Getting a new PVR soon, need some help

[o2cats]

I am also an old school, brute force kind of guy, so I will manually back everything up, but I am not against taking advantage of the work you, and others have done to make things easier for others. I am especially interested in EPGs backup function, but may also occasionally create, and move, the backuprestoresettings information, just because.

I expected to be searching for days to gather all the information you just laid out.

Thanks again

[GnatGoSplat]

Kodi w/ nextPVR
Pros:
Free
Gets guide info easily (Schedules direct)
Recognizes recording conflicts (But doesn't say there is one - just says there has been an issue)

Cons:
Feels a bit bloated
Was a bit slow (I ran Kodi on my Fire Stick and nextPVR on my laptop that I am using to test these setups)
It doesn't have the same channel numbers as the backend until you go into advanced options and tell it to use the correct numbers.

I switched to this option. I think channel numbers not matching is a non-issue, because you can set the advanced option and it sticks permanently.
To me, the main Pro is it can be a whole-house centralized PVR, just need an Android device on every TV which are just $20-25 (or no cost if your Smart TV runs Android). It also uses a lot less power. Fire TV Stick 4K for example, only uses 1W while streaming. My HTPCs were burning 30-35W or so with low-end CPUs and laptop HDDs. Being able to access the same recordings on any TV is a huge plus, especially for my wife. The other pro is multiplexed recording, which I'm not sure if you'd be able to take advantage of with cablecard. With ATSC though, I can record multiple channels on the same frequency with a single tuner which is something WMC couldn't do.

For me, the biggest con is speed. Skip forward/skip back is much slower and less reliable. WMC on an HTPC definitely works a lot better for that. WMC is also a lot prettier and intuitive than Kodi despite being considerably older.

[bros]

Kodi w/ nextPVR
Pros:
Free
Gets guide info easily (Schedules direct)
Recognizes recording conflicts (But doesn't say there is one - just says there has been an issue)

Cons:
Feels a bit bloated
Was a bit slow (I ran Kodi on my Fire Stick and nextPVR on my laptop that I am using to test these setups)
It doesn't have the same channel numbers as the backend until you go into advanced options and tell it to use the correct numbers.

I switched to this option. I think channel numbers not matching is a non-issue, because you can set the advanced option and it sticks permanently.
To me, the main Pro is it can be a whole-house centralized PVR, just need an Android device on every TV which are just $20-25 (or no cost if your Smart TV runs Android). It also uses a lot less power. Fire TV Stick 4K for example, only uses 1W while streaming. My HTPCs were burning 30-35W or so with low-end CPUs and laptop HDDs. Being able to access the same recordings on any TV is a huge plus, especially for my wife. The other pro is multiplexed recording, which I'm not sure if you'd be able to take advantage of with cablecard. With ATSC though, I can record multiple channels on the same frequency with a single tuner which is something WMC couldn't do.

For me, the biggest con is speed. Skip forward/skip back is much slower and less reliable. WMC on an HTPC definitely works a lot better for that. WMC is also a lot prettier and intuitive than Kodi despite being considerably older.

Yeah - I don't like how Kodi sometimes just doesn't work for fast forwarding/rewinding

[TGsell]

I have been running WMC 8.8.5 on Windows 10 flawlessly for 6 months now -- you need to install W10 1511 and FREEZE Updates - follow this post (many thanks to patrick0525, garyan2 and cwinfield for getting this going - it's been a game changer for me since I can buy a modern machine running W10.... as below) . (you will need a valid W10 key...but these can be purchased) . This will keep WMC going for many years to come!

"#95Post by patrick0525 » Mon Dec 23, 2019 9:52 am
I got w10 1511, HDHomeRun Prime cable tuner card : HDHR3-CC + OTA HDHR-US and epg123 to fully function properly.
Thanks to all who helped especially garyan2 and cwinfield. Below is the recipe:....."

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