Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#1

Post by hyperific » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 5:13 AM UTC

Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server
tvheadend.org

Re: Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#2

Post by stavros » Sat, May 02, 2026, 1:34 AM UTC

I wish projects would have a short "what this is" paragraph. Right now, the front page is a forum, "docs" says the documentation is maintained by users and links to the changelog, and there's nothing anywhere that tells me what this project does.

Re: Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#3

Post by josh3736 » Sat, May 02, 2026, 1:41 AM UTC

stavros wrote: post #2

I wish projects would have a short "what this is" paragraph. Right now, the front page is a forum, "docs" says the documentation is maintained by users and links to the changelog, and there's nothing anywhere that tells me what this project does.

Agreed the website is poorly organized, but if you click About, you get that paragraph:

https://tvheadend.org/p/about

> Tvheadend is the leading TV streaming server and recorder for Linux supporting ATSC, DVB-C/C2, DVB-S/S2, DVB-T/T2, ISDB-T, IPTV, SAT>IP and HDHomeRun input sources. Tvheadend outputs HTTP (VLC, MPlayer), HTSP (Kodi, Movian) and SAT>IP streams, and can ingest multiple Electronic Program Guide (EPG) formats including over-the-air (OTA) broadcast data for DVB and ATSC, and OpenTV extensions like XMLTV and PyXML.

So it's a DVR project in the vein of TiVo and Windows Media Center.

Re: Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#4

Post by stavros » Sat, May 02, 2026, 1:55 AM UTC

josh3736 wrote: post #3

stavros wrote: post #2

I wish projects would have a short "what this is" paragraph. Right now, the front page is a forum, "docs" says the documentation is maintained by users and links to the changelog, and there's nothing anywhere that tells me what this project does.

Agreed the website is poorly organized, but if you click About, you get that paragraph: https://tvheadend.org/p/about > Tvheadend is the leading TV streaming server and recorder for Linux supporting ATSC, DVB-C/C2, DVB-S/S2, DVB-T/T2, ISDB-T, IPTV, SAT>IP and HDHomeRun input sources. Tvheadend outputs HTTP (VLC, MPlayer), HTSP (Kodi, Movian) and SAT>IP streams, and can ingest multiple Electronic Program Guide (EPG) f…

Ah nice, thank you.

Re: Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#5

Post by wallst07 » Sat, May 02, 2026, 2:11 AM UTC

I just pulled my old hdhomerun out of the drawer the other day. I was thinking if it would even work anymore.

tvheadend has been around for a long time, glad to see it.

Re: Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#6

Post by Sean-Der » Sat, May 02, 2026, 3:00 AM UTC

What USB Tuners do people like? I have a Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD Dual Tuner - 955D and I have to restart server every 3 days because it deadlocks.

Do any alternatives to TvHeadEnd exist? I looked a bit and seems like it’s the best. So much customization it would be hard to reach it’s quality

Re: Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#7

Post by wmlavender » Sat, May 02, 2026, 4:25 AM UTC

Sean-Der wrote: post #6

What USB Tuners do people like? I have a Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD Dual Tuner - 955D and I have to restart server every 3 days because it deadlocks. Do any alternatives to TvHeadEnd exist? I looked a bit and seems like it’s the best. So much customization it would be hard to reach it’s quality

This is a route that I was planning to take on Linux, so it is disappointing to hear that this was your experience. Is it possible that HDHomeRun as the backend to Tvheadend is the way to go?

Re: Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#8

Post by dodslaser » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:28 AM UTC

Sean-Der wrote: post #6

What USB Tuners do people like? I have a Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD Dual Tuner - 955D and I have to restart server every 3 days because it deadlocks. Do any alternatives to TvHeadEnd exist? I looked a bit and seems like it’s the best. So much customization it would be hard to reach it’s quality

It's been a few years since i last tried, but I was pretty satisfied with TBS PCI-e tuners [1]. Good linux support, stable, and you can get them with multiple tuners to stream/record many channels at once.

[1] www.tbsiptv.com

Re: Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#9

Post by simonjgreen » Sat, May 02, 2026, 6:28 AM UTC

josh3736 wrote: post #3

stavros wrote: post #2

I wish projects would have a short "what this is" paragraph. Right now, the front page is a forum, "docs" says the documentation is maintained by users and links to the changelog, and there's nothing anywhere that tells me what this project does.

Agreed the website is poorly organized, but if you click About, you get that paragraph: https://tvheadend.org/p/about > Tvheadend is the leading TV streaming server and recorder for Linux supporting ATSC, DVB-C/C2, DVB-S/S2, DVB-T/T2, ISDB-T, IPTV, SAT>IP and HDHomeRun input sources. Tvheadend outputs HTTP (VLC, MPlayer), HTSP (Kodi, Movian) and SAT>IP streams, and can ingest multiple Electronic Program Guide (EPG) f…

Streaming, not DVR. Think TV to IP

Re: Tvheadend: Self-Hosted IPTV Server

#10

Post by predakanga » Sat, May 02, 2026, 6:32 AM UTC

simonjgreen wrote: post #9

josh3736 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed the website is poorly organized, but if you click About, you get that paragraph: https://tvheadend.org/p/about > Tvheadend is the leading TV streaming server and recorder for Linux supporting ATSC, DVB-C/C2, DVB-S/S2, DVB-T/T2, ISDB-T, IPTV, SAT>IP and HDHomeRun input sources. Tvheadend outputs HTTP (VLC, MPlayer), HTSP (Kodi, Movian) and SAT>IP streams, and can ingest multiple Electronic Program Guide (EPG) f…

Streaming, not DVR. Think TV to IP

It does include a fairly full-featured DVR system - I used to use it with Kodi to record shows off DVB-T.