MediaPortal Wiki 
Introduction
The TV-Server is an application which allows you to setup one or more central servers with one or more TV cards each. All TV related tasks are handled by the server and streamed over the network to one or more clients. Clients like MediaPortal can then use the TV-Server to watch live TV, recordings and EPG data over the network. The client plugin of the TV-Server replaces the default built-in TV Engine.
Capabilities (TV-Engines comparison)
Feature |
Classic TV Engine |
TV-Server/Client |
TV-Engine is a windows service |
No |
Yes |
Analog support |
Yes |
Yes |
DVB-C support |
Yes |
Yes |
DVB-S support |
Yes |
Yes |
DVB-S2 support |
No |
Yes |
DVB-T support |
Yes |
Yes |
ATSC OTA support |
Poor |
Yes |
ATSC QAM support |
No |
Yes |
Automatically determins installed TV cards |
No |
Yes |
Support for TV cards has do be added manualy |
Yes |
No |
Viewing/recording multiple channels per transponder |
No |
Yes |
Use timeshift with liveTV |
Yes |
Yes |
Watch encypted TV Channel (with valid smartcard) |
Limited |
Yes |
Record TV-Shows |
Yes |
Yes |
Record scheduled shows when MediaPortal is not running |
No |
Yes |
Play analog radio |
Yes |
Yes |
Play DVB radio |
Yes |
Yes |
Play encypted DVB radio (with valid smartcard) |
No |
Yes |
Grab DVB-EPG |
Yes |
Yes |
Grab DVB-EPG when MediaPortal is not running |
No |
Yes |
Grab DVB-MHW |
No |
Yes |
Grab DVB-MHW when MediaPortal is not running |
No |
Yes |
LiveTV can be streamed to multiple clients |
No |
Yes |
Recorded shows can be streamed to multiple clients |
No |
Yes |
One or more front-ends (like MediaPortal) can connect to TV-Engine |
No |
Yes |
Multiple tv-servers. One master tvservers and several slave tvservers |
No |
Planned, not yet supported |
Record MPEG-2 program stream (.mpg) |
No (dvr-ms) |
Yes |
Record MPEG-2 transport stream (.ts) |
No |
Yes |
Timeshiftbuffer is added to a "Record now" recording |
Yes |
No |
MPEG-2 transport stream timeshifting |
Yes |
Yes |
H.264 transport stream support |
No |
Yes |
DVB AAC audio support |
No |
Yes |
Place shifting |
No |
Yes |
Multiple tuner support (even mixed) |
Yes |
Yes |
Hybrid tuner support |
No |
Yes |
Teletext viewer |
Yes |
Yes |
CI support for floppydtv |
Yes |
Yes |
CI support for firedtv |
Yes |
Yes |
CI support for twinhan |
Yes |
Yes |
CI support for technotrend |
Yes |
Yes |
CI support for KNC cards |
No |
Yes |
DVB-S generic BDA DisEqc support |
Limited |
Yes |
DVB-S DisEqc Motor control |
No |
Yes |
DVB bitmap subtitle support (live tv & recordings) |
No |
Yes |
DVB teletext subtitle support (live tv & recordings) |
No |
Yes |
DVB-S linkage scanner |
No |
Yes |