syncing channels

[cracksloth2]

I used to be a GBPVR user and have only recently rediscovered the project as NPVR! I see great things and can't wait to see what you do with it! Right now I'm trying to do something a little unorthodox so let me explain my setup:

I have a HDHomerun that serves my TV channels as streams. I got one because I wanted all of my connected devices to have access to tv content without requiring tuner hardware. The obvious choice would be to use GBPVR in client mode. After trying it out, I discovered that it was way too choppy on client computers. Likely, this is because the host computer is reencoding the live stream and then trying to transmit it to the client on an already congested network. Could you consider adding special behavior to the npvr client code such that if the user is tuning a channel from a HDHomerun then it will just transmit the stream url to the client and the client can pull the stream directly. Hopefully that makes sense.

Until such a feature exists, I'm trying to cobble together a workaround. I am syncing the program folder and the database folder between all clients. This works well for syncing settings, database, and tvxml.xml but one thing it doesn't do is share the channel list between all clients (which is desirable in my case since all computers are identical and they are sharing an identical source, the HDHomerun). How do I transfer (or sync) the channel list from one computer to another? Secondly, is there a better way of doing this that I'm missing?

-cs

[sub]

I have a HDHomerun that serves my TV channels as streams. I got one because I wanted all of my connected devices to have access to tv content without requiring tuner hardware. The obvious choice would be to use GBPVR in client mode. After trying it out, I discovered that it was way too choppy on client computers. Likely, this is because the host computer is reencoding the live stream and then trying to transmit it to the client on an already congested network. Could you consider adding special behavior to the npvr client code such that if the user is tuning a channel from a HDHomerun then it will just transmit the stream url to the client and the client can pull the stream directly. Hopefully that makes sense.

Sorry, but it's unlikely I'd add this directly in the application. Way too much work for me for just one type of tuner. It'd take a lot more work than it might seem to you, and I cant justify the time that would be required for this - especially considering it'd only benefit a small segment of the user base. You'd probably need to continue to pursue you cobbled together solution. (sorry!)

[Reddwarf]

Client/Server communication and streaming is MUCH faster on npvr that it was on gbpvr. You should try it!

[mvallevand]

Because it is full duplex traffic the fact that it is streaming from the HDHR to NPVR and from NPVR to an NPVR client shouldn't really add to the congestion. You would need 5 streams in and 5 out at full ATSC HD to saturate 100Mbs. The advantage to one server isn't just the guide. All the clients can watch the same LiveTV stream.

Martin

[cracksloth2]

@sub: I totally understand. I'm probably naive in thinking that NPVR could simply send the url of the stream to the client but maybe one day it will become more of a priority as more of these streaming tuners become available. In the meantime, I'll continue to try to work out something that works. One remaining question, however, is how do you store the channel information so that I can transfer the same settings between computers (I preferably want to setup a syncing solution because I do a lot of tweaking and I want those changes propagated among all computers).

@Reddwarf: I *am* using NPVR!

@mvallevand: Maybe it is because my home necessitates using a less than ideal wireless connection (no hardlines) but I am experiencing choppy playback on my clients. I would *love* to fix this so if you have any suggestions of potential solutions, I would love to hear them.

[mvallevand]

Wifi is a challenge no matter what you try. You might consider NEWA's web interface. Using vlc over wireless might be better because different buffering techniques. Also NEWA can be configured to transcode on-the-fly so you might be able to use a more wifi friendly bitrate.

Martin

[Reddwarf]

@Reddwarf: I *am* using NPVR!

Good, but from your first post it sounded like you were judging from gbpvr's performance. Now, about tuners, I don't think the future is network tuners for a lot of obvious reasons. Among them is that more people is changing to wireless network, and this does not work particulary good with HD. So network tuners seems like a dead end.

[cracksloth2]

@mvallevand: i'll give it a try, thanks for the idea!

@Reddwarf: sorry, thought i was being clear with that first statement. for what it is worth, I don't have any problem streaming from the HDHomerun on my wireless network using any software (including NPVR). Given the progress of networking speed, efficiency, and compression I believe it certainly is the future but all opinions are speculative. My specific problem results from the way NPVR will re-encode the video stream (which is already network ready) and it hasn't worked well for me (but I totally understand why NPVR does it that way and the reasons for having other priorities right now). I can only speculate that my problem is a result of my wireless environment but I will retest while hardlined to my router (it's possible the problem lies elsewhere).

Does anyone know where these elusive channel settings are stored?

[Reddwarf]

@mvallevand: i'll give it a try, thanks for the idea!

@Reddwarf: sorry, thought i was being clear with that first statement. for what it is worth, I don't have any problem streaming from the HDHomerun on my wireless network using any software (including NPVR). Given the progress of networking speed, efficiency, and compression I believe it certainly is the future but all opinions are speculative. My specific problem results from the way NPVR will re-encode the video stream (which is already network ready) and it hasn't worked well for me (but I totally understand why NPVR does it that way and the reasons for having other priorities right now). I can only speculate that my problem is a result of my wireless environment but I will retest while hardlined to my router (it's possible the problem lies elsewhere).

Does anyone know where these elusive channel settings are stored?

To my knowledge npvr does not recode any video, just stores it in the native transport-stream format (that's why all npvr recordings are .ts). With regards to wireless network, with the current technology there is not much room for speed improvments, even if a compresion can yield a few percent more. For future, we might see 3DTV transmissions, which instantly will double the amount of data pr frame, and by then we will be far beyond todays WiFi networks. But we can always hope for new and improved technology

[cracksloth2]

i guess i'll stop asking after this, but does anyone know where/how the channel settings are stored (to clarify, i mean the list of channels and their designated frequencies)? I am trying to sync this data between multiple computers and it doesn't appear to be in the program folder or the database folder (unless I am missing something).