Connecting to Pi from Emby on Nvidia Shield

[RichyRichRich 5]

Hi all.  New to Emby having made the jump from Plex.  Hopefully I've placed my post in the right forum but as it involves a bit of Android, Pi, NextPVR and Comskip, I thought I'd put it here.  Please feel free to move it/advise if it needs to be posted somewhere else.

 

I'm running Emby server and client on an Nvidia Shield which gets its Freeview OTA TV listings and channels from a Pi4 with 2x Hauppauge WinTV dual tuners connected to it, running NextPVR on the LAN.

I think I've managed to install Comskip on my Pi by following this post:
https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=60803
 

What I'm struggling with now is what to put in the "Recording Post processing application" box in the Emby Live TV advanced settings.  My Pi's LAN IP is 192.168.178.66.  It doesn't show up when browsing the network options, and when I put "\\192.168.178.66" in the Path box, I get a Connection Failed message.

So, I guess my quesitons are:

 

1) What text should I be putting into the "Post-processing Application" box?  What should the path be, including the script?

1a) Do I have to setup any network visibilty options somewhere to get Emby to see the Pi?  I presume not because Emby is able to use NextPVR just by pointing to the Pi's IP.

2) As my TV recordings are stored on the Shield and not on the Pi, I presume that the Comskip recording and commercial identification happens first on the Pi and then automatically get transferred to the relevant libraries on the Shield when it's finished processing?

 

Hope this makes sense.  This is all pretty new to me and my linux skills are level noob.  Thanks in advance.

Edited October 6, 2024 by RichyRichRich
additional pi info

[Carlo 4560]

I'm not sure you are going to get this to work in your environement or if so, it's going to be tricky.

At present if I got this correct you have a Pi running 2x Hauppauge WinTV dual tuners.
This is accessed by another computer on the LAN running NextPVR.
Emby Server is running on Shield TV which has Live TV setup to use NextPVR?
Comskip is running on the Pi, where the stream originated from.

Ideally/typically you want to run Comskip on the Emby Server itself, since this is where the recording is being done, but I don't know if Comskip is available for the ShieldTV.
I'd normally recommend not running both the Server and Emby Client on the same ShieldTV as that can load it down and often cause performance problems.  Adding yet another heavy background process such as Comskip on top just doesn't sound like a good idea and likely bottleneck on resources.

ShieldTV has been making access to its file system, more and more difficult with each new release due to security.  In order to get the Pi to run Comskip it will need access to the file system on the shield. This will require setting up a network share on the shield with access to the file system at a location/path containing the DVR recordings.  This will require creating a new user account on the ShieldTV with full access permissions to this new share. This step might require you to create the share in new location on the ShieldTV which adds a new step of setting up the user account running Emby Server full access as well as the network user and then changing the default recording path used in Emby Server to this new location.

On the Pi, you now setup a mount location to the ShieldTV using the network share and username created above.  You should now be able to run Comskip on a DVR file located on the network share.  It would be good to get comskip running at this point processing a file in the background while trying to watch TV and while recording a new movie. Hopefully the Pi will be able to handle this new load and not interfere with what you already have working.

You may want to skip all the setup above and perform a simple test first by coping a couple recorded files over to the Pi and testing to see how well Comskip runs at the same time as your usual TV functionality, making sure it doesn't bottleneck the system.

This doesn't answer the question what to fill in for the post processing field in Emby yet as we need to get a working pipeline first.  On a typical PC running only Emby Server with a tuner used for TV streams and Comskip directly installed, it's as simple as calling a batch or script file.

Carlo

[RichyRichRich 5]

6 hours ago, Carlo said:

 

At present if I got this correct you have a Pi running 2x Hauppauge WinTV dual tuners.
This is accessed by another computer on the LAN running NextPVR.
Emby Server is running on Shield TV which has Live TV setup to use NextPVR?
Comskip is running on the Pi, where the stream originated from.

 

Carlo,

 

 Many thanks for a detailed response. Let me clarify;

NextPVR is running on the pi. It receives the DVBT/2 signal from the 2 USB dial tuners.  Comskip is installed on the pi. 

Emby server and client is running on the shield and has the NextPVR and Comskip plugin installed. 
 

Interestingly (and I don’t know how) my recordings facilitated by nextpvr on the pi end up in my media libraries which are set up on my shield, even though in Nextpvr the recording and buffering folders are set to the default pi/Linux file path: /home/username/recordings

 Maybe I need to edit fstab and mount the shield drive (or the external drive connected to the shield) on the pi?

 Does this further clarification help?

[RichyRichRich 5]

Afterthought: I wonder whether adding the pi as network attached storage in the shield would help It’s definitely visible in the shield options - it can see the pi’s name and its IP but I haven’t tried connecting to it. 

[Carlo 4560]

It might help but really, you're going to need the Pi mounted to the ShieldTV so it can access the recorded files.
If we can get this running, it's going to be something of a convoluted setup that might prove to be hard to manage.

Any chance you have a spare PC laying around you could use to run Emby Server on?
This would allow you to setup everything on one PC and simplify you setup as well by removing NextPVR which wouldn't be needed. It could also allow you to setup and run MCEBuddy giving you much greater control and features. For example, it won't just mark commercial but also completely cut the commercial out of the media file as well as convert the file to another format such as AVC or HVEC for much small storage space as well as creating media files that will normally direct play on any device.

This would also allow you to free up the Pi for other duties as well as allow the ShieldTV to serve as just a client again.  But the main reason in my opinion would be to simplify your setup and have a much easier system to manage. Surely this would make it far easier to add additional storage in the future as well as make it much easier to backup, etc... With the 4 tuners you have now, I don't know if you have enough IO on the ShieldTV/Pi setup to use all 4 tuners simultaneously, but on a PC this could be made to run much smoother. Simple things like adding an SSD or NVMe to the PC to use for recording, metadata, transcoding can make a dramatic difference in overall performance of Emby Server as well.

Any possibly of this?

Carlo

[RichyRichRich 5]

Funny you should mention that, Carlo. I have ordered a Beelink N100 MINI-S12 Pro Mini PC which should arrive tomorrow. Not sure whether I shall install Linux on it or  keep the Windows installation. I plan to use that as an Emby (and possibly Plex) server, plug the tuners into it and use the shield as a client downstairs.

Hopefully that will be a better system and at the same time sort out the transcoding issues I’m experiencing when viewing on my Roku stick upstairs too. 
That way my pi can go back to just being a pihole too. 

 

“This would allow you to setup everything on one PC and simplify you setup as well by removing NextPVR which wouldn't be needed.”
 

What would I use for live TV if I didn’t use NextPVR? MCEBuddy? I’ve never heard of that.  I don’t understand why NextPVR wouldn’t be needed?
 

 

Edited October 10, 2024 by RichyRichRich
Additional question

[Carlo 4560]

NICE!

Because Emby can use the tuners without the need for NextPVR.
Unless you already know Linux I would keep it running Windows.
You can read more about MCEBuddy here:
https://www.mcebuddy2x.com/

Keeping it running windows would allow using MCEBuddy which is great for cutting commercials.

[RichyRichRich 5]

Thanks Carlo. That’s helpful. One more Question;

 

NextPVR allows me to tune and record to more than 1 channel per broadcast MUX. Does Emby have the same functionality?

[Luke 42077]

29 minutes ago, RichyRichRich said:

Thanks Carlo. That’s helpful. One more Question;

 

NextPVR allows me to tune and record to more than 1 channel per broadcast MUX. Does Emby have the same functionality?

Hi, not yet, but it's possible for future updates. Thanks.

[RichyRichRich 5]

Thanks for the quick response, Luke. This is a dealbreaker for me. I look forward to a future release where this is possible. 

[Carlo 4560]

Will you actually be using more than 4 tuner slots at one time?
Multiple people or recording using the same channel in Emby should be able to share the same tuner.
So, the real question could be asked. Will you actually need to access more than 4 channels at the same time?

[RichyRichRich 5]

Hi Carlo,

 

Yes, there will be occasions where all 4 tuners will be in use.  It's not uncommon for members of the household to be watching one thing and recording another.  I also allow another household to use my TV signal from my aerial when their reception is affected by high pressure weather.

 

In different but related news, I've set up the Emby server on the NUC and am using NextPVR successfully.  Slight issue with the picture on the Roku Ultra stick upstairs but I think I've sorted that  by turning off one of the hardware transcoders.  So far so good!  Much more stable than having the server and client both on the shield.

 

Thanks for all your help.  I'll investigate commercial skipping over the weekend.

[Carlo 4560]

Glad you got it working on the NUC.

Looking forward to hearing what you think of MCEBuddy.