If you want to use the image that this thread pertains to, the Pi is a dedicated device just for Channels. However, you can also go the route of a regular Linux install on the Pi and then install Channels. It’s not nearly as “plug and play” as this image, but would allow the Pi to do other things as well.
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I just want to confirm that the DVR will run fine on a dedicated RPi4 with 2GB? I plan to use a 2TB USB3 HDD so will get the 3.5A power supply rather than a powered USB hub to minimize clutter.
And if 2GB is sufficient - will this setup allow simultaneous recording of 6 channels, like 4 channels over the air and 2 channels TVE? Everything will be hard wired ethernet for the RPi4, HDHomerun, and set top boxes, only using Wifi for occasional tablet watching.
Can anyone confirm this setup will perform Ok ?
2GB should be fine for RAM. I run several services on the machine I use for Channels, including some bloated Java servers, and have maybe only one or twice ever used more than 2GB RAM. On a dedicated machine, 2GB ought to be more than adequate.
I have a dedicated 2 GB RPi4 for my channels server. It works perfectly. I have never seen free RAM usage go under 80%. Channels DVR uses very little RAM.
I ran a test recording 2 OTA channels, 4 TV Everywhere channels, and 3 channels on my HDHomerun Prime. Free RAM available was 87% and load average for the CPU was around 1.8.
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I'm on 4GB, but i concur - channels is not a RAM hog at all, so 2GB should be fine.
For a hard drive - it's all about budget. You could easily go SSD, if your space needs are minimal. Channels doesn't continually buffer, so no worries about wear (if those are even relevant these days)
If you're going HDD, USB3 is a must. I would choose a self-powered one, too (i.e. not off of the USB port, its own wall wort).
The one open question for me (and other techies): UASP. Maybe @tmm1 can offer some guidance here with the dedicated image, but this protocol is meant to help I/O tremendously. Annoyingly, it's also very hard to nail down which enclosures have it, aside from BYO setups. If this is over your head, don't google it, it will make your head hurt.
I am using a 1TB WD easystore external hard drive.
I'm using a 1GB Pi 4 and it works great. Also a self powered HDD is not required. I'm using a 1TB WD Elements drive that's USB powered, and I've had zero issues. I've done as many as 4 simultaneous HD OTA recordings while playing back a 5th HD recording. It worked without issue. I'm using the official Raspberry Pi power supply.
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Yeah - i know the self-powered drive rec is probably redundant now, with the proper USB3 implementation.
Maybe passive or active cooling isn't critical for a dedicated DVR setup, but assuming it may help, I read a couple (very few) negative reviews of the Flirc Case saying there was a gap between the integrated heatsink and the CPU which would defeat the idea of passive cooling (although most Flirc Case reviews were positive)
So, at the moment I am considering a Canakit Case, heat sinks and fan ... but is software needed to run a fan or is it just a hardwire alone setup?
The other option is just adding an Official Raspberry Fan to the Official Raspberry Case.
Does anyone have any insights to share?
The FLIRC case comes with a thermal pad which bridges the gap between the case and the CPU. When applied correctly it is very effective in heat dissipation.
I think cases with fans you can wire directly to the 3V or 5V output pins. The newer official fan case has some way of doing software integration but I have not tried it and I'm not sure if it would work with our boot image.
I put my Raspberry Pi 4 in a Mizuei case that has a fan. The fan just wires directly to the pins - you can wire it to run at "normal" or "fast" speeds depending on what pins are connected. The fan runs constantly - mine is at low speed and I can't hear it. I don't know if the fan was needed but it came with the case and the case itself was pretty cheap. It also came with some heat sinks. When there is little activity going on the Pi runs at around 34 degrees C. I also run a Western Digital drive that is powered by the USB
As long as the kernel and bootloader image are current, there should be no problem. The fan uses a device tree overlay to ensure the proper kernel driver is loaded, and the parameters set in the boot config file set the GPIO pin used for the fan, as well as which temperatures to use as triggers.
Any tutorials on this as far as adding it to the rpi the dvr server image is on?
Just check the box
then go and download it onto the rpi and configure from there? I guess I need to do more research
does the dvr server img on the raspi let me download samba on to it as well?
There's nothing you need to download. What are you trying to achieve?
I am migrating from a Windows 10 DVR to the dedicated RPi4 image and after setting up a basic DVR on the PI and shutting down I am moving the external WD Passport HDD from the PI to my Windows machine in order to copy my current DVR to external drive and it is not showing up in file explorer on Windows so I can't copy my old DVR over, unless I use SAMBA and I don't want to go with that.
Before imaging with the USB Boot Image the drive was visible in Windows as Drive D: and formatted exFat, now it has several partitions, the last one being exFat but nothing shows in File Explorer.
Any ideas how to get this drive to be visible to Windows again as Drive D: ?
(And, just curious what do the first 8 partitions do?)
Hi
Does TV Everywhere work on arm chips now?