Watch and record live TV
Add live TV and DVR recording facilities to your media server.
For anyone who’d like to add live TV to Emby’s capabilities (plus add support for recording programme to add to your library) then you need to know the job’s more involved than simply plugging in your TV tuner and letting Emby handle the rest. Emby needs to interact with a separate TV server, which can be a standalone device (the HDHomeRun CONNECT – see over the page), the PC you’re running Emby Server on, or another computer. The latter option is a good choice if your Emby PC isn’t particularly powerful, or your TV aerial socket is a long way away from your main PC.
HDHomeRun users can simply set up support directly from within Emby itself; other devices require you to first install TV server software on your other PC or computer, then install and link the appropriate add-in through Emby.
Choose your server
If your TV server is running Windows, NextPVR ( www. nextpvr.com) is free and straightforward to set up – you’ll also need the free LAV Decoders ( www.fosshub.com/ LAV-Filters.html). Once installed, launch it via the Search box. The Settings window should open automatically, so select Devices in the left-hand pane and your tuner should be visible as a DVB-T type device. Select and click ‘Device Setup’. Select United Kingdom from the Country dropdown menu, and ‘All Regions – Frequencies’ under Region. Tick ‘Scan Offsets’ and click Scan to find all available channels. When it’s done, click OK twice, select Channels, and click ‘Update EPG’. Once TV has been set up, select Recordings to choose a different drive or folder to store recorded TV programmes on. Next, select Decoders – you’ll see the MPEG2 Video decoder is currently set to Disabled, change this to LAV Video Decoder. Finally, head down to the Clients section and tick ‘Allow remote access’ under ‘XBMC & Touch clients’. Now follow the step-by-step guide to access it from Emby.
Install plug-in 1
Leave your TV server on, running and connected to the network. Now open Emby Media Server in your browser and click the Settings button in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Select ‘Live TV’ under Extras and select the ‘Services’ tab to see a list of available services. Select the ‘Next PVR’ service and click ‘Install’ followed by ‘OK’.
Configure plug-in 2
Go to Dashboard and click ‘Restart > OK’. Now return to the ‘Services’ tab under the Live TV section. Click the logo to access the settings screen. You need to change the local host reference under ‘NextPVR base URL’ to the IP address that the server is installed on. Click ‘Live TV’ under ‘Extras’ again – your tuners should now be listed.
Add a guide 3
Click ‘Refresh Guide Data’ and click ‘OK’ to manually pull in the EPG data from your server PC. Now click the Home button and select Live TV – if all is well, you should find the various tabs allow you to browse the guide – click a programme to record it or watch it live. Other features such as series recording require Emby Premiere.