How to install TVHeadend
The simplest way to get Live TV with XBMC is to use TVHeadend. It’s quite a simple job to get it up and running.
TIP: If you’re using Putty and are going to be following this guide step-by-step then you can save yourself some typing by simply highlighting each command, right-clicking on it and selecting Copy. Then toggle over to your Putty Session and right-click once more. The command you’ve just copied from here will be automatically pasted into your Putty Session.
TVHeadend is not part of the default repository so we need to add it:
curl http://apt.tvheadend.org/repo.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-add-repository http://apt.tvheadend.org/stable
Now we need to bring the repository up to date and install it:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tvheadend
During the install you will be prompted for a username and password. Personally I use the same username and password I used to install Ubuntu.
Now reboot your server for the changes to take affect and to start the daemon:
sudo reboot -h now
How to configure TVHeadend via the web interface
TVHeadend is configured using a web interface. You can launch it by entering http://MyMediaServer:9981 into your browser, where MyMediaServer is the name you gave your server when you installed Ubuntu. Instead of using the server name the IP address of the server will work just fine.
NOTE: If you make a mistake installing TVHeadend or wish to change the username/password you can do so by issuing the following command:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure tvheadend
Configuring TVHeadend
Once TVHeadend is installed we need to configure it. The first thing to do is click on the Configuration and then the DVB Inputs tab.
Next select a TV Adapter from the “Select TV adapter….” drop-down.
On the general tab change Adapter name: to something more meaningful, eg. “DVBT/T2 frontend – 1”.
Adapter is not enabled by default so check the Enabled Box.
In the Tools box click on the “Add DVB Network by location” button and select your TV Transmitter location and click the “Add DVB Netwrk” button to close the window.
Click Save in the Adapter configuration section.
In the “information and capabilities” section you should see the settings change (eg. Services, Muxes etc). Once it has completed scanning the “Map DVB services to channels” button should become enabled. Click this to create the link between channels and services. Repeat these steps for each TV adapter. So in my case I’d do it four times.
Configuration -> Recording – Digital Video Recorder. Change the Media Container: to “Same as source (pass through)” and change other settings on this page to your personal preferences. Don’t forget to click the Save Configuration option when you’re done.
Setting up the EPG
Configuration -> Channel/EPG -> EPG Grabber. Check the 3 boxes under General Config and select the Module corresponding to your location. Then click “save configuration”
No HD Channels found
By default the scan does not find HD channels. This is no big deal because we can very simply add them manually. So, go to this website and enter your location in the “MY UK Free TV Settings” box on the right hand side and click the “predict” button.
On the page that comes up click the “List by multiplex” button which is half way down the page to show the list of multiplexes. You will quickly see which one(s) have been missed out by TVHeadend. For example, mine missed out 545.8MHz so to add it go back to the TVHeadend web interface and on the Configuration – DVB Inputs – TV Adapters page click on the Multiplexes tab. Then click the “Add mux(es) manually” button and type 545800 in the Freqency (kHz) box (note it’s asking for kHz and not MHz so we need to multiply by 1000). Select 8 MHz for the bandwidth and select Auto for all the other options unless you are told the value from that website. Then click Add. Then click the “copy to other adapter” button.