Guide - How to stream live TV from your box to XBMC/Kodi/OpenELEC

dungeon

Newbie
First off I am assuming your network is properly configured to allow internal streaming, I'm not covering any networking in this guide. I will be changing the default http port from 80 because that could cause issues if trying to access streams externally and makes forwarding the port in your router safer (you don't have to forward all internet traffic, only Openwebif traffic) but again, you'll need to find a guide for that elsewhere. You shouldn't need to forward any ports for an internal stream.

Next this guide will specifically cover Kodi (and its various forks) however it can easily be adapted for other use cases, some of the instructions won't be identical however they will provide a good guideline for other systems.

I am assuming Kodi 16 Jarvis and OpenATV 5, if your running anything else the guide might not be entirely correct but you should easily be able to figure out any differences ;)

Finally I'm not responsible for any thing you might break while trying this, as long as you follow and remember that you can always reset to defaults on your box and Kodi there's no chance of you doing anything catastrophic anyway.

Now on with the guide...

First start on your box

Press Menu > Plugins > Openwebif

Set the following:
Openwebif Interface - Enabled
Box name in header - Yes
Custom Box Name - No
Http Port - 88
Http Authentication - No
Https - No
Smart Service Rename - Yes
Parental Control - No
Add service name to Stream - Yes

Press green to save these setting then reboot your box fully.

Finally press Menu > Info Panel > Network and make a note of your boxes IP address, you'll need it later.

Next head to your Kodi client

Go to System > Settings > TV > General and click Enable
Go to System > Settings > Addons > My Addons > PVR Client > VU+/Enigma2 PVR Client > Configure

In the General tab:
Hostname or IP Address - the IP you noted down earlier
Leave everything else default

In the Channel tab:
Leave everything default

In the Advanced tab:
Webinterface Port - 88
Leave everything else default

Press OK then click on Enable

Press back until you return to the main menu.

The final step is System > Settings > TV > Guide and select Prevent Updates During Playback.

If you've done it correctly you should now be able to watch live TV from the TV option of Kodis main menu.

Enjoy.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for doing the guide, Dungeon. I may have to revisit this. I had this working last summer, but updating the EPG was a nightmare. It took forever and you couldnt use it until it finished. Maybe this has been fixed now.
 
Thanks for doing the guide, Dungeon. I may have to revisit this. I had this working last summer, but updating the EPG was a nightmare. It took forever and you couldnt use it until it finished. Maybe this has been fixed now.

Yeah, you just set Kodi to only update the EPG when not streaming and it solves that issue :)
 
Thanks, took a few minutes to setup with your guide. My zgemma seems to have a flashing circle in the top left corner since I've done this. Any reason why?
 
Hi great guide got it all working but cant seem to see option in settings tv guide. to stop udate during playback ? Thanks again
 
Can i use this method to view my recordings as well, as i would like to watch them on pi 3 in the bedroom. Both appear on my home network but was not sure how to set up file sharing between the 2 devices, not so much fussed about the live tv side of things.
Thank you
 
the epg downloading is constant on my box since ive done this. Is there a way to turn it off as it slows the box down loads
 
If you dont really need all the channels on your 2nd tv, then id recommend adding only the ones u want to the favourites bouquet, and then get vu+ to load that in instead. It will load much faster as its maybe only bringing in 50 channels compared to 900+


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I couldn't find the original guide this is how I did it
Code:
http://allaboutnothing.me.uk/streaming-sky-localaly-freeview-to-kodi/
 
I did this a few weeks ago on my kodi build (Pii2)
But the streaming of HD content is terrible so jumpy and laggy , the SD streams play a bit better but then the audio tends to drop behind.
I just thought oh it's because my zgemma is connected through WiFi not Ethernet but I've read others saying Thiers is fine through Ethernet.
I do have more success when streaming SD M3U files to my laptop but I can alter encoding settings on vlc but there's not really any options on kodi to mess with.
How do you guys find the HD streaming is it OK ?
What device are you running kodi on ?
 
Has anyone got this running on a bulid of kodi eg i have pulse and wont seem to go on and create tv in menu only seems to work on a basic build of kodi which kind of defeats the object as losing the best of the pulse build
 
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