[mythtv-users] Very Low Cost Frontend

Jim Abernathy jfabernathy at gmail.com
Fri Dec 27 09:04:39 UTC 2019


On 12/27/19 3:41 AM, John wrote:
> On 27/12/2019 07:53, Bob Long wrote:
>> Jim Abernathy wrote on 27/12/19 11:10 am:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>> I've done a lot of testing recently. The RPi4 is an excellent backend
>>> with HDHR Quatro as a networked tuner. That gives you 4 tuners and the
>>> CPU horsepower to handle the recording using a USB3 SATA SSD or even
>>> hard drive.
>>>
>>> The good news is the RPi4 can also handle 4 recordings and do the
>>> mythtv-frontend at the same time. For me that's 4 OTA mpeg2 programs
>>> while displaying a previously recorded program. The quality is quite
>>> good for the video playback.
>>>
>>> However a separate FE is slightly better. I've tested a RP3B+ running
>>> LibreELEC (KODI) with the kodi-pvr-mythtv addon. I've also tested the
>>> FireTV Stick 4K running the Mythtv-frontend and the Mythtv-leanfront.
>>> Both are excellent.
>>>
>>> So for cheapest do a Combo RPi4 FE/BE with a 1TB USB3 SATA SSD using
>>> an adapter.  For best leave the RPi4 as a backend only and use the
>>> FireTV stick 4K as the frontend.
>>>
>>> That's the cheapest I've found. Since storage is the same for any
>>> solution, the comes down to $25 for the FireTV stick 4K and $100 for a
>>> RPi4 4GB DRAM kit.
>>>
>>> I'm parallel testing both my Core i7 Sandybridge backend with hard
>>> drives again the RPi4 backend. Using the FireTV stick 4K and a Shield
>>> TV frontend on both. No difference in quality of recordings or 
>>> playback.
>>>
>>> Jim A
>> Very useful post. Thanks for posting that.
>>
> Beware that the firestick 4k does not work well with european 
> broadcast standards 1080i H264, check its ok with your local standard.
>
> Raspberry Pi works but again with 1080i H264 playback has issues with 
> Mythfrontend. Kodi has perfect playback.
>
> VAAPI playback works very well in Myth 31 so unless you get US 
> broadcast standard I would stick to a NUC for a combined front & back 
> end.
>
Good point. All my discussion was related to USA OTA ATSC 1080i and 720P 
mpeg2 versions of the HDHR.

Jim A




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