HTPC on a Proliant N40L

remoteboy

Thinking about taking first steps into building a HTPC server and would be grateful for some advice.

I have a HP Proliant NL40 with 6GB of RAM sitting around doing very little and I'm thinking about installing tvheadend and some form of satellite / terrestrial tuners. Looking for opinions on the following -

1. Is it powerful enough / fit for purpose? Would I be better off with a Pi3 or an Odroid C2?

2. If ok to use what OS would you recommend. It's currently running Ubuntu 14.10. Is it worth switching to OpenElec or LibreElec?

3. For the tuners would you recommend PCI cards or USB units? What models would you recommend?

Apologies in advance if these questions are a bit basic. I've been doing a bit of research but at this point am mildly bewildered. Complexity of set-up isn't an issue - I know my way around Linux - I'm more concerned with reliability/performance.

Thanks for reading.

Johnboy1951

I have a backend HTPC rig with a P4 - Dell Dimension I saved from the dump!
It is running Openelec with tvheadend managing the tuners.

2 x PCI-e cards
1 x Dual tuner DVB-S
1 x Dual Tuner DVB-T
Both tuner cards made by TBS because they have good driver support ..... both proprietary and open source.
It is presently using a community Openelec build with the drivers included.
I am also tracking the LibreELEC progress with a view to moving to that when I next upgrade the OS.
The PC is used to deliver HD TV to several devices around the home and quite often there are three HD channels in use at one time. I have tested its capabilities using up to six channels (mix of HD & SD) without any apparent problems.
I use small devices such a R-Pi and NUC etc at the TVs ..... running Openelec also, but official builds as no TBS drivers required.
Other devices such as laptops, desktops etc use either Kodi or VLC (with HTSP plugin) to play the channels.
I do not have any need to transcode any of the recordings, or the stored video.
All client devices are allowed to set a recording, which is stored centrally and all clients can access all recordings from the backend.

Johnboy1951

This might provide some indication of what it is doing

# free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       3069612    3033812      35800     191344     132056    2520568
-/+ buffers/cache:     381188    2688424
Swap:            0          0          0

Its apparently a Dell Dimension 5150
Oh yes the signals are distributed via ethernet cable through router.
Wifi is not great here for Live HD TV

EDIT:
The only thing I miss is the lack of an NFS server in Openelec.
It has SMB which woks well, and can access files on an NFS share on the LAN, just doesn't share via NFS.
This for a Linux only house is a wee bit annoying

remoteboy

Thanks for the info. Sounds like this would be an ideal use of the proliant. I have a couple of firetv boxes running kodi connected to the main TVs in the house so this would fit right in.

I'll probably start out with a dual sat tuner until I figure it out then add a terrestrial tuner. I'm looking at this card to get me started.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DVBSky-S952-profile-windows-software/dp/B00FAPDVDS/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1463170911&sr=1-1&keywords=dvbsky

It seems to get decent reviews and is half the price of the TBS.

Johnboy1951

I have no personal experience of this card so cannot make any judgement, sorry.
The user replying to the last question in this link used the card in a similar fashion and is very happy with it apparently ...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/DVBSky-S952-profile-windows-software/dp/B00FAPDVDS/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1463170911&sr=1-1&keywords=dvbsky

The only thing to be aware of is that these cards require a PCI-e slot on the motherboard, so make sure your board has sufficient slots available for the number of cards you expect to eventually use.
Else you might have to consider using USB connected 'cards'.

I suggest a dual tuner DVB-T card also, as it exposes both Saorview muxes and thus there is no limit on the number of Saorview channels available at the same time.

remoteboy

Thanks again for your help. I got this up and running in a couple of hours. I had a USB dual DVB-T tuner I'd forgotten about - a Play TV for PS3. Plugged it in to the Linux box and it worked straight away - no need for drivers. Installed the client on Kodi and it integrated seamlessly. Even found a plugin for Plex so it works on my phone. My plex server is publicly available so can watch TV on the go. Just waiting on the DVB-S2 card to arrive and the setup will be complete.

Johnboy1951

remoteboy wrote: »

Thanks again for your help. I got this up and running in a couple of hours. I had a USB dual DVB-T tuner I'd forgotten about - a Play TV for PS3. Plugged it in to the Linux box and it worked straight away - no need for drivers. Installed the client on Kodi and it integrated seamlessly. Even found a plugin for Plex so it works on my phone. My plex server is publicly available so can watch TV on the go. Just waiting on the DVB-S2 card to arrive and the setup will be complete.

Isn't it great when things come together nicely

stevo_

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I have a backend HTPC rig with a P4 - Dell Dimension I saved from the dump!
It is running Openelec with tvheadend managing the tuners.

2 x PCI-e cards
1 x Dual tuner DVB-S
1 x Dual Tuner DVB-T
Both tuner cards made by TBS because they have good driver support ..... both proprietary and open source.
It is presently using a community Openelec build with the drivers included.
I am also tracking the LibreELEC progress with a view to moving to that when I next upgrade the OS.
The PC is used to deliver HD TV to several devices around the home and quite often there are three HD channels in use at one time. I have tested its capabilities using up to six channels (mix of HD & SD) without any apparent problems.
I use small devices such a R-Pi and NUC etc at the TVs ..... running Openelec also, but official builds as no TBS drivers required.
Other devices such as laptops, desktops etc use either Kodi or VLC (with HTSP plugin) to play the channels.
I do not have any need to transcode any of the recordings, or the stored video.
All client devices are allowed to set a recording, which is stored centrally and all clients can access all recordings from the backend.

I'm interested in doing the same thing with my HP Proliant ML10 server and RPi2 Kodi client, but I'd really want timeshift functionality - is this possible with tvheadend?

Johnboy1951

Yes there are timeshift options in tvheadend.