Full DVB-C/T/T2/S PVR running tvheadend and stock based kernel (incl NTFS support)!

[nopnop9090]

About the Shield TV PVR Project
I wanted to use my NVidia Shield TV not just for gaming and Netflix, but did not like the idea to loose the (in my view) really cool wifi remote and gamepad by switching to 'that other full android' image that is currently available on xda. So i decided to jump on the road and add those few additional features I was missing to the stock system by myself..

After some (many) hours of work to get the nvidia supplied source packages trimmed down and fixing bugs in the kernel, I can finally say its running pretty good now!

Here is what is working right now:
- A full kernel compile can be done in just about 3-8 minutes contrary to more than one and a half hours when using the unmodified nvidia package

- The stripped down development package I built is only taking about 1.5 GB of harddrive space, there is no need to download all of these 20+ GB of mixed stuff from the slow nvidia servers anymore, no need to wait for the repo tool to unpack and etc - its just fetch and compile a bootimage right away.

- I have added full NTFS (r+w) support to the kernel, so you can just plug-in any ntfs formatted harddrive or usb stick and use it like the fat32 formatted drives that were already supported.

- I have added DVBAPI support back into the kernel so you can plug-in a supported DVB-C/DVB-S/DVB-S2/DVB-T/DVB-T2 tuner stick and use it to watch, record and stream live TV from your shield - full PVR powers baby! (I had to patch the base kernel to allow that as there was some 32/64 bit ioctl compatibility issue that I think was one of the reasons why nvidia did not include dvbapi - it took a long time googling around to get this working..)

- I have built the latest tvheadend server version from source aswell, on my shield it gets started using a bootscript and its really easy to install using adb

This is my current setup:

I have connected 3 DVBSky DVB-C/T/T2 USB tuner sticks to a powered USB 3.0 hub and plugged that into the shield. Since there were no drivers for my usb stick brand available, I have patched the dvbsky branch of the kernel tree with a backported version of these drivers. (For those of you that have different brand sticks, there are 2 other branches available, one with all the stock kernel-supplied dvb drivers, one with all the drivers from media_tree). It is now easily possible to

watch live TV (using Kodi with tvheadend htsp plugin) with full EPG etc

stream live TV to the kids room (my kids are using kodi installed on a fire tv stick that is connected to an old 19" lcd screen)

stream transcoded (bandwidth saving) live tv to my tablet and smartphone over the internet

record tv shows on demand, timers can be programmed using a smartphone (tvheadend helper app) aswell as through the kodi interface

All these features are in heavy use by my family right now and without any real impact on the overall speed of the shield console - read: completely transparent in the background! (I have attached a 500 GB USB 3.0 hard drive (ntfs formatted) to the shield for storage of the recorded tv shows - obiously.)

Get yourself a Shield PVR
Just grab a linux-supported tuner stick and a harddrive, flash one of the precompiled kernels and install tvheadend from my androidfilehost area - it surely is not for the fainthearted as there are currently no step-by-step instructions, but I think everyone with a little knowledge on how to use adb and fastboot can do it.

Of course I will try to help out if you run into problems, you can post your questions/suggestions/bug reports into the issue tracker or to my thread at xda.

Contribute
If you want to say thanks and help continuing my work you can hit that donate button on my androidfilehost area, it is not in any way required tho. If you want to contribute code/patches/ideas - just do so using the usual channels (issue tracker, xda thread).

How do I get set up for development?
Check the official repo wiki page, I have added some scripting code examples and etc to the wiki there.

Check my twitter account aswell for latest updates and a preview video showing my actual shield in action!

Androidfilehost (prebuilt images): https://androidfilehost.com/?w=files&flid=48701
Github repo: https://bitbucket.org/nopnop9090/shieldtv-kernel
Wiki: https://bitbucket.org/nopnop9090/shieldtv-kernel/wiki

 

[andersh]

Great work!

I tried to follow the link to the wiki on your bitbucket, but only get a message that I don't have access to it. Maybe some permissions that should be changed?

 

[xd4d3v]

This is excellent work. What usb tuners are supported?

---------- Post added at 10:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:28 PM ----------

i just tried the version compiled on the 28th on retail firmware it doesnt boot

 

[gumbi2400]

Wow! This is EXACTLY what I wanted to do with my Shield TV but didn't think it would be possible. Is that dvb-s2 by chance?

 

[nopnop9090]

Great work!

I tried to follow the link to the wiki on your bitbucket, but only get a message that I don't have access to it. Maybe some permissions that should be changed?

should be fixed as of now - shame on me!

This is excellent work. What usb tuners are supported?


---------- Post added at 10:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:28 PM ----------

i just tried the version compiled on the 28th on retail firmware it doesnt boot

hm, please try to install the developer firmware first, and i would recommend the build id 11c80e6 for first testing - I will try to make it work on retail when everything else is a bit "matured" of course

Wow! This is EXACTLY what I wanted to do with my Shield TV but didn't think it would be possible. Is that dvb-s2 by chance?

dvb-t/t2/c/c2/s/s2 - doesent matter as long as there is a kernel driver for the tuner available. and if its not already included in the kernel you can use the media_build release where a lot more tuners are supported - its a little tricky to get it running because with media_build you would have to find out which tuner.ko file you need to "insmod" - so better try the "static" build id 11c80e6 before anything else and please post a dmesg capture if it doesnt recognize your tuner.

 

[gumbi2400]

Haven't actually purchased a tuner yet, but am thinking about doing it soon now! I'll try and find one that's well supported under Linux already.

 

[nopnop9090]

THE BUILD SYSTEM HAS BEEN FIXED, NEW BOOTIMAGES WERE UPLOADED AND THE REPO IS BACK ASWELL. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

sorry for that, I made a silly mistake in my script when I built the stripped down environment and published it for the first time - i now have pushed the fixed source to the repo and a full set of new bootimages to the androidfilehost page. it should be all working now but please report any problems you may find as I cannot test everything by myself (because of lack of hardware, obviously)

 

[chemstar]

could you enable Webcam drivers too so we can use Skype video

 

[xd4d3v]

could you enable Webcam drivers too so we can use Skype video

+1 to this.
Also, since you're compiling the kernel, it might be worth adding the systemless root.
at the end of the day, it makes no difference without the supersu app, so users can decide to have root or not, by installing the supersu app.

 

[nopnop9090]

could you enable Webcam drivers too so we can use Skype video

all available webcam drivers have been enabled in the media_build branch, you will have to find out which .ko modules to insmod though. the stock kernel
does not have much (if any) drivers for webcams I think.. hmm.

+1 to this.
Also, since you're compiling the kernel, it might be worth adding the systemless root.
at the end of the day, it makes no difference without the supersu app, so users can decide to have root or not, by installing the supersu app.

hm, sounds like a pretty good idea - I will have a look at it shortly

 

[ErAzOr2k]

Does this also work with [ROM][Full Android for Shield TV][v.2.2] shield-tv ?

 

[nopnop9090]

Does this also work with [ROM][Full Android for Shield TV][v.2.2] shield-tv ?

i dont know, the other rom doesnt use a full stock-based kernel I think. ask the rom creator?

 

[BLAST3RR]

This looks great, good job so far!

stream transcoded (bandwidth saving) live tv to my tablet and smartphone over the internet

Does this mean you are using nvenc for transcoding? Or are you not using any hardware acceleration? How is that performing (how many streams can you transcode simultaneously)?

I am really looking for a solution to make transcoding easier. From what I've seen with using nvidia's nvenc is that the CPU is only decoding the streams, encoding is completely offloading, giving a massive decrease in overall server load. Now I know the new nvenc has a hard limit to allow up to 2 streams transcoding on normal GeForce gfx cards, but I wonder if the same limitation applies to the Tegra X1 chips..

In short: hardware transcoding makes this the ultimate tvheadend server/set top box!

PS: Also, the links in your Wiki entry to your Androidfilehost profile don't seem to work. I think they are account links (only for you when you are logged in). The correct link seems to be https://www.androidfilehost.com/?w=files&flid=48701. Maybe also add it linkable to your OP?

 

[angel2000med]

Can you please explain how exactly do we apply your file?...
Is it enough to just flash the zip file with twrp, or do we have to do something else?

 

[umoraes2009]

THE BUILD SYSTEM HAS BEEN FIXED, NEW BOOTIMAGES WERE UPLOADED AND THE REPO IS BACK ASWELL. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

About the Shield TV PVR Project
I wanted to use my NVidia Shield TV not just for gaming and Netflix, but did not like the idea to loose the (in my view) really cool wifi remote and gamepad by switching to 'that other full android' image that is currently available on xda. So i decided to jump on the road and add those few additional features I was missing to the stock system by myself..

After some (many) hours of work to get the nvidia supplied source packages trimmed down and fixing bugs in the kernel, I can finally say its running pretty good now!

Here is what is working right now:
- A full kernel compile can be done in just about 3-8 minutes contrary to more than one and a half hours when using the unmodified nvidia package

- The stripped down development package I built is only taking about 1.5 GB of harddrive space, there is no need to download all of these 20+ GB of mixed stuff from the slow nvidia servers anymore, no need to wait for the repo tool to unpack and etc - its just fetch and compile a bootimage right away.

- I have added full NTFS (r+w) support to the kernel, so you can just plug-in any ntfs formatted harddrive or usb stick and use it like the fat32 formatted drives that were already supported.

- I have added DVBAPI support back into the kernel so you can plug-in a supported DVB-C/DVB-S/DVB-S2/DVB-T/DVB-T2 tuner stick and use it to watch, record and stream live TV from your shield - full PVR powers baby! (I had to patch the base kernel to allow that as there was some 32/64 bit ioctl compatibility issue that I think was one of the reasons why nvidia did not include dvbapi - it took a long time googling around to get this working..)

- I have built the latest tvheadend server version from source aswell, on my shield it gets started using a bootscript and its really easy to install using adb

This is my current setup:
I have connected 3 DVBSky DVB-C/T/T2 USB tuner sticks to a powered USB 3.0 hub and plugged that into the shield. Since there were no drivers for my usb stick brand available, I have patched the dvbsky branch of the kernel tree with a backported version of these drivers. (For those of you that have different brand sticks, there are 2 other branches available, one with all the stock kernel-supplied dvb drivers, one with all the drivers from media_tree). It is now easily possible to

watch live TV (using Kodi with tvheadend htsp plugin) with full EPG etc

stream live TV to the kids room (my kids are using kodi installed on a fire tv stick that is connected to an old 19" lcd screen)

stream transcoded (bandwidth saving) live tv to my tablet and smartphone over the internet

record tv shows on demand, timers can be programmed using a smartphone (tvheadend helper app) aswell as through the kodi interface

All these features are in heavy use by my family right now and without any real impact on the overall speed of the shield console - read: completely transparent in the background! (I have attached a 500 GB USB 3.0 hard drive (ntfs formatted) to the shield for storage of the recorded tv shows - obiously.)

Get yourself a Shield PVR
Just grab a linux-supported tuner stick and a harddrive, flash one of the precompiled kernels and install tvheadend from my androidfilehost area - it surely is not for the fainthearted as there are currently no step-by-step instructions, but I think everyone with a little knowledge on how to use adb and fastboot can do it.

Of course I will try to help out if you run into problems, you can post your questions/suggestions/bug reports into the issue tracker or to my thread at xda.

Contribute
If you want to say thanks and help continuing my work you can hit that donate button on my androidfilehost area, it is not in any way required tho. If you want to contribute code/patches/ideas - just do so using the usual channels (issue tracker, xda thread).

How do I get set up for development?
Check the official repo wiki page, I have added some scripting code examples and etc to the wiki there.

Since I am a new registered user at xda I am not able to provide a live download link right now - but I give you a hint: bitbucket and my nickname should get you going

Check my twitter account aswell for latest updates and a preview video showing my actual shield in action!

THE BUILD SYSTEM HAS BEEN FIXED, NEW BOOTIMAGES WERE UPLOADED AND THE REPO IS BACK ASWELL. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

This is really great !!!!! congratulations for that... I'm looking for this since I shileld was released. Can you post a video on youtube of your system up&running tvheadend on Kodi ?

thanks!!!

 

[icombina]

Hi i am a new user, how do i download the link?

how do i download the link for the rom? thanks

THE BUILD SYSTEM HAS BEEN FIXED, NEW BOOTIMAGES WERE UPLOADED AND THE REPO IS BACK ASWELL. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

About the Shield TV PVR Project
I wanted to use my NVidia Shield TV not just for gaming and Netflix, but did not like the idea to loose the (in my view) really cool wifi remote and gamepad by switching to 'that other full android' image that is currently available on xda. So i decided to jump on the road and add those few additional features I was missing to the stock system by myself..

After some (many) hours of work to get the nvidia supplied source packages trimmed down and fixing bugs in the kernel, I can finally say its running pretty good now!

Here is what is working right now:
- A full kernel compile can be done in just about 3-8 minutes contrary to more than one and a half hours when using the unmodified nvidia package

- The stripped down development package I built is only taking about 1.5 GB of harddrive space, there is no need to download all of these 20+ GB of mixed stuff from the slow nvidia servers anymore, no need to wait for the repo tool to unpack and etc - its just fetch and compile a bootimage right away.

- I have added full NTFS (r+w) support to the kernel, so you can just plug-in any ntfs formatted harddrive or usb stick and use it like the fat32 formatted drives that were already supported.

- I have added DVBAPI support back into the kernel so you can plug-in a supported DVB-C/DVB-S/DVB-S2/DVB-T/DVB-T2 tuner stick and use it to watch, record and stream live TV from your shield - full PVR powers baby! (I had to patch the base kernel to allow that as there was some 32/64 bit ioctl compatibility issue that I think was one of the reasons why nvidia did not include dvbapi - it took a long time googling around to get this working..)

- I have built the latest tvheadend server version from source aswell, on my shield it gets started using a bootscript and its really easy to install using adb

This is my current setup:
I have connected 3 DVBSky DVB-C/T/T2 USB tuner sticks to a powered USB 3.0 hub and plugged that into the shield. Since there were no drivers for my usb stick brand available, I have patched the dvbsky branch of the kernel tree with a backported version of these drivers. (For those of you that have different brand sticks, there are 2 other branches available, one with all the stock kernel-supplied dvb drivers, one with all the drivers from media_tree). It is now easily possible to

watch live TV (using Kodi with tvheadend htsp plugin) with full EPG etc

stream live TV to the kids room (my kids are using kodi installed on a fire tv stick that is connected to an old 19" lcd screen)

stream transcoded (bandwidth saving) live tv to my tablet and smartphone over the internet

record tv shows on demand, timers can be programmed using a smartphone (tvheadend helper app) aswell as through the kodi interface

All these features are in heavy use by my family right now and without any real impact on the overall speed of the shield console - read: completely transparent in the background! (I have attached a 500 GB USB 3.0 hard drive (ntfs formatted) to the shield for storage of the recorded tv shows - obiously.)

Get yourself a Shield PVR
Just grab a linux-supported tuner stick and a harddrive, flash one of the precompiled kernels and install tvheadend from my androidfilehost area - it surely is not for the fainthearted as there are currently no step-by-step instructions, but I think everyone with a little knowledge on how to use adb and fastboot can do it.

Of course I will try to help out if you run into problems, you can post your questions/suggestions/bug reports into the issue tracker or to my thread at xda.

Contribute
If you want to say thanks and help continuing my work you can hit that donate button on my androidfilehost area, it is not in any way required tho. If you want to contribute code/patches/ideas - just do so using the usual channels (issue tracker, xda thread).

How do I get set up for development?
Check the official repo wiki page, I have added some scripting code examples and etc to the wiki there.

Since I am a new registered user at xda I am not able to provide a live download link right now - but I give you a hint: bitbucket and my nickname should get you going

Check my twitter account aswell for latest updates and a preview video showing my actual shield in action!

THE BUILD SYSTEM HAS BEEN FIXED, NEW BOOTIMAGES WERE UPLOADED AND THE REPO IS BACK ASWELL. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

 

[umoraes2009]

Hi,

I have shield on stock firmware 2.1.... it's not clear how to update it. should I root it ? How do I apply the update file ? thanks!

 

[xd4d3v]

Hi,

I have shield on stock firmware 2.1.... it's not clear how to update it. should I root it ? How do I apply the update file ? thanks!

to all asking how to do this.
you don't need to root for this, however, you need to unlock the bootloader
once the bootloader is unlocked, you need to boot into fastboot mode, and flash the boot.img.
you will need root to install tvheadend though, and knowledge of command line.

If we're nice maybe we can ask nop to package it up into an apk wink wink.

I managed to play with it for a while, and installed tvheadend, just can't figure out the web-ui password!

thanks again for the great work.
let me know if I can help in anything, I'm not a developer, but used to be a Solaris sysadmin back in the day.

 

[nopnop9090]

Can you please explain how exactly do we apply your file?...
Is it enough to just flash the zip file with twrp, or do we have to do something else?

currently you need to flash the image with fastboot haveing previously unlocked the bootloader.
check nopnop9090/shieldtv-kernel/wiki on bitbucket - i have added some basic instructions at the bottom of the wiki.

This is really great !!!!! congratulations for that... I'm looking for this since I shileld was released. Can you post a video on youtube of your system up&running tvheadend on Kodi ?
thanks!!!

as i am still not allowed to post links here: search youtube for my nickname, i have a small video showing kodi live tv up there. i plan on producing a complete walkthrough sometime in the future..

how do i download the link for the rom? thanks

check nopnop9090/shieldtv-kernel/wiki on bitbucket - androidfilehost link is in there. i suggest starting with the boot-099a0b601ae3-dvb_static bootimage.

Hi,
I have shield on stock firmware 2.1.... it's not clear how to update it. should I root it ? How do I apply the update file ? thanks!

check nopnop9090/shieldtv-kernel/wiki on bitbucket - androidfilehost link is in there. i suggest starting with the boot-099a0b601ae3-dvb_static bootimage.

to all asking how to do this.
you don't need to root for this, however, you need to unlock the bootloader
once the bootloader is unlocked, you need to boot into fastboot mode, and flash the boot.img.
you will need root to install tvheadend though, and knowledge of command line.

If we're nice maybe we can ask nop to package it up into an apk wink wink.

I managed to play with it for a while, and installed tvheadend, just can't figure out the web-ui password!

thanks again for the great work.
let me know if I can help in anything, I'm not a developer, but used to be a Solaris sysadmin back in the day.

try to manually start tvheadend from adb shell for the first time like this:

/data/dvb/tvheadend -C -c /data/dvb/tvheadend/hts

(the -C will let tvheadend enter into intial setup mode where you can enter passwords etc. for subsequent starts skip -C.)

 

[chemstar]

i only want to give some feedback regarding webcam drivers.
my booth devices have been recognized


unfortunately i didn't have luck getting them to work with skype. i think there is something missing inside camera hal implementation. maybe zulu can give us some usefull hint how to fix this.