Pi video recorder with MiniDVBLinux

Remote Control

Thanks to CEC, the television passes remote control commands such as changing channels or volume directly to the Raspberry Pi. The colored keys (red, green and blue) are for special settings.

One press on the red key brings up a list of all of the shows that the VDR has previously recorded. Naturally, the list is empty on a freshly installed system. Once you start making recordings, you can select them with an arrow key to either play or delete.

Press the green key to open the guide for programs which are currently playing on each station.

Use the yellow key to see information about the program that you are currently viewing. If you then press the red key, the VDR will immediately start recording the program. use the blue key to see an overview of scheduled recording, this should also be empty on a new system. Press the green key to set up a new timer and choose the channel, day and time.

VDRadmin-am

Administering timers can be made much more simple by installing the additional package vdradmin-am – a web interface specifically designed for this purpose. It is also a lot easier to operate than accessing the timer menu with your remote control.

At the upper edge of the screen in the default web interface, you will see the three main categories, Home, Packages and System. Click on the Packages category to install the add-on. From here you can add and remove software components and plugins for the VDR.

In the System Packages sub-category, scroll down until you come to the vdradmin-am package. As soon as you click here, you will be able to follow the system in real time as it downloads and installs the program. After installation is complete, VDRadmin-am is ready to use. Call it by entering the IP address for the Raspberry Pi in the web browser, followed by the port number :8000. For instance: http://10.0.0.10:8000. Again, the IP will probably be different for your network.