TV Tuners under FreeNAS

[cubix]

Hello community,

Hopefully someone can give me some direction.

I currently have my freenas box serving media to a jailbroken appletv with xbmc installed. So far things work very well and I am now contemplating installing a tv tuner.

Lets say I manage to find a tuner card which plays nice with FreeBSD, is it likely I can get it to work on a FreeNAS install?

On the software front, VDR has been ported to FreeBSD which looks like it will work as a backend and XBMC with PVR as the frontend.

Now, am I wasting my time trying to get this working under FreeNAS? I like the project but I'm very aware of it's primary usage and a square plug doesn't always fit the round hole.

Thanks for your time.
cubix

 

[cyberjock]

To be honest it sounds like you are trying to put a square plug into a round hole. While I have no idea what would be involved with trying to get a TV tuner to function on FreeNAS, since the OS is stripped down to support only what is intended(file server services and soon the plugins) it would likely take much more work than it's worth.

 

[ProtoSD]

It's definitely possible, but not without some deep understanding of how the OS works and building your own drivers.

 

[Stephens]

Now, am I wasting my time trying to get this working under FreeNAS?

Yes. Let the NAS be a NAS and do your tv tuning on a HTPC box. You can still store the recordings on the NAS if you want. Assuming you have gigbit throughout your LAN, it'll be fine.

 

[ProtoSD]

Yes. Let the NAS be a NAS....

Hallelujah!!! ;)

 

[ProtoSD]

Actually, there is the Silcon Dust HDHR network tuner, which might work quite nicely with FreeNAS. All the TV streams are compressed MPEG HD video. You could make a plugin to grab the stream and store it directly to your NAS, but then you'd need scheduling etc., it's possible without completely bastardizing FreeNAS....

 

[ProtoSD]

I'm all for a PURE NAS, but now you got me thinking. THERE IS a MythTV port for FreeBSD.... and it works with the HDHR tuner.... so it might be possible to make that MythTV port into a plugin....


I don't have time, but it's definitely a little easier than I first thought.

 

[cubix]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

protosd: network tuners look hopeful. Avermedia do one too.

 

[LAYGO]

Damn you Proto for not using my search terms! I'm here looking for some insight for use with my HDHomerun, aka HDHR. Yes, let the NAS be a NAS, but what about . . . I dunno . . . A JAIL RUN APP? ;)

My FreeNAS/Jail instance is all headless. I only have an onboard video card & really just want the scheduling/recording PVR functionality. I don't intend to watch on the server. I couldn't get libhdhomerun to build in my jail . . . and I've never actually ever built anything (other than web apps).

 

[LAYGO]

BTW, the HDHomerun worked nicely with W7 WMC, but the whole point of building my NAS was to have something that I could run that wasn't power hungry like my 900w gaming rig.

I'll be your guinea pig/tester Proto, can even code some with a lil direction. PWETTY PWEASE?

 

[ProtoSD]

Things are pretty chaotic for me at the moment and I'm preparing to return to San Diego in a few weeks without a place to live. I think its definitely possible to run something from the jail, I just don't know how long it will be before I get settled and can play with it. My 2 tuner HDHR is sitting in storage with my MythTV system which also has 3 analog tuners. Think I might need one of the 3 tuner/cable card versions, that is of course after I upgrade the disks in my NAS to larger ones. Wish I could help, but I'm not in a proper environment to do much right now. Feel free to bump the thread or send me a PM down the road to see where I'm at.

 

[ProtoSD]

Actually, there's a MythTV port for FreeBSD here: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/multimedia/mythtv/

You could try grabbing the ports tree in the jail:

portsnap fetch
portsnap extract

cd /usr/ports/multimedia/mythtv
make install clean

I'm not sure if that's both the front & backend, but I'd just run the backend on FreeNAS and use another PC to configure everything.

Just a scrap to get you started! ;)

 

[LAYGO]

HEH! Well, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. ;) I'm not afraid of learning & seeing if I can't figure it out. Remember, this is my first *NIX box. Ports/portsnap/etc is all new. Will try some google-fu.

 

[LAYGO]

Makes more sense now . . .

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.html

 

[LAYGO]

Well, I got this far:

Code:

===>  Installing for pkgconf-0.8.9

===>  pkgconf-0.8.9 conflicts with installed package(s):
      pkg-config-0.25_1

      They install files into the same place.
      Please remove them first with pkg_delete(1).
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/devel/pkgconf.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/textproc/libxslt.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/textproc/libxslt.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/devel/py-lxml.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/multimedia/mythtv.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/multimedia/mythtv.

I'm sure I could package_delete as instructed but then what? Start over?

 

[LAYGO]

So much for that idea . . .

Code:

[root@serviio /usr/ports/multimedia/mythtv]# pkg_delete pkg-config-0.25_1
pkg_delete: package 'pkg-config-0.25_1' is required by these other packages
and may not be deinstalled:
xtrans-1.2.5
xproto-7.0.16
libzip-0.9.3
libXau-1.0.5
libXdmcp-1.0.3
orc-0.4.11
schroedinger-1.0.10
libpthread-stubs-0.3_3
libdrm-2.4.12_1
libxcb-1.7
libX11-1.3.3_1,1
libXext-1.1.1,1
libXxf86vm-1.1.0
libXfixes-4.0.4
libXdamage-1.1.2
libGL-7.4.4
libGLU-7.4.4
gpac-libgpac-0.4.5_4,1
x264-0.110.1820
ffmpeg-0.6.1_3,1
transmission-daemon-2.13
libICE-1.0.6,1
libSM-1.1.1_3,1
libXi-1.3,1
glib-1.2.10_13
gtk-1.2.10_22
libfontenc-1.0.5
pixman-0.18.4
freetype2-2.4.4
mkfontscale-1.0.7
mkfontdir-1.0.5
fontconfig-2.8.0,1
font-misc-meltho-1.0.1
font-misc-ethiopic-1.0.1
font-bh-ttf-1.0.1
bitstream-vera-1.10_4
xorg-fonts-truetype-7.5
libXinerama-1.1,1
libXcomposite-0.4.1,1
libXt-1.0.7
libXrender-0.9.5
libXrandr-1.3.0
libXft-2.1.14
libXcursor-1.1.10
xcb-util-0.3.6_1
libffi-3.0.9
libxml2-2.7.8_1
gnutls-2.8.6_2
cups-client-1.4.6
glib-2.26.1_1
gamin-0.1.10_4
gio-fam-backend-2.26.1
shared-mime-info-0.80
gdk-pixbuf-2.22.1
cairo-1.10.0_3,1
gobject-introspection-0.9.12
pango-1.28.3
atk-1.32.0
gtk-2.22.1_1

 

[LAYGO]

Seems like a similar issue:
http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-ports@freebsd.org/msg43077.html

Is it something I should be considering? Calling it a night for now . . .

 

[LAYGO]

Well, I think trying this build broke my jail. None of my apps in the jail are running.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Some suggestions that might help with building stuff..
snapshot your jail (preferably with it off)
pkg_delete -f # you don't actually need that dependency for the other packages to run, just for them to be installed

 

[LAYGO]

Some suggestions that might help with building stuff..
snapshot your jail (preferably with it off)
pkg_delete -f # you don't actually need that dependency for the other packages to run, just for them to be installed

I'm not sure on the dependency at all. I've been without my Serviio/Transmission now for over a week! I need to get it working again, but maybe via the PBIs. Just wish I could get the tuners working in a jail so it could record something. libhdhomerun wouldn't build either & I'm not yet advanced enough to figure it out.