Total Emby Noob with LiveTV Questions

[wagman67 0]

Hi All,

 

This is my first foray into the Emby world...have been living in the Kodi world for a few years.

 

I have recently let my cabletv subscription go and can no longer utilize my HDHR Prime, so I have a couple of HDHR Connect devices on the way, for OTA signals.

 

I have ServerWMC set up and using Schedules Direct, on an older Windows 7 machine, using a Core i5 650 CPU and 8GB of RAM. I was using the PVR WMC Client Addon on my KODI boxes to watch and record live TV. 

 

This works pretty well, but I am wondering if there is a better experience out there. So I am exploring Emby and Plex. I haven't seen any demos of Plex with a guide like interface, but I have seen that in Emby...so, I have decided to give this a try first. I will grab a 1 month Premiere key and give it a shot.

 

I am wondering, though, about the best backend solution for live tv on Emby. Is ServerWMC something people prefer, or one of the other backends. I will only be working...currently...with OTA signals, so not worried about encrypted or protected content.

 

Also, is it best to have the backend on the same system as the server? I plan to run the server on a Windows 10 machine, with an SSD for the primary drive, and a Core i5 4670S CPU. That would be a problem with ServerWMC, as it does not play well with Windows 10 updates...and I don't know that I would want to leave the server trans-coding on the slower Windows 7 machine, with the 650 CPU.

 

Please feel free to offer suggestions on which way to go from here.

 

Ultimately, I would love to present my wife with a solution that is easy to use...if you think I should stick with Kodi, please feel free to say so. 

 

I may dabble in building a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with an Emby client, if I can find a good guide.

 

I will continue to read the forums for any added insight.

 

Thanks.

[arrbee99 1815]

Bearing in mind I know nothing about HDHomeuns and you should probably wait till someone answers who knows what they're talking about...Embys built in / default / favourite tuner is a Homerun and you shouldn't need any plugin, just Emby, Homerun and preferably Schedules Direct.

 

If you like Kodi there's a plugin for Kodi to talk to Emby but Kodi isn't necessary and I'm not sure how the Emby / Kodi combo works with Live TV.

[wagman67 0]

Oh, okay, I did not realize that...again, from the Kodi world, had to have a backend and an addon to make the frontend work.

 

So, I also came across the Live TV setup Wiki...which better explained that same thing.

 

I guess I will wait on my HDHR devices to arrive and see what I can cobbled together.

 

Thanks.

[kanipek 230]

Hi All,

 

This is my first foray into the Emby world...have been living in the Kodi world for a few years.

 

I have recently let my cabletv subscription go and can no longer utilize my HDHR Prime, so I have a couple of HDHR Connect devices on the way, for OTA signals.

 

I have ServerWMC set up and using Schedules Direct, on an older Windows 7 machine, using a Core i5 650 CPU and 8GB of RAM. I was using the PVR WMC Client Addon on my KODI boxes to watch and record live TV. 

 

This works pretty well, but I am wondering if there is a better experience out there. So I am exploring Emby and Plex. I haven't seen any demos of Plex with a guide like interface, but I have seen that in Emby...so, I have decided to give this a try first. I will grab a 1 month Premiere key and give it a shot.

 

I am wondering, though, about the best backend solution for live tv on Emby. Is ServerWMC something people prefer, or one of the other backends. I will only be working...currently...with OTA signals, so not worried about encrypted or protected content.

 

Also, is it best to have the backend on the same system as the server? I plan to run the server on a Windows 10 machine, with an SSD for the primary drive, and a Core i5 4670S CPU. That would be a problem with ServerWMC, as it does not play well with Windows 10 updates...and I don't know that I would want to leave the server trans-coding on the slower Windows 7 machine, with the 650 CPU.

 

Please feel free to offer suggestions on which way to go from here.

 

Ultimately, I would love to present my wife with a solution that is easy to use...if you think I should stick with Kodi, please feel free to say so. 

 

I may dabble in building a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with an Emby client, if I can find a good guide.

 

I will continue to read the forums for any added insight.

 

Thanks.

Welcome!

I am an Emby convert from WMC.

Just my opinion but as stated by @arrbee above I think the simplest thing for you to do is just switch to Emby and forget about WMC.

It is simple enough to setup and once it is done - it is done. Live TV setup is pretty straight forward. If your EPG shows no data after you have setup an Schedules Direct account you will need to map the channels, some need to map and some do not - keep that in mind. In the HDHomeRun Setup software - choose Default for the BDA compatibility mode.

 

You can use Kodi as your viewing client. But I recommend at least trying the Emby app for your various client(s) - It really simplifies things in the long run. I was a LONG time Kodi user and it became more and more time consuming to setup, configure and maintain over the years so I finally switched over to Emby apps for my clients - there is really minimal setup/config and they just work.

 

For Kodi - There are two different methods you can use to connect Emby and Kodi - Emby for Kodi and EmbyCon. Each has it's own advantages/disadvantages. you can find both in the forums.

 

WMC note: Like I said I dumped WMC completely after moving to Windows 10. The only thing I truly missed was being able to setup keyword recordings - something Emby does not currently support. So I did without it for a couple of years but I am really an old movie enthusiast and missed that capability to keyword record. I set up SageTV 9 and it works well for that and it is free/open source and pretty straightforward to get up and running. Then of course I wanted to compare to WMC so I set that up also - still waiting to see how that goes with Windows updates and it getting broken - For keyword recording both SageTV 9 and WMC work great so you do have options with regard to that. I personally don't have any issues with either and as time permits I edit and convert those recordings and add them to Emby - so everything from the end user viewing aspect is still all in one place.

 

Emby Server: If you are like many of us here you may have quite a large library of movies and episodes. I would suggest that you start small - using a small subset of your library when you initially setup Emby. Get it all configured, become familiar with the ins and outs of how it all works together. I think it will be a better experience if you do it that way. Initial library scans can take a LONG time for a large library - that is normal. Library structure is important - there are whole sections in the wiki on what is and what is not supported as far as structure. If you are not currently using a supported structure consider switching before you make the jump to Emby - they support several different methods, so it is possible you are already using one of those. 

 

That is my two cents on what you should do.  If you have any issues or further questions there are many folks here in the forums that can be of assistance. I think you will enjoy the Emby experience.

[wagman67 0]

Welcome!

I am an Emby convert from WMC.

Just my opinion but as stated by @arrbee above I think the simplest thing for you to do is just switch to Emby and forget about WMC.

It is simple enough to setup and once it is done - it is done. Live TV setup is pretty straight forward. If your EPG shows no data after you have setup an Schedules Direct account you will need to map the channels, some need to map and some do not - keep that in mind. In the HDHomeRun Setup software - choose Default for the BDA compatibility mode.

 

You can use Kodi as your viewing client. But I recommend at least trying the Emby app for your various client(s) - It really simplifies things in the long run. I was a LONG time Kodi user and it became more and more time consuming to setup, configure and maintain over the years so I finally switched over to Emby apps for my clients - there is really minimal setup/config and they just work.

 

For Kodi - There are two different methods you can use to connect Emby and Kodi - Emby for Kodi and EmbyCon. Each has it's own advantages/disadvantages. you can find both in the forums.

 

WMC note: Like I said I dumped WMC completely after moving to Windows 10. The only thing I truly missed was being able to setup keyword recordings - something Emby does not currently support. So I did without it for a couple of years but I am really an old movie enthusiast and missed that capability to keyword record. I set up SageTV 9 and it works well for that and it is free/open source and pretty straightforward to get up and running. Then of course I wanted to compare to WMC so I set that up also - still waiting to see how that goes with Windows updates and it getting broken - For keyword recording both SageTV 9 and WMC work great so you do have options with regard to that. I personally don't have any issues with either and as time permits I edit and convert those recordings and add them to Emby - so everything from the end user viewing aspect is still all in one place.

 

Emby Server: If you are like many of us here you may have quite a large library of movies and episodes. I would suggest that you start small - using a small subset of your library when you initially setup Emby. Get it all configured, become familiar with the ins and outs of how it all works together. I think it will be a better experience if you do it that way. Initial library scans can take a LONG time for a large library - that is normal. Library structure is important - there are whole sections in the wiki on what is and what is not supported as far as structure. If you are not currently using a supported structure consider switching before you make the jump to Emby - they support several different methods, so it is possible you are already using one of those. 

 

That is my two cents on what you should do.  If you have any issues or further questions there are many folks here in the forums that can be of assistance. I think you will enjoy the Emby experience.

 

Awesome, thanks for the feedback.

 

I am excited about trying something different...love to tinker. And, if in the process, I can produce something that is easy for my wife to use, all the better. Until recently, I was using the setup I described above primarily for me...my 2 sons would use the live tv functionality, but never used the pvr functionality...and the wife stuck with a cable box dvr. We are currently using Playstation Vue, and we like it, but it lacks most of the local channels. So, I want this for all of the OTA stuff.

 

I really do not have a bunch of movies or episodes...I am one of those that records, watches, deletes. My wife, on the other hand, was always a recorder hoarder (yep, just made up that term)...maybe she just didn't know how to delete,   .

 

I do have a crapload of DVDs I would like to slowly rip to digital...yeah, I know that is pretty low quality, but it is what it is.

 

Anyway, I think I am going to do just as you suggest, take the Emby plunge and set aside Kodi, as well as WMC, for now.

[Luke 42078]

Welcome. Let us know how you get on.