EMBY - PVR and EPG

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SepticSceptic

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#269882 12-Apr-2020 18:46

I've been migrating DVR system away from Windows Media Centre to Emby.

Have a LG Smart TV, but cannot use that for recording - it's too limited. Only has one tuner, and cant adjust lead-in and lead-out times of recordings (5 min before, 10 min after), and Recording Scheduler doesn't take into account day light savings changes - it's not very smart ......

So using Emby app on the LG.

Have an Emby server running on an I5 laptop, also running Windows Media Centre, running the EPG Collector.

My tuner is a DVB USB hauppauge wintv-dualhd dvb

However, Emby doesnt seem to have a useful EPG.

I have been able to setup the Emby DVR using WMC, plus the Emby ServerWMC that reads WMC's EPG, and provides Live TV and DVR

However, it's a convoluted approach, is there anything easier ?

Ideally, I wish to remove the WMC layer.

Cheers

michaelmurfy

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#2460109 12-Apr-2020 19:00

Take a look at Plex instead.

Personally I'm running both (well - Jellyfin and Plex, Jellyfin is a branch of Emby) and found that Emby/Jellyfin is quite a bit more limited. Plex "just works" and works well.

Plex should pick up your TV tuner automatically.

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rb99

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#2460112 12-Apr-2020 19:11

One of the built in tuners that Emby should recognise is Hauppauge, although I don't know if that applies to the usb variety. If it does you apparently need to have WinTV 8.5 installed for it as well. So if it works and you have WinTV up and running and playing stuff and then (hopefully) Emby will find the tuner. It should use the guide info from the WinTV app.

Or, you could replace wmc with NextPVR. So you install NextPVR (v4 or v5, v5 being new), no need for WinTV, and hopefully that'll find the tuner and get the guide from wherever it gets it from. Make sure thats up and running and plays stuff and has a guide, then add the correct plugin in Emby (different for v4 or v5) and hopefully that'll work as well.

Sorry, lots of hopefullys - I use Emby with NextPVR but with a pci-e TBS tuner.

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rb99

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#2460114 12-Apr-2020 19:13

You can also add iptv to Emby, or via NextPVR.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

davidcole

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#2460118 12-Apr-2020 19:22

Doesn’t emby just pull an xmltv epg? You can use epg collector to create the xmltv file from your tuner). Or as others have said look at nextpvr as your recording engine

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PANiCnz

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#2460160 13-Apr-2020 06:28

Personally I’d go for a combo of Emby, Tvheadend and Kodi. Or consider Jellyfin instead of Emby.

SepticSceptic

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#2460384 13-Apr-2020 11:27

michaelmurfy:

Take a look at Plex instead.

Personally I'm running both (well - Jellyfin and Plex, Jellyfin is a branch of Emby) and found that Emby/Jellyfin is quite a bit more limited. Plex "just works" and works well.

Plex should pick up your TV tuner automatically.

I am a bit hesitant to leap into Plex, as there has been some bad feelings around some recent changes to Plex ?

Not that I am ruling it out ...

SepticSceptic

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#2460387 13-Apr-2020 11:31

rb99:

One of the built in tuners that Emby should recognise is Hauppauge, although I don't know if that applies to the usb variety. If it does you apparently need to have WinTV 8.5 installed for it as well. So if it works and you have WinTV up and running and playing stuff and then (hopefully) Emby will find the tuner. It should use the guide info from the WinTV app.

Or, you could replace wmc with NextPVR. So you install NextPVR (v4 or v5, v5 being new), no need for WinTV, and hopefully that'll find the tuner and get the guide from wherever it gets it from. Make sure thats up and running and plays stuff and has a guide, then add the correct plugin in Emby (different for v4 or v5) and hopefully that'll work as well.

Sorry, lots of hopefullys - I use Emby with NextPVR but with a pci-e TBS tuner.

I did go down the route of installing the WinTV application, as I did read somewhere that Emby should pick up the guide data from WinTV.

However, WinTV didn't pick up all the broadcast channels, and still couldn't get Emby to see those channels that were found.

I will look at NextPVR as my 3rd choice ...

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SepticSceptic

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#2460388 13-Apr-2020 11:32

davidcole: Doesn’t emby just pull an xmltv epg? You can use epg collector to create the xmltv file from your tuner). Or as others have said look at nextpvr as your recording engine

This I will try next :-)

rb99

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#2460413 13-Apr-2020 11:52

SepticSceptic:

rb99:

One of the built in tuners that Emby should recognise is Hauppauge, although I don't know if that applies to the usb variety. If it does you apparently need to have WinTV 8.5 installed for it as well. So if it works and you have WinTV up and running and playing stuff and then (hopefully) Emby will find the tuner. It should use the guide info from the WinTV app.

Or, you could replace wmc with NextPVR. So you install NextPVR (v4 or v5, v5 being new), no need for WinTV, and hopefully that'll find the tuner and get the guide from wherever it gets it from. Make sure thats up and running and plays stuff and has a guide, then add the correct plugin in Emby (different for v4 or v5) and hopefully that'll work as well.

Sorry, lots of hopefullys - I use Emby with NextPVR but with a pci-e TBS tuner.

I did go down the route of installing the WinTV application, as I did read somewhere that Emby should pick up the guide data from WinTV.

However, WinTV didn't pick up all the broadcast channels, and still couldn't get Emby to see those channels that were found.

I will look at NextPVR as my 3rd choice ...

I guess in Embys Dashboard, you went to Live TV > TV Sources and picked Hauppauge and then clicked Detect My Devices ? If it finds it you might need to Refresh Guide under Scheduled Tasks. Or maybe restart the server at some point. Or maybe you did this already. Its been a few years since I tried this anyway.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

SepticSceptic

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#2465360 19-Apr-2020 12:04

An update.

I tried Plex, and whilst it did pick-up the Hauppauge USB tuner correctly, and everything worked, including the import of the EPG via the EPG Collector, I just didn't like the look and feel of Plex.

Also the Plex app on the LG didn't seem to integrate the Magic remote too well - the scroll wheel / clicker didn't seem to be able to navigate very well - had to use the up / down / left and right buttons to navigate. And there didn't seem to be an easy way to return to the main menu of the Plex app unless I use the back button.

Using network shares in Plex seemed to be fraught - some unc paths worked, others didn't - I use an I5 laptop that hosted Plex, connecting to an older Win server that hosts my media. In the end I used mapped drives which worked.

Another bugbear with Plex is that Plex would not pickup the embedded metadata of MKV/MP4/WTV previously recorded / converted recordings, to be used as the synopsis of the program.

Also needed apps for Windows Plex, etc. Emby seems to use the Web Player for most viewing situations.

As for Emby, that took a little longer to setup.

As mentioned earlier, and recommended by others, the Win8.5 TV app needs to be installed for Emby to recognise the tuner. Initially, I had problems with the Win TV app only seeing a few channels.

It turned out that the TV app is a bit dated and doesn't recognise any updates to the NZ transmitting towers - I originally scanned Sky Tower only - this was one of the options in the WinTV app, and it only picked up TVNZ, TV3 and Duke. I changed the scanning for all of NZ, and presto, all the Auckland channels eventually showed up.

I believe Emby is working on Hauppauge tuner updates so that no 3rd party layer will be required.

Nevertheless, I now have Emby working with the Hauppauge tuner, and though it takes 10 or so seconds to change channel, it's working. We don't watch live TV, so the DVR feature is all we need. Skipping adverts is quick enough with the LG Magic remote.

Some minor and incidental tidying up to be done, and have a poke around the Philips Hue and Alexa integration - not a show stopper if they don't work.

So, Emby works for me, for my limited requirements. :-)