I found that the "channum" of these new channels was blank. Working between the output from Silicon Dust's tuner output and mysql database editing I was able to insert the correct channum values. Then I was able to record a channel!

Lookin' good!

So the final status: I defined 4 "external" tuners, and can readily look at the MythWeb guide and setup recordings. I have tested recording 2 different channels, and that works. I still have to figure out locking between OTA and Premium TV watching and recording.

Can you please dummy this down for me .... How did you get mythhdhrrecorder channels imported and working?