Mpeg-2 Codec

[flyingsubs]

Was wondering if MPEG-2 codec was recommended for a raspberry pi 4 setup.

Would NPVR use it when recording?  I'm seeing some issues when there are 2 things recording and trying to play live tv. I'm assuming it a hardware issue but curious if there were any optimizations I could do.  Not sure if any of my log information would be useful to see multi recordings while watching live tv.  Live TV seems to hiccup every so often from buffering.

It seems like the Raspberry Pi 4 just is almost powerful enough to run NPVR as a backend. 

Thanks
Flyingsubs

[mvallevand]

No recording won't use codecs. Logs would have helped because we don't have a clue what client you are using. If you happen to be using the same RPI4 and Kodi with mpeg2 broadcasts it does not have have h/w decoding like previous generations.

Martin

[flyingsubs]

I appreciate the information!  On Thursday I'll try and get logs of the recordings. I don't think I'll have logs with me watching TV on Thursday though.

My front end, i'm using a windows PC using Kodi.

[mvallevand]

You probably can start with faster recording drive, writing three times and reading for streaming is going to be a a bottleneck. I am assuming you aren't running comskip at the same time but if you are try without it.

IMO you have the client and server hardware mixed up from a performance perspective.

Martin

[flyingsubs]

On Thursdays comskip can definitely be running, but I borrowed your code using nicely which seems to be going well. I'm currently using USB 3.0 with a Micro SSD card which I believe has good reads and writing.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. I was testing to see if I could get rid of my windows desktop as a server in the living room. I think what I could do is have my windows box record to a NAS and only turn on when recording and watching live TV. It would be cool, but I don't think it works having two NPVR back ends, one for recording one for live tv.

Or maybe it makes sense to go back to my original set up using windows and test NPVRv5. And use my raspberry pi for 24 hour things like my home automation stuff and a file server. Either way this has been a good test of the equipment and good test of the software leading to a fun learning experience. Thank you!

Maybe the Raspberry Pi 5 will be able to keep up in the future lol

[mvallevand]

A couple of tips, I'd like to see the RPi4 work even thought it is far from state of the are for small computers in 2019

- if you SD card is being used for live tv buffer move it.

- move the NextPVR /config folder to the SSD .

- using nice is ok for the CPU but it won't help with all the i/o that look to be your problem.

- use two tuners in NextPVR and use an addon like HDHomeRun Simple in Kodi for watching TV. (you can also use a feature I use called LiveStreams to remove NextPVR from LiveTV play to reduce the server load).

Martin

[flyingsubs]

Thanks for the reply, I think those are all great ideas. Unfortunately I don't have a new hard drive since we identified the issue that my drive was dying. Once I get a new drive I think that should be helpful. I was running everything through the USB 3.0 port but wondering if the SD card is the bottle neck for the live tv.

Now that i'm thinking about it. With Disk I/O being the issue, I wonder if I would have two drives or just need a better hard drive to handle the disk IO. For my windows machine I think im using a 7200RPM Sata 3.0 connected drive and I don't have any issues with Live TV and Recording. I just don't want to test that drive in case I wanted to fall back to my windows machine like I am now. Either way good things to know if someone wants to pick up from where I started testing from.

My Set up was

32GB SanDisk Extreme 32GB microSDHC UHS-3 for OS
128GB Samsung 100MB/s (U3) MicroSDXC Evo Select through a USB 3.0 Card Reader

I had to ditch the USB 3.0 External HD since my drive went bad.

My next test might be playing around with the front end piece or start running v5 on Windows. Thanks for all the support and help!