Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsHow much is your time worth?
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2015
This review is for those who aren't linux professionals, if you can compile drivers from linux source this isn't the review for you. I wanted to use this as a cheap media server attached to a computer monitor I had lying around. I tried 3 different linux distributions: OSMC, OpenElec and Raspberian. Since I was interested in a media server, specifically KODI, OSMC and OpenElec were better suited to my needs since they include the KODI media center and boot directly into it. OSMC is easier to setup if you are using usb wireless networking since their downloader takes you through the process of entering the SSID / Passphrase and IP if you are not using DHCP. One caveat, neither OSMC nor OpenElec supports wireless connections to SSID that are not broadcast (hidden). I used an EdiMax (Amazon ASIN: B003MTTJOY) usb wireless dongle. The drivers for this were included in OSMC and it worked right from the start. Not so in OpenElec where I ended up using the wired ethernet port. I did enjoy watching videos with OSMC/KODI specifically the SundanceTV and Viewster Addons (Addons are like internet based "channels" that you setup in KODI) With it's low cost, the device might be worth the money just to provide access to these Addons. But since KODI will run on LOTS of platforms (Windows, Mac, Android and IOS) the Pi isn't really necessary for KODI and I will use something else to run it. I gave up trying to configure this as a PVR. I did get it to work, sort of, but not really very well. If you are determined to use this as a PVR read on and you can possibly learn a few things from my hours of trying to get this to work. Otherwise, check out now. Here are a few things I found out, my wireless N router is not fast enough to play HD video without extensive buffering (every 20 secs or so) which made it impossible to watch. Maybe the faster wireless AC would work but I don't have that equipment to test it. SD video worked ok. I was able to set the Pi up with a Hauppauge 950Q usb TV tuner (ASIN: B00BZYJ61E) but only after copying the
right firmware file (dvb-fe-xc5000-1.6.114.fw) into the /lib/firmware directory. The Hauppauge 955Q WILL NOT WORK so don't waste your time there. Once you have the tv tuner working with the os, you need to install a "backend" (server) program and a "frontend" (client) program. I tried tvheadend. Installing the tvheadend "backend" is VERY difficult. As of this writing, the one in the OSMC "app store" doesn't work which is too bad because finding the one in OpenElec is REALLY hard. On OpenElec you have to enable the 3rd party apps first. This is difficult because none of the apps will appear on the menu if you don't choose to "force refresh" and this option won't appear unless you are able to access the "context" menu. How do you do that, by typing "c" on your keyboard. The problem with this is that all this information comes with hours of searching forums and message boards for these small "nuggets" to enable you to do anything. So, after installing both the tvheadend server and client I had to configure tvheadend. There was a great YouTube video ([...]) which goes through this, the guy is German, but he speaks English though the Kodi screen he uses is in German. I read somewhere that tvheadend was written by people in Europe where they have a different tv standard than north america's ATSC. Consequently, there isn't as much testing done on it and less effort to work out the bugs. I found it scanned for channels very inconsistently. The first time I tried, it didn't find all the channels in my area (39 of which about 10 are not Spanish, religious or shopping) After two or three more attempts (uninstalling/re-installing) I finally was able to map all the channels I wanted. So view them right? Not so fast, without buying an MPEG2 license from the Raspberry Pi foundation you can't see the video, only listen to the audio stream. I bought the license ($ 3.50) online and got it the next day. After entering the code in the config file I could now see the video. Channel switching is slow with about 5-10 seconds of buffer before the video starts. But unlike over the network, once the video gets through the initial buffering it doesn't require buffering constantly. Of course once you change the channel it starts all over again. All of this I might have been able to put up with, if tvheadend hadn't kept crashing. I haven't tried tvheadend on other hardware so I can't say if this is just a Pi problem or not. Since it couldn't handle just watching tv very well, I decided not to invest the time in trying to get the electronic program guide and recording features to work which might have taken countless more hours. I've decided to spend 4 times as much money on an Intel NUC and Windows 7 with Media Center. It is SOOOOO much easier to setup and with better hardware and software it is going to be much more stable. I've decided my time is worth more than trying to save money on inferior hardware and software. If you, after reading about my problems, are still wanting to try this, I hope some of things I pointed out will save you some of the hours I wasted on this. Needless to say, I returned my Raspberry Pi 2 to Amazon, thanks so much for their liberal return policy.
