Looking for version 4 download

[Rich A]

I need to re-install NextPVR vs 4.  Last version I had installed was 4.2.5 (191014).   Does anyone know where I can find the download?   My existing setup has an audio problem that I just can not fix, so I'm going to try a re-install.  Of course I've misplaced the original install file ..

[mvallevand]

Did you try the original source https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.ph...#pid528241

Martin

[Rich A]

Yes, thanks for the link Martin.  Good to hear from you.  I will be attempting to fix the problem later tonight after the HTPC is finished recording.  Tuesday is a big recording night for me.  My problem is a strange one.  Lost my audio playback.  It's working fine (over 12 years and counting) and it's recording just fine.  But the NPVR application has no audiio during playback any more.  Recorded shows do play okay with any 3rd party media player. 

This little windows 7 box has been runniing 24/7 for well over a decade now.  Funny thing.  It's WAY more reliable than my wife's Comcast DVR which we have had to replace three times in the last 12 years!    If I can't get this to work, I guess it will "finally" be a good time to build a new HTPC and upgrade to Win 10 along with NextPvr 5.  Just trying to get another year out of it.  <grin> 

You might get a chuckle out of what I "think" caused this problem.   I also use this ancient HTPC to download movies and shows from various streaming places like Netflix.  And Netflix's latest DRM update created a problem where now any show I download from them always defaults to having Closed Captioning ON and it is using an audio stream with that has the audible "descriptive" option turned on.   And it looks like the Nextpvr defaults now to that one CC with audiable descriptions so it's always on and can not be changed.    So, I was puzing around with the decoder settings and such trying to get those netflix videos to NOT have closed caption with audio descriptions.   And .. well the result was that i screwed up the "regular" Nextpvr recordngs so now I have NO audio at all with my nextpvr program.   Honestly, it wasn't a NextPVR problem and NPVR wasn't broken .. so I fixed it anyway.   Arrghh.

[mvallevand]

My old Vista system that I got in 2007 still is running v4 reliably but it couldn't upgrade to v5. I replaced it with a sub $200 PC and things have been running fine with v5 but I run on Linux now.

You should note that Schedules Direct (if you use it) had to pull a release recently but once they fix their issues you will lose your guide data. Be prepared to move to their XMLTV service or upgrade.

Martin

[Rich A]

Here I've been ujsing Schedujles Direct for a long time.  Maybe since they first started over a decade ago?  Still working fine as of this morning.  Never had a problem.  I think it's doing daily auto downloads / updates of about 3 weeks of data every morning around 3 AM. 

I have been comtiplating upgrading to vs 5 for a few years now.  But frankly this vers 4 is just perfect and virtually trouble free.  And years ago when I was testing early first versions of 5, I noticed it made a much larger impact on my windows resources than 4.  My existing HTPC was custom built and hardened for 24/7 unattended use.  So it has a very low powered (45 wt) processor with no other fans (other than the power supply).  Case and cooling etc. was carefujlly desiigned to use as litttle power as possible and it's got a backup system that can run it for about 2 days without any commercial power.  It has nothing else on it .. no email, or other apps.  Just a gig NIC and uses a remote 3 tuner for the cable feed and another remote tuner for over the air recording.    The LAN based tuners are old Silicon Dust Home Run Primes.  The whole thing just runs ... as reliable as my refrigerator .. 

When I was testing vers 5, I noticed an increased load on the system.  Although this old Win7 system WAS able to run it, it was really loading down my minimal hardware based PC.  I've been thinking of getting one of those fan-less mini PCs and setting it up with Linux to be my new HTPC.

How long have you been running that Linux system you have?  Have you had any issues?

[mvallevand]

Unless you look at your logs you may not have noticed the SD change when it was up temporay because of the cached data. When it is implemented as the cache data runs out you will see what I mean. My Vista system couldn't even connect because TLS 1.0 wasn't supported but the guide looked ok.

Given that that NextPVR can run on a Raspberry PI, I don't think the load of V5 is an issue. Unfortunately many people use the web client for testing instead of NextPVR.exe or traditional direct play clients that don't place the same load.

As for Linux the uptime is better then Windows and I can't imagine you having any issues with your Prime as a tuner. The issue would be choosing a client if you are used to connecting NextPVR.exe to your TV. Personally the idea of an HTPC is not appealing when a $20 Android client for NextPVR can do a better job.

Martin

[BrettB]

When I was testing vers 5, I noticed an increased load on the system.  Although this old Win7 system WAS able to run it, it was really loading down my minimal hardware based PC.  I've been thinking of getting one of those fan-less mini PCs and setting it up with Linux to be my new HTPC.

I'm pretty sure that when you were testing v5, somehow you weren't testing apples to apples. My first guess would be that you were trying to use the web app to play recordings (which requires transcoding for your HDHR generated recordings). That transcoding IS very resource intensive. But it is also really unnecessary for normal use.

As Martin mentioned, more and more of the v4 functionality is going to "break" as time goes on. The impending SD change is probably going to be the big killer for many of the remaining v4 users with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset. If you want to avoid having things break unexpectedly and/or having to scramble to "fix" it, you might want to consider moving to v5 sooner rather than later.

You can have both v4 and v5 installed on the same system at the same time, but it does take a little extra work and care--particularly if you are going to have them both actively running at the same time. If you manually switch between them, then it is a bit easier. And with only HDHR tuners, I believe that you would be able to make a copy of your current npvr.db3 file from v4 in the v5 directory and have it automatically "upgrade" for you so you would still have all tuners, channels, recordings (both recorded and pending), etc. As always, make backup copies of the critical files before testing! If you would like some assistance/pointers for doing the migration, you can start a new thread, and I'm sure that some of us can assist.

Also, you described your server setup a bit, but not your client setup. As Martin mentioned, inexpensive ($30-$40) Android devices running uidroid make great clients giving you the "traditional NextPVR user interface" and use hardly any server resources. They are similar to the old NMT clients from v4 (but much better in v5).

[greg in kansas]

My old Vista system that I got in 2007 still is running v4 reliably but it couldn't upgrade to v5.  I replaced it with a sub $200 PC and things have been running fine with v5 but I run on Linux now. 

You should note that Schedules Direct (if you use it) had to pull a release recently but once they fix their issues you will lose your guide data.  Be prepared to move to their XMLTV service or upgrade.

Martin

I like Rich have been putting off a upgrade.  When you say XMLTV service will we be able to move the EPG to XMLTV and be good for awhile?

Thanks

[mvallevand]

Basically there are several ways to get XMLTV data using grabbers for the SD legacy service or for SD-JSON. Perhaps the easiest way to to this is using EPG123 https://garyan2.github.io/install.html You would use it to schedule XMLTV downloads that would be ready for importing into NextPVR during an EPG update.

Before doing the scheduling you would have to create the XMLTV and remap all your SD files to XMLTV. I know in v5 you can do this by auto-mapping to None and then automap again to XMLTV. Auto-mapping will not be always be perfect.

You also can investigate zap2xml and other XMLTV providers

All of this is probably more work then upgrading to v5 (or v6 in the very near future)

Martin

[greg in kansas]

Basically there are several ways to get XMLTV data using grabbers for the SD legacy service  or for SD-JSON.  Perhaps the easiest way to to this is using EPG123 https://garyan2.github.io/install.html  You would use it to schedule XMLTV downloads that would be ready for importing into NextPVR during an EPG update.

Before doing the scheduling you would have to create the XMLTV and remap all your SD files to XMLTV.  I know in v5 you can do this by auto-mapping to None and then automap again to XMLTV.  Auto-mapping will not be always be perfect.

You also can investigate zap2xml and other XMLTV providers

All of this is probably more work then upgrading to v5 (or v6 in the very near future)

Martin

v6 in the very near future

Caught THAT !!!