I’ve been perusing the forums and trying to figure out how to implement this. I have found some threads, but they seem like arcane arts to me. The basic story is that I am considering ditching satellite service and it’s associated PVR and going to OTA (Over the Air, aka free broadcast tv for fellow neophytes). I want to be able to record shows, possibly more than one at once.
I have a Vero4K and a Synology DS418j NAS with plenty of room. I realize I would have to purchase an HD antenna of some sort.
My question is: what is involved in getting this done? I saw the DVB-T2 TV dongle on the OSMC and it seems to be what one needs to get OTA signals displayed on the TV through the Vero4K. However, I did notice that it says it is incompatible with US television signals. I’m in Canada, but assume we have the same system as the US. Not to mention, several stations I would pick up are directly from the States.
Can anyone give me an idea of what I would need to purchase to get this going? It would be awesome to have a chart style of future TV shows that one can select to record or is this all too much to ask for? I’m sick of giving Bell Canada my money.
Thanks for any help you might be able to give. Please ask if anything is not clear or if more info would be helpful. I hope this ultimately might help others too.
Thanks Sam! I’m assuming that if one wanted to record a show while watching another, you would need two ATSC tuners. Or perhaps finding one that has 2 built in - I don’t know if that exists.
My Vero4K has one of the USB slots taken up by a dongle that came with it - I don’t remember what it does, I think it’s related to the remote.
If you’re in or near a major metropolitan area or a city of any size, OTA will likely provide a decent selection of programming/channels. If you’re in a rural area you’ll want to research what will be available before you invest. In my case, although I’m within 70kms of a medium city, I’m also 100m below the surrounding terrain, in a valley. Without a massive antenna tower I would be very lucky to receive any OTA TV at all.
Thanks for the advice Phydeaux! Luckily I’m in a suburb of Toronto so it looks like I can get a fair amount of programming. Maybe more if those amplified antennas work as advertised.
I am using the aforementioned tuner stick, albeit on a separate Ubuntu server running TVHeadend. I don’t know if it is compatible with OSMC but my guess is it should be.
If you are not sure of what you can get OTA, instead of buying a USB stick, I’d suggest to just get an antenna and test it using your TV, as it should have COAX input and an ATSC tuner built in. Once you know what’s available, you can then get the USB stick.
Well, it looks like I’m going ahead with cord cutting. I did get a amplified indoor antenna as a trial. I only picked up 7 stations, but they were amazingly clear.
I did return it and have a professional coming to install one on our roof. I’m assured that will pick up at least 20 to 30 stations.
Now comes what to do in terms of tuner. I know the Silicondust products are highly regarded. In my reading about it, it seems like it might even be overkill. Like not only does it have the tuner built in, but also PVR software, etc. Doesn’t that sort of negate using the Vero 4K to handle the heavy lifting of recording, etc?
Should I be getting just a USB stick style one? 4 tuners would be nice, but realistically, 2 would suffice. And I’m assuming my Vero will be handling changing channels, recording and playing previously recorded shows, etc.
I am in the UK so what I say may be incorrect for you in Canada, but I would wholeheartedly say go for a HD Homerun device.
I tried various USB single tuner sticks with our OTA service and all were a bit flakey on reception despite me living only 6 or 7 miles from the main transmitter for London, whereas the HD Homerun Connect with two tuners I now have is just perfect.
You do not need to run the HD Homerun PVR software, infact if you did want to use this you would need to run it on a separate PC which would act as a TV server for your network.
I believe HD Homerun devices will work with the TV Headend software you can activate on your Vero but I’ll leave that to others to advise on as its a part of OSMC I do not use.
EDIT:-
There’s also an official HD Homerun addon in the Kodi repository if you just want to watch live TV without the need for PVR software, as well as an unofficial addon called HDhomerun Simple from a Kodi team member called Lunatixz in the same repository
In looking at the HD Homerun (Silicondust) device, it seems almost like having another Vero 4k with tuners built in. I thought that perhaps the USB tuners would sort of turn the Vero 4k into a HD Homerun in terms of getting OTA signals into the network for viewing or recording.
Perhaps I’m wrong - I can definitely say that I don’t totally understand how this all works.
@Buckeye for the USB tuner sticks being flakey, I took it to mean that the reception wasn’t great and that the USB tuner stick was the actual antenna picking up the signal. Is that what you meant?
My signal will be coming from an antenna on the roof and will screw into the tuner stick (or HD Homerun) via coaxial cable.
Really, what it comes down to is wanting to have my Vero 4k act as a movie player for movie files and also to display and record OTA TV (Canadian/US system). I would want 2 or more tuners just so that more than one station can be recorded at the same time. All data is stored on a 4 bay Synology NAS.
I don’t mind getting the HD Homerun, but just wonder if it’s overkill considering that the Vero 4k seems to do everything except natively be able to tune in TV stations.
The reception on the sticks was flakey when they were plugged into my outside aerial, the Silicon Dust device plugged into the same aerial receives far more channels and all working perfectly with it when one would assume having two tuners it would be worse if my reception from the aerial was at fault.
My HD Homerun Connect isn’t like another Vero, its a little box that I plug the aerial into and also a network cable from my router.
You then need some PVR/TV software somewhere on the network to decode the signals and send them across the network and or record as well.
In my case I use NextPVR on my Windows machine as I set this up before I owned a Vero and I’m too lazy to change a working setup lol, you can use TV Headend on the Vero for this function, but as I said I don’t use it so cannot advise on its setup or how to work it.
In principle, that should work. But for that price, you only get one tuner. You need to know this:
OTA broadcasts mix a number of channels into one stream on one broadcast frquency. If you want to record more than one channel or record one channel and watch another at the same time through the dongle then they have to be on the same ‘mux’ (frequency)
You can, of course, use your TV’s tuner to watch one channel while you are recording any other channel through the stick
Vero has only two USB2 sockets. If you buy two sticks to record/play channels on two different muxes at the same time I recommend you add a powered USB hub to run them so you still have a socket for the remote dongle and avoid any power issues (these sticks are fairly power-hungry)
There are reports that DVB sticks with 2 or 3 tuners in them are not well supported on linux
That particular stick may not be supported by OSMC but support can usually be added quickly if it works on other linux distros. I see they support Android so that’s encouraging, at least.
Hope this helps.
PS: the tuners in these sticks are not as sensitive as those in a TV (or, I guess, a standalone PVR or HDHomerun). I need a powered RF splitter to feed two sticks and the TV, but I don’t have line of sight to the TV transmitter. YMMV.
It sounds like if I would have to get 2 DVB sticks, and then it would work, at best, “in principle”, I think the HD Homerun is the way to go and is not overkill as I previously thought.
