Si470x-based USB tuner on OSMC

Question

I am running OSMC on a Raspberry Pi, and have an ADS RDX-155-EF Instant FM Music stick lying around, which I would like to use with OSMC.

The tuner stick is an USB device built around the ubiquitous Si4703 chip from Silicon Labs. Main differences to the Si4703 breakout board are:

• it is USB-based (rather than being connected to the GPIO pins)
• it presents itself as an USB audio device, from which the audio signal can be read
• it has a separate antenna jack, allowing it to be connected to an external antenna

The OSMC installation is fairly standalone (the only LAN resource it relies on is my Samba server, where the media library is located), and I would like to keep media center resources on the Pi rather than add network services on my LAN.

Instructions on the net are very generic, something like “install one of the supported PVR plug-ins and configure them”, but little information as to what other backends are required, and which of these support my hardware at all.

What I would like is a breakdown of the list of components/packages to install, and what configuration settings (if any) are required.

Is there any tried-and-true setup for OSMC using a Si4703-based USB tuner plugged into the local system?

Answer 1

Not a complete answer yet, but here is what I have been able to piece together thus far:

Background:

OSMC already comes with a bunch of PVR clients preinstalled, you would just need to enable a suitable one. https://kodi.wiki/view/PVR/Backends has a list of PVR backends for Kodi. Of those that support USB devices on Raspberry Pi, one seems abandoned and two more are not entirely free, which leaves us with Tvheadend.

Tvheadend consists of a frontend and a backend. The frontend is already installed and just needs to be enabled and configured. The Tvheadend backend can be installed from OSMC’s app store (in My OSMC).

Steps to install:

• Go to My OSMC and, from the App Store, install Tvheadend Server.
• From another system, point your web browser to your media center, port 9981 (the default HTTP port for Tvheadend) and set up Tvheadend:
  • Set login credentials.
  • Configure your tuner – here I’m currently stuck, as I have no idea how I am supposed to tell Tvheadend to use the InstantFM. Any input is welcome.
• Back on OSMC, go to Add-Ons > My Add-Ons > PVR clients and choose TVheadend. Go to Configure and set the user name and password.