Kodi Missing PVR repositories

[Duskspeed]

Hey guys,

Just got my V2 as a replacement for a U4 and it's great(including the smaller size)

I have 2 questions about kodi

is the kodi version going to be upgraded as time goes on or is it going to be stock krypton for the life of the box?, and also I have an issue regarding kodi missing it's repositories for PVR, is this by design, will it be fixed?

On a side note I wonder if it's possible for Kodi to auto start when the box is started(go straight to kodi's UI)

[MrQuade]

is the kodi version going to be upgraded as time goes on or is it going to be stock krypton for the life of the box?, and also I have an issue regarding kodi missing it's repositories for PVR, is this by design, will it be fixed?

That would be up to the maintainer of the Kodi plugin I reckon. I'm not exactly sure who that is though! Since it isn't a completely standard version of Kodi, I don't think it will ever be able to be kept completely up to date with the latest versions.

Not sure about the PVR components either. That was on my to-do list, to check what happened when you pointed the PVR back to itself as its own tuner backend. I hadn't actually seen that the PVR client wasn't installed. I had a small dig around for "OpenATV Kodi" and didn't get much info. I'd say there must be some limitation of the port there.

The Kodi PVR interface is very pretty, but its a shame that it would hide all the extra functionality (autotimers etc) of the base firmware.

[Duskspeed]

I spent a little bit of time looking around after I wrote my first post and found this quote when looking into kodi pvr stuff

Under kodis system information on the box it shows the OS as 'Beyonwiz 19.3(kernel: Linux 4.435)' and the Kodi version as 'Kodi 17.6 Krypton'

"PVR client add-ons are binary add-ons, but in Ubuntu they are not packaged with Kodi. All other official Kodi versions have these add-ons included with the default install. For Ubuntu, they must be installed through apt-get. In the future this will be something the user can manage from within the Kodi GUI, but for now they must be installed outside of Kodi."

as for pointing the KODI pvr back at itself, I'm not sure if you would still need some backend stuff like you normally do but I did see a plugin on the Beyonwiz called 'Tuner Server' which does as the name suggests and seems to act like a PVR backend server.

[MrQuade]

All of the Beyonwiz T, U and V units will act as a Kodi PVR backend without needing to install any additional software.
On Kodi you just need the "Vu+" or Enigma2 PVR frontend installed.

There is a plugin called hrtunerproxy available for the Beyonwiz units that allow it to act as if it were a HD Homerun box. That is useful for connecting to software like Plex.

I'M not exactly sure what the "tuner server" plugin is useful for. I haven't played with that.

[MrQuade]

"PVR client add-ons are binary add-ons, but in Ubuntu they are not packaged with Kodi. All other official Kodi versions have these add-ons included with the default install. For Ubuntu, they must be installed through apt-get. In the future this will be something the user can manage from within the Kodi GUI, but for now they must be installed outside of Kodi."

Ok, given that information, I went to have a look and sure enough, there is a solution.

Just open a command line to the V2 using SSH or telnet and install the vuplus Kodi plugin manually via the package manager.

opkg install kodi-addon-pvr-vuplus

I tested the plugin both pointing at the V2 itself (127.0.0.1) and to my U4 over the network. It all seems to work normally.

[Duskspeed]

Ok, given that information, I went to have a look and sure enough, there is a solution.

Just open a command line to the V2 using SSH or telnet and install the vuplus Kodi plugin manually via the package manager.

opkg install kodi-addon-pvr-vuplus

I tested the plugin both pointing at the V2 itself (127.0.0.1) and to my U4 over the network. It all seems to work normally.

NICE!, Just tested it, as you said it does seem to work, I appreciate your help MrQuade.

[schapple]

Were you able to get Kodi to autostart so that you go straight to the Kodi UI?

[pbezza]

Are you able connect other kodi clients (eg. Running on an android box or raspberry pi) to the v2 and use the PVR functions including scheduling recordings from there?

[MrQuade]

Are you able connect other kodi clients (eg. Running on an android box or raspberry pi) to the v2 and use the PVR functions including scheduling recordings from there?

Yes. The other Kodi devices just need to install the Enigma2 PVR client plugin.

[pbezza]

That's awesome.

If the v2 is turned off, does it wake up if another kodi client tries to record a show?

I'm looking for a more power efficient device to replace my tvheadend server which is always on drawing 50 watts on standby. I have 3 kodi frontend devices connected to it and its been running great for 3 years with only the occasional backend reboot required.

[MrQuade]

If the v2 is turned off, does it wake up if another kodi client tries to record a show?

I'm looking for a more power efficient device to replace my tvheadend server which is always on drawing 50 watts on standby. I have 3 kodi frontend devices connected to it and its been running great for 3 years with only the occasional backend reboot required.

The V2 will wake to complete any recordings that have already configured, but it won't wake automatically to accept new timers from your Kodi clients. That makes it a little less convenient.

The V2 is fairly low power with four tuners though, so at least there is some power saving, even if left in normal standby.

[pbezza]

Cheers. I suppose that also means it won't wake up if trying to watch live tv or play recordings on another client.

What are the power usage stats?

[MrQuade]

Cheers. I suppose that also means it won't wake up if trying to watch live tv or play recordings on another client.

Correct.

What are the power usage stats?

I can't remember exactly, i'd have to check, but its less than 24W normally without powering any peripherals, and still less than 24W with the dual tuner attached.

[pbezza]

That's pretty good. Are there options in the menu to spin the attached USB HDD down after x minutes of inactivity?

I currently use hdparm on my server which works well.

[MrQuade]

That's pretty good. Are there options in the menu to spin the attached USB HDD down after x minutes of inactivity?

I currently use hdparm on my server which works well.

Yes, under MENU->Setup->Storage->Hard disk setup->Hard disk standby after.....

It is set to 5 minutes by default. Note that if you are timeshifting and tuned to a live channel, then the harddisk will never be idle. You would need to disable timeshift and make sure you aren't logging anything to the harddisk to allow the disk to spin down.

I think some USB HDD adaptors may also be incompatible with spinning the disk down, so keep an eye on that.
The disk only accounts for about 2W anyway, so not a huge load.

[prl]

That's pretty good. Are there options in the menu to spin the attached USB HDD down after x minutes of inactivity?

Yes. As MrQuade says, the HDD is set by default to spin down after 5 minutes of inactivity and that timeout can be changed by MENU>Setup>Storage>Hard disk settings>Hard disk standby after. The options are 10sec. 30sec, 1min, 2min, 5min, 10min, 20min, 30min, 1hr, 2hr, 4hr.

I currently use hdparm on my server which works well.

The firmware uses hdparm to spin down internal HDDs and sdparm to spin down external HDDs, in both cases by issuing an explicit "spin down" command to the drive. The test for disk inactivity is done on the system's view of the disk activity, not the disk's (so that the test doesn't get confused if there haven't been any physical HDD writes, but there are still dirty disk blocks for the device in the kernal's disk cache).

[pbezza]

Thanks guys, very informative.

If kodi gets updated to 18.x and the hardware is up to streaming and decoding Netflix, I might not have a need for my Android box.