OpenElec is another Linux distro that is centered around XBMC. OpenElec has several things going for it. First, they take the "flying gas can" approach, which is to say they strip off everything from Linux that is not vital to either the operating system, XBMC, or operations therein like TV and WiFi. So OpenElec is a very small image - the entire image file is around 100MB compared to 3+GB for many other distros. This "light" approach means OpenElec performs better on the Raspberry Pi's limited hardware. Another plus for OpenElec is the level of active development. My impression is OpenElec is probably the XBMC-cenetered distro with the most active development, which is good for feature support and bug fixes. Because of all this, OpenElec has become probably the most popular HTPC distro for the Raspberry Pi. So going into this I am expecting good things.
OpenElec - 4.0.7
The first thing you notice when working with OpenElec is how quickly you can write the image to your SD card. Because of the small image size creating a SD card is a lot quicker than other distros. On first boot it goes straight into XBMC after which an initial configuration wizards comes up. This wizard allows you to set up things like your network. Like all other distros, the Rosewill RNX-N180UBE was supported out of the box.
Next I went to try out the TV tuner and tvheadend. OpenElec includes both the firmware file for my TV tuner, and has pre-installed the tvheadend server. All I need to do is enable the tvheadend server, which is disabled by default. Of course, that seemingly simple task proved hard to find. All the guides on the Internet were old and were no longer the way to enable tvheadend. After much poking around I found the setting. From XBMC select System | Settings | Add-ons | Get Add-ons | OpenElec Media Center OS Add-ons | Services | tvheadend. From this deep buried menu you can enable tvheadend.
The next step is to setup tvheadend. When started a TV channel scan, the Raspberry Pi hung. I know the hardware works because I was able to scan for channels under Raspbian, so there must be a software problem causing this. OpenElec just released 4.2.0 which might address this problem. I will have to give that a try sometime.
But this was the point where I decided to stop with OpenElec. My original plan was either a headless DVR in the garage, or a full HTPC in the house. I have since decided to do both. This Raspberry Pi will become the headless unit in the garage recording TV, and I am going to buy a second Raspberry Pi to function as a HTPC connected to a TV. So I do not want to install OpenElec on a headless unit. When I get a second Raspberry Pi I will reevaluate OpenElec using the latest release of the distro.
Greetings:
ReplyDeleteI've followed your setup fairly closely to get my Pi B+ running as a DVR and it's been working great for several months now. THANKS!!!
My systems are as follows:
DVR - Pi B+ as configured using your guide(s).
Kodi - Pi 2B running Kodi to play back the recordings via HDMI cable.
(files are scp'd from the DVR Pi to the Kodi Pi which has a 1TB USB drive attached and mounted)
Everything is using a 1Gb wired network and works wonderfully!
I do have one nagging issue I'd like your comments/advice/suggestions on. Have you ever been able to get closed captions to play from a recorded video? Based upon my hours of research (it has been a while, so I suppose I should try again), the TVHeadEnd software should be recording the captioning along with the video and audio signals into the file. I cannot figure out how to get them to work on my Sony TV via Kodi(XBMC).
Originally I was WinSCP'ing the files to my Windows 7 PC and using Serviio as a DLNA server to play them to my TV. No captions there either.
Any ideas or suggestions?
Keep up the good work!!
Thanks!
Neil
I wish I could help, but in my setup I've never tried CC.
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