Disable Live-TV buffering when using Kodi NextPVR add-on

[spin35]

When I use the NextPVR Add-on client in Kodi on my NVidia shield, whatever I'm watching or listening to gets buffered on the Server's Hard-drive in a Live-TV buffer folder.
I was wondering if there was some way to disable this so that the stream of data goes directly from my HDHomerun receiver to Kodi (or just pass through the server without thrashing my HDD).

I've tried changing to the HDHomerun Kodi PVR-client which does go directly from Receiver to Kodi, but it doesn't separate the TV and Radio channels so there are no channels in Kodi's Radio menu.

Any suggestions are welcome...

[mvallevand]

Yes and no.

No - Sub took this ability out after GBPVR. Not sure it truly thrashes the disk though and have no qualms using it on a SSD (my v4 Vista box has an early generation one and it still fully healthy) or an NVME drive. There is an exception I don't like it for servers with CoreElec and LibreElec when an SD card is being used.

Yes - The Kodi Live Streams feature will do this for any clear http streaming channel and I use this myself. If you are interested let me know and I will post more details.

Martin

[spin35]

Thanks Martin, more information on the Kodi Live Streams would be welcome. Would it work with my HDHR tuner?

[mvallevand]

It will if you have the http (which I think you must have in Australia for DVB, I saw you post on the SD forum) However if you are using DVB mode in NextPVR for multi-rec there could be major issues and you are best to stick with NextPVR. I don't think pvr.hdhomerun can do that. Also watching Live TV streaming will lock a tuner so NextPVR can't prioritize recordings.

Given that, if you still want to continue and test it out, from the browser capture http://hdhrip/lineup.json and http://nextpvrip:8866/service?method=cha...ormat=json to file and zip the two files and we can move from there.

Martin

[spin35]

For nextpvrip I substituted the NPVR server's IP address and got:
{"stat":"Failed","code":8,"msg":"Invalid Session."}
I'm not sure if I needed to have my NPVR server configured a certain way to get that URL to provide something a bit more useful.

Instead of hdhrip I substituted my tuner's IP and got the lineup in the Zip file attached.  That looks like something useful.  
I note that I can also generate a .m3u version of the channel lineup which I can use with the Simple IPTV add-on, but I'm not sure that this is going to help me to achieve my aim of getting the radio stations to appear in Kodi's Radio section.

[mvallevand]

You need to connect to the NextPVR web server in the browser session before connecting to http://nextpvrip:8866/service?method=cha...ormat=json It shouldn't be a problem.

Are you interested in streaming both audio and video directly or just the audio streams? Either way NextPVR can still record them.

I will put a suggestion on the Silicondust forum for the radio m3u.

Martin.

[spin35]

Thanks - I think I'll leave it there for now - need to fix other things in life 

[mvallevand]

Ok once you send that file it probably will take you 5 more minutes for you to set it up.

Martin

[spin35]

I'm sure I can find 5 minutes to bring this to a conclusion.  Here is the channel JSON from NextPVR

[mvallevand]

You throw me for a bit of a loop with the mjh URL's in there too.  At later date we could also send those or send them instead of the HDHR. Those should still go back to NextPVR.

Anyway, attached please find the file you need.  To use it.

1. in the NextPVR program folder/wwwroot create a folder called public
2. unzip and save LiveStreams.xml file to that folder
3. in Kodi pvr.nextpvr expert settings enable direct streams.  Do this on any client you want to try.
4. restart Kodi
5. play an HDHR channel

You can edit out the channels you don't want to play from the HDHR directly.  I could filter on radio only if you want.

To check if it is working you can go to NextPVR web setting it should show nothing in Settings->Device Status.  You can send the Kodi debug log too and I could tell.

Uninstall by removing LiveStreams.xml the from folder, disabling direct streams and restarting Kodi.

I am not sure what will happen if NextPVR sleeps during playback.  I do want sub to add and API so clients can keep the server awake.

Martin