Hooray! Up and Running with RaspBMC & NPVR Plugin

[kayleigh]

I'm still doing a few tweaks, but I have my Raspberry Pi running as a client for my NPVR.

I have an HD TV with no network capability connected to an SD receiver, so I stream live TV and watch recorded TV through the server to get high-def. I haven't had any issues with stuttering, even running full 1080i over wi-fi. I don't really watch live TV for much more than an hour or so, so maybe I'm not taxing the set-up as much as others.

Recorded TV plays with a stutter, but it isn't consistent, and I suspect that it may be the hard drive cache; the stream doesn't seem glitched if I copy it to my Synology NAS and play it from there. I'm going to try a separate drive for OS and recordings when I get the time.

[johnsonx42]

interesting report, as I was under the impression that the raspberry pi wouldn't play hd mpeg-2 very well. i assume it's the mpeg-2 license that makes the difference?

did you try both RaspBMC and OpenElec? whether you did or not, any thoughts on why one would choose one over the other?

[kayleigh]

The license grants access to MPEG-2 hardware decoding according to the RasPi licensing page: http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/. I figured since that's basically what I want to stream, and the license is pretty cheap, it was worth the purchase.

I used RaspBMC from the go since the setup was pretty-well documented on a blog and it boots to GUI without any extra tweaking. I have a few co-workers who are trying to prod me to go the OpenElec route, but they haven't given me any compelling reasons other than they're Linux gurus and they love the challenge of tweaking their setups.

[enaz]

You should give openelec a try.. I have a RPI Running the latest version of openelec 3.2 streaming over WiFi from a laptop running npvr. Its awesome openelec boots the RPI in 28 seconds and with slight overclocking ( come on who would overclock a RPI) it streams HD live TV flawlessly only using 30% CPU..

Seriously image another SD card n try openelec..

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[groove93]

I'm running a raspberry Pi with Raspbmc installed. I'm using an airport express on my wireless n network at 2.5 ghz. I've discovered that this connection option works better compared to a usb wireless dongle installed on the RPI. Both SD and HD broadcasts (ota) play with no studdering at all. Channel changes are fast, channel logos properly displayed, dolby Digital audio when available. The RPI is located upstairs in my son's bedroom where my HTPC Running XBMC, WMC, and NextPV is downstairs in the living room.