Updating NextPVR from a very old version

[lemmy999]

Up until recently I have had my machine running Windows 7 with NextPVR 4.2.4 and an HDHomerun tuner.  I have 3 Nvidia Shields running the very old Kodi 18.5 because when the Kodi updated to a newer version the add-on won't work with the old NexPVR running on my computer that handles the recording.  

I would have just updated the NextPVR long ago, but everything was working and since I had an old OS I was thinking it was likely that I would update then run into issues due having Win 7. But now I have Windows 10 on that machine and was going to update the NextPVR and the Kodi on all of my Shields. With this being a big jump (from NextPVR 4.2.4 to 7.x and Kodi 18.5 to 21.1), am I likely to run into issues or should it be as simple as running the NextPVR installer (without uninstalling 4.2.4) and then updating Kodi?  Thanks

[mvallevand]

There is no update from 4.24, it is a fresh install. I can't remember if there were any database changes for the HDHR but you might want to try the migrate steps here https://github.com/sub3/NextPVR/wiki/updates-upgrades If that works I don't see any major issues with an HDHR setup.

Turns out Windows 10 is now an old OS with the EOL coming this year.

Martin

[lemmy999]

There is no update from 4.24, it is a fresh install.  I can't remember if there were any database changes for the HDHR but you might want to try the migrate steps here https://github.com/sub3/NextPVR/wiki/updates-upgrades  If that works I don't see any major issues with an HDHR setup.

Turns out Windows 10 is now an old OS with the EOL coming this year.

Martin

Thank you for the information.  The NextPVR installer always pulls down the latest version right?  So I should be able to follow the same v4 to v5 steps when installing v7?   Is there a way to install v5 ( or v6 if there was one) NextPVR since based on the forums v7 seems to have a few issues?

[mvallevand]

It will only install v7 There aren't any issues with the the HDHR or Schedules Direct in v7 and Kodi playback should be improved. You basically just need to decide if you need NextPVR thumbnails if you only use Kodi.

Martin

[lemmy999]

It will only install v7  There aren't any issues with the the HDHR or Schedules Direct in v7 and Kodi playback should be improved.  You basically just need to decide if you need NextPVR thumbnails if you only use Kodi.

Martin

Thanks.  Ok I will move forward with the v7 install since it doesn't require removing v4.  

As far as thumbnails, are you referring to the thumbnail skipping?  I am perfectly happy with the 10/30/60 sec skipping and not sure I would like thumbnail skipping since I mainly use NextPVR and Kodi to watch NFL games, I know the adverts are always 2:30 so I quickly do 2x 1 minute skip and 1x 30 second skip and I don't even have to look at thumbnails.  But I could see the thumbnail skipping being nice as well.  But I believe I have read thumbnails can be turned off, right?

I plan on following the steps you linked to (install v7, copy over the config.xml and npvr.db3, stop the v4 service) and then seeing how things work.  But will my older Kodi installs (one is 18.5 and the other two are 19.4) work with v7 NextPVR?  I noticed that the add-on in Kodi 19.4 has an option for legacy v4 mode, so I assume I can just turn that off.

[mvallevand]

Kodi won't support thumbnails from NextPVR. If you mainly use Kodi I would turn them off. Thumbnail skipping is nice at times but but not all clients support them.

I think I backported some v5 stuff to Leia yes again with 18.5 you are missing sem things in Leia 18.9 was final. That doesn't really matter though since neither are supported by Kodi.

Martin

[lemmy999]

Assuming the v7 install works well, I do plan on updating to the latest 21.1 Kodi. I just didn't want to update to the latest Kodi to test the v7 NextPVR and end up having issues. But if I do I will just sideload the older Kodi and continued with v4 NextPVR. Even though I have auto updates turned off on the Nvidia Shield, a few times the Kodi would update to a newer version and start demanding a newer version of NextPVR so I have the old version on the Shield ready to sideload. I never figured out how/why it would do this, but it hasn't done that in a while.

[lemmy999]

I have one last question if you don't mind. When I upgrade to win10 suddenly the NextPVR playback of live TV stopped working since Win10 disabled MPEG2 support. So I changed to ffdshow Video Decoder, enabled MPEG2 decoding for it, and it worked fine (I had a very old version of 32-bit ffdshow already on my computer). I assume the latest NextPVR is now 64 bit and will require a 64 bit ffdshow to be installed, is that correct?

Also in a very old post (from 2015) you mentioned "replacing the win10 msmpegvdec.dll with the old one from the Windows.old\Windows\System32 and hardcoding it and I get playback". Since I just upgraded from win7, I have that same msmpegvdec.dll in my windows.old\system32 directory. If this would work, how do you do this? Do you simply copy the Win7 .dll over to the Windows\system32 directory?

[mvallevand]

No NextPVR is still 32 but and if you search decoders the 32 bit LAV decidor is recommended

Martin

[lemmy999]

Thanks. I assumed that since it now installed in the \Program Files directory instead of the \Program Files (x86) directory that it was now 64 bit.

I had read several older posts on here that said the LAV decoder had lots of problems with NextPVR (some issue with the Microsoft demultiplexer ), but granted they were very old posts.