[mythtv-users] MythTV on Raspberry Pi 3B+?

[Jim Abernathy]

On 12/12/19 7:45 AM, Per Jessen wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I rarely have reason to fiddle much with MythTV, it has been working and
> working, seven years now.  Kudos!
>
> I'm putting together a new system, for one thing to upgrade MythTV 0.25
> to something more recent, for another to update my increasingly noisy
> livingroom PC, hopefully also enabling everything for HDTV.  I figured
> a Raspi Pi with accelerated H264 and MPEG2 would be the right thing.
>
> I have a system working (version 29, one backend, frontend on Raspi). So
> far so good.  However, no video acceleration - not even for H264.  I'm
> using openSUSE Leap 15.1.  I have bought and installed the MPEG2
> license.
>
> I'm getting conflicting reports - someone told me "omxplayer" is the
> only player using hw acceleration, for instance.  Also that hw video
> acceleration on 64bit doesn't work ?  That would obviously disqualify
> the Raspi immediately, so I thought I would check with you guys here.
>
> Is the Raspi 3B+ a sensible/useful/good choice for a MythTV client or
> not?  HDTV support required.
>
>
> thanks,
>
I'm been doing a lot of Mythtv on RP3B+ and RP4 lately to see what works 
well vs. very well.

My legacy is an old PC running ubuntu 18.04 with mythtv-backend v30 and 
a PCIe tuner card. The frontends that work very well are:

1.  RP3B+ running LibreELEC 9.2.0 with kodi-pvr-mythtv and Kodi 18.5 as 
a frontend. ( for test only)

2.  FireTV 4K running mythtv-frontend, mythtv-leanfront, or Kodi apps. 
(my wife's daily frontends)

3.  Shield TV running mythtv-frontend, mythtv-leanfront, or Kodi apps. 
(My personal daily frontends)

I find that as a mythtv frontend the RP3B+ is best using LibreELEC Kodi 
18 with the mythtv addon.  Running raspbian buster with mythtv-light 
works, but not as smooth video as the Kodi on LibreELEC.

If Santa leaves you a Raspberry PI 4 4GB under your tree you can make a 
complete mythtv FE and BE in one box if your have networked tuners like 
HDHR Quatro or Duo.

There is a lot of good discussion on the Mythtv forum about the 
raspberry work. Once I had an understanding of it all, I put up a topic 
that summarized what I'd learned from others and put the links in one 
thread. https://forum.mythtv.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=3331

Jim A