Any way to share a tuner over the network or watch live tv on a different PC?

[russr1123]

Is there a way to share the tv tuner card that is in my desktop over the network so that my laptop can use it? What i'd like to do is to be able to watch live tv on my laptop using NPVR. If it is not possible to share the tv tuner card over the network, is there a way to set up the desktop as a server and then my laptop as a client? The end goal is really to watch live tv on the laptop.

I looked at this: http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Manual.NEWA, but that only allows me to schedule recordings and watch them...there's no live tv option there.

Thanks.

[sub]

Yes, you can install NPVR on the laptop and configured it to be a client, and tell it the other machine is the server.

[russr1123]

Hi, can you please tell me how to do this? I'm looking on the documentation page here: http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...ientAndWeb
I have enabled the web server and accessed it through the http://machinename:8866, but I only see options there to view recordings and schedule recordings. Or is it the top section where you set the number of servers? Should I set this to 1 to make the machine a server? I also need help in configuring the client side. Sorry for so many questions, but the documentation page has TODOs in those sections.

[sub]

You dont user the web server for this. You install NPVR on the laptop, then view it's Settings -> Devices page, tick the 'act as client', and fill in the couple of settings. (ie, server name, and a share name that can be used to access the npvr.db3 file on th server)

[russr1123]

Okay thanks, but how do I set up the server part of this?

[soccerdad]

If you already have a working npvr setup on your server, you don't have to do anything. If not, then you have to install a basic setup on the server. Configure tuners, epg, etc.

[russr1123]

If you already have a working npvr setup on your server, you don't have to do anything. If not, then you have to install a basic setup on the server. Configure tuners, epg, etc.

Well on my desktop which is where the tuner card and NPVR are installed, everything is already set up with the channels, EPG, etc. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything else I had to do to actually enable the server such as sharing the c:\program files\npvr folder directory or something.

EDIT: Nevermind, I see the instructions on the bottom of this page: http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...on.Devices

Database share
Set the path to the NextPVR data directory on the server. An example might be that your server, "PVR" has shared folders, "NEXTPVR". You would then enter \\PVR\NEXTPVR as the path for this option. If you are running Windows 7 and have homegroup sharing enabled then it may be already shared as \\PVR\Users\Public\NPVR.

So I guess I need to share the data directory on my desktop.

When you have this sort of server-client set up, is the server merely streaming the data to the client or is it also do some processing?

[sub]

When you have this sort of server-client set up, is the server merely streaming the data to the client or is it also do some processing?

Its not clear exactly what you mean.

When you watch TV from client, it streams the transport stream to the client, and the client decodes it and displays it.

[russr1123]

Thanks, you answered the question. Seems like the server is merely sending the ts and not doing any transcoding, etc. My desktop machine is not as powerful as my laptop, but if all it needs to do is send the ts, then I should be good. I'll try this out tonight and see how well it works.

[sub]

Correct. You dont need a big server.