How to Watch and Record Live TV on Your XBMC Media Center

(http://whitsongordon.kinja.com)

Building a media center is a killer way to watch or stream your favorite movies and TV shows,

but if you miss being able to watch live TVand record it so you can watch it lateryou can turn

your XBMC (http://xbmc.org/) box into a personal video recorder (PVR) with just a bit of

setup. Here's what you need to do.

XBMC 12 Frodo finally brought official PVR support (http://lifehacker.com/5979853/xbmc-

12-frodo-brings-live-tv-android-support-and-much-more-to-our-favorite-media-center) to our

favorite media center software, and it integrates very nicely. It still takes a bit of setup to get

running though, so we're here to detail all the steps involved for your XBMC media center. If

you don't have one yet, check out our guide to building one (http://lifehacker.com/5936546

/how-i-built-the-media-center-of-my-dreams-for-under-500) and setting everything up

(http://lifehacker.com/5900626/create-a-kickass-seamless-play+everything-media-center-

the-complete-guide) before continuing.

First things first: putting together a DIY PVR can be useful, but it won't be quite the same as

having a TiVo or other commercial DVR in your house.

The main advantage of adding PVR functionality to your media center is that you can then

do anything you want with your recordings. You can add them to your regular XBMC library,

put them on your phone or tablet for watching later, or do anything else you so desire. It can

also much cheaper than buying a separate DVR, depending on what you're recording (cable

users will probably have to spend more). You can also customize your list of channels, which is

nice, so you don't have to see channels you don't like if you don't want to.

The disadvantage to setting up a PVR this way is that it just doesn't work as well as a

dedicated product. There are a lot of different TV tuners and PVR applications out there, but

your experience won't be quite as smooth and seamless as it would be on a dedicated product.

For example, on our main test machine, things worked fairly well, but changing channels is

How to Watch and Record Live TV on Your XBMC Media Center http://lifehacker.com/5981757/how-to-watch-and-record-live-tv-on-yo...

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noticeably slower than on a regular TV, picture quality can vary a lot (depending on your device

and the codecs you use), and you may even experience the occasional freeze or crash. PVR

support in XBMC is still very young, so this will definitely improve over time, but it's unlikely

you're going to get the same experience you do on a device made for PVR.

Overall, I'd say my experience has definitely been a positive one though. I bought a very cheap

TV tuner and have been able to watch and record TV right from my home theater PC for much

less than any other device, which is pretty awesome, and being able to have everything available

from the XBMC interface is pretty great. The more you experiment with different programs and

setups, though, the better experience you're going to get, so let's get started.

In order to get live TV on your home theater PC, you'll need to install a TV tuner card. We've

talked about this before (http://lifehacker.com/5632722/how-to-pick-the-right-tv-tuner-

for-your-diy-dvr), so we won't go into a ton of detail here, but do a little shopping and then poke

around the forums for the different PVR apps to see which ones will work best for your needs.

In our box, we're using the simple and cheap Hauppauge HVR-1250 (http://www.amazon.com

/Hauppauge-1187-WinTV-HVR-1250-Hybird-PCI-Ex1/dp/B0010DIK3U?tag=lifehackeramzn-

20&ascsubtag=[type|link[postId|5981757[asin|B0010DIK3U). It isn't the most feature-filled

around, but it works well for watching and recording simple over-the-air signals (though it can

only do one at a time). Once you've bought your TV tuner, install it into your computer and be

sure to download the latest drivers before you continue.

You'll need two different pieces of software to

run your PVR: a backend and a frontend. In

this case, our frontendthe program from

which we watch live TV and control our

recordingsis going to be XBMC via an add-on.

The backend is the program that actually

interfaces with your TV tuner, decodes the

signal, and does the recording. Some backends

come with their own frontends built-in, but

allow you to use another frontend instead, like

XBMC. You have a lot of choices

(http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=PVR/Backend) depending on your operating system,

but here are the instructions for two of the easier backends around.

For Windows, we recommend NextPVR because it's easy to setup, and comes highly

recommended. Here's what you need to do:

Download and install NextPVR (http://www.nextpvr.com/downloads/). You'll also want

to download the latest patch files from here (http://forums.gbpvr.com

/showthread.php?52417-NPVR-2-5-9-Current-Patches-and-Getting-Started-info%29) to

ensure everything runs smoothlyjust drag the files into your NextPVR program files

folder.

Start up NextPVR. Right-click anywhere in the window to access its settings.

1.

2.

(http://www.amazon.com

/Hauppauge-

1187-WinTV-

HVR-1250-

Hybird-

PCI-Ex1

/dp/B0010DIK3U%3FSubscriptionId%3D11V4BFFP7Y247FYTQ882%26tag%3Dkinjamod-

20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB0010DIK3U

3.4.5.6.


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That should be everything you need to get started. Head to "Live TV" to try watching TV. If you

don't get any picture or sound, you likely need to use a different decoder to get things working

well.

To change your decoder, open up NextPVR's settings and go to "Decoders." The decoders you

want to worry about will depend on your device. For example, my HVR-1250 uses MPEG-2 and

AAC to stream and record TV, so the MPEG-2 and AAC codecs are the ones I needed to change.

You may find other codecs in the respective dropdown menus on this settings pane, but if you

don't (or if none of the available ones work well), you'll need to download a new one and try it

out.

This is the more arduous part of the process. Different codecs are going to work well for

different people, so you'll have to experiment. A good place to start would be the SAF codec pack

(http://forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?50227-Saf6) for NextPVR, though you can install

and try other codecs too (check the NextPVR forums (http://forums.gbpvr.com/) for

suggestions based on your equipment). Keep trying different codecs until you find one that gets

you the picture quality, smoothness, and sound that you want, and then continue to step three.

Tvheadend is a simple backend for Linux that is very easy to install, and can be managed from a

web interfacewhich means you can manage your recordings from any computer in the house,

without even entering XBMC. Here's how to install it on an Ubuntu-based system:

In the left-hand sidebar, click on Devices, then select the one you want to use (for example,

your ATSC tuner if you're using an antenna, or your QAM tuner if you're using cable).

Click the Configure button.

Click Scan and wait for it to find all your channels. When it's done, it'll say "Scan

Complete" and you should have a full list of available channels.

Go to "Recording" in the left sidebar and set the folder where you want recordings to be

stored. You can also tweak other settings here. We recommend checking the "Background

Recording" box as well.

Go to Misc in the sidebar and set your Live TV buffer folder.

Run the following three commands, one after the other, to install Tvheadend:

sudo add-apt-repostory ppa:adamsutton/tvheadend

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install tvheadend

As Tvheadend installs, it will prompt you to create a username and password for its web

interface (which you'll use to manage the program). Create one as instructed and continue

the installation.

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2.

3.4.5.6.7.


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Tvheadend doesn't have its own frontend for watching TV like many backends do, so to test if

your setup worked, you'll have to continue to step 3 and try it out in XBMC.

We've picked these two options because they make good choices for beginners due to their easy

setup. However, every backend program is different, and there's very little consensus

(http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=131068) over which is "best"

(http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=143665) or even the most stable

(http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=119755) (just search for any two backends on the

XBMC forums and you'll find much debate). So, if you don't like the first one you try, download

another one and see if it works better for you. It's a long process of trial and error, but the more

you experiment, the more likely you are to find something that works for you.

Once you've ensured your backend is running correctly, it's time to integrate it with XBMC. This

step is pretty easy. Make sure you're running the latest version of XBMC (http://xbmc.org

/download/) (known as 12, or "Frodo"), and then:

When it's done, open up your browser and head to

http://localhost:9981

. Alternatively, you can access it from another computer by heading to

http://192.168.0.11:9981

(where

192.168.0.11

is the IP address of the machine on which Tvheadend is installed). Enter your username

and password when prompted.

You should be greeted with the Tvheadend web interface. First, click the Configuration tab,

then click the TV Adapters tab under that. From the dropdown menu on the left, pick your

TV tuner.

Click the "Add DVB Network by Location" button. Choose your location and the type of

signal you're looking for. For example, if you're hooked up to an over-the-air antenna, you

would choose the ATSC option, and if you have cable, try the Cable Standard option.

Click the "Add DVB Network" button on the left to continue. Now, look to the box on the

right. At the bottom, you should see a line that says "Muxes Awaiting Initial Scan." This

will slowly drop to 0 as it scans channels. When it finds channels, the number under

"Services" will increase.

When "Muxes Awaiting Initial Scan" reaches 0, you should have a number of Services

scanned and ready to go (if not, try a different signal type or make sure your tuner is

working). Click "Map DVB Services to Channels" to finish the channel scanning process.


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You may still have to do some experimentation here to find out the settings that work best for

your specific hardware and software, but for the most part, you should be good to go. Try

watching or recording a show from XBMC, tweak your episode list from the Live TV settings,

and enjoy.

This is a pretty basic setup, but you can do a lot more with your PVR once you get it set up, such

as:

Find a Better Programming Guide: The electronic programming guide (or EPG for short)

you start with is probably pretty lacking at this stage. The best way to improve it is by setting up

an EPG grabber, which will download a high quality episode guide and save it as an XMLTV file

to which you can point your backend. Schedules Direct comes very highly recommended, and is

only $25 a year (well worth the price), but what you use will depend on your country. Check out

NextPVR's EPG section in the wiki (http://www.gbpvr.com/nwiki

/pmwiki.php?n=Configuration.XMLTVEPG) for more info, and if you're using Tvheadend, poke

around the forums (https://www.lonelycoder.com/redmine/projects/tvheadend/boards/12) for

more information on how to set up an episode guide.

Skip and Remove Commercials: You may also want to download a program like Comskip

(http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/) that automatically finds and skips commercials for you.

Check out this page on the NextPVR wiki (http://www.gbpvr.com/nwiki

/pmwiki.php?n=Utility.ComSkip) or this page on Tvheadend's wiki

(https://www.lonelycoder.com/redmine/projects/tvheadend

/wiki/Tvheadend_post_recording_scripts) for more information on how to set that up. You can

even set it up to remove commercials from your video files altogether.

Again, this is just the beginning. There are a lot of cool things you can do with your DIY PVR, so

Open up XBMC and head to Settings > Add-Ons > Disabled Add-Ons. Head to PVR

Clients, and select the one for your program (in this case, either NextPVR or Tvheadend).

Choose Enable.

Next, go to Configure. Most of the default settings should work fine here, but if your

backend has a username or password, type those in now. If your backend supports

Timeshifting (rewinding or pausing live TV), enable it under the "Advanced" tab.

Go back to XBMC's Settings and choose Live TV. Under General, check the Enabled box,

and tweak any other settings you want here. I generally like to go to Playback and uncheck

Start Playback Minimized.

If you go back to the main menu, you should see a new section called "Live TV" where you

can watch shows, see an episode guide, and set up recordings. Congratulations! You've got

XBMC working as a PVR.

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once you're all set up, check out the XBMC forums (http://forum.xbmc.org/) (as well as the

forums for your respective backend) for more ideas and support. But for now, kick back with a

cold one and enjoy some live TV. You've earned it.


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How to Watch and Record Live TV on Your XBMC Media Center

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