This topic is a bit of a minefield for the unitiated. I’d like to have dual DVB-T2 tuners and be able to watch live TV as well as record series links etc from the EPG. I’d prefer the saved video to include subtitles in a MKV if possible.
I understand this should be achievable with a USB TV stick and hard drive in the Vero 4k, but would appreciate feedback on what works well or not before I buy things.
I was looking at HD Homerun, but understand it does not use the native DVR interface in Kodi and requires a DVR subscription.
A Sundtek USB tuner with TVHeadend from the App Store would probably work quite well. Recording to MKV is quite uncommon however and TS (transport streams) are usually used
I also would like to get a full functioning DVR [USA channels] using my existing HD Homerun Extend [OTA only] dual tuner but while I can get OSMC to run TV Headend/backend on a RPi3, I was never able to get any EPG to function or even appear on the list in the TV Headend/backend setup.
At this point I don’t even care if it is a free or paid EPG function.
Is there anything unique or pre-loaded in the Vero 4K device which can minimize the effort required to:
Get a functioning EPG [again paid or free]
Point the Vero 4K to my NAS for recording. [I did this for my RPi OSMC and would not like to repeat the experience and convoluted steps required]
If requirement #2 is not available, I’d be willing to add whatever you would suggest as a USB HD as long as the entire package could be seen on my home network.
If the HD Homerun is not the best tuner for this device, what would be the preferred device for the Vero 4k.
TVHeadend will work fine for you, it’s in the OSMC App Store. This will give you an EPG and let you record to a NAS. You just need to mount your NAS via /etc/fstab, and then you can select this directory in TVHeadend to record to.
A HDHomerun should work fine as we compile TVHeadend with HDHomerun support.
Just for info I bought a August DVB-T210v2 USB tuner (also known as a Geniatech or MyGica T230) from Amazon UK.
The Vero 4K doesn’t include a driver for this, but OSMC running on a Raspberry Pi 3 does due to newer kernel.
There are a lot of linux kernel mainlining efforts underway for Amlogic SoCs so I suspect Sam will plan to bring this to the Vero 4K once ready.
TVheadend was an easy install from the App Store. I also had to copy across the USB Tuner firmware which I downloaded from the OpenElec Wiki.
The OTA (over the air) EPG works well.
My challenge is how to trim the TS files without removing the DVB subtitles.
I have just purchased a DVB-T2 TV dongle from the OSMC store and plugged it into my Vero 4K. I have installed the TVHeadend Server via My OSMC. The dongle is connected to my TV aerial which receives FreeView. What do I have to do to get it to work on my Vero 4K? The Vero 4K plays video files in H265 format and sound files in MP3 format and seems to work in all other respects. Is there a LiveTV menu item for the main home screen? If so, how does one enable it. There is a LiveTV menu item in the Settings list but there does not seem to be an option to add it to the home screen.
In TVH settings, you can select .MKV for recordings.
DVR -> Stream Profile = matrovska.
I use this all time for TV recordings (HD). With .TS a recorded program will be split into separate subfiles. But with .MKV, it produces just one output file, though the file size can be quite big if the program is ie 2 hours long.
The subtitles seem to be embedded in the recorded file. I was able to select and see subtitles during playback of a recorded TV program.