Project Entangle Technology Preview
Entangle Technology Preview uses a Linux PC to run the DVR software and iOS and tvOS devices for playback. To run the Entangle Technology Preview you’ll need:
- A PC to run the Entangle DVR with the following minimum configuration:
- An 8th-generation Intel Core mobile or desktop processor or better (e.g. Core i3-8145U, Core i3-1115g4).
- Rocky Linux 8 or 9 operating system. Entangle DVR will most likely run on most modern Linux distributions such as Fedora 28 or Ubuntu 16, however testing is performed only on CentOS 8.
- 4 GB of system memory. 8 GB is recommended for ATSC 3.0 operation
- 32 GB of free space on the system drive. It is strongly recommended that an SSD is used as the system drive.
- One or more hard drives to hold recordings. Dedicated drives should be used for recordings to avoid contention and data loss in recordings. “CMR” (as opposed to “SMR”) hard drives are strongly recommended, as SMR hard drives may stall for long periods resulting in stalled playback and loss of data in recordings. SSDs can be used to store recordings, however pay close attention to the endurance of the SSD. OTA recordings can be large and wear an SSD quickly!
- Gigabit wired Ethernet for connecting to one or more HDHomerun network tuners.
The Intel NUC 8i3BEH/8i5BEH/8i7BEH and HP 14-df0020nr laptop series are recommended platforms capable of running the Entangle DVR. They come equipped with Intel 8th-generation mobile Core CPUs, support an SSD as a system drive plus an HDD for recordings, and have gigabit Ethernet.
The core DVR is capable of running on lower-end processors (e.g. Pentium Silver processors), however the transcoding required to stream to mobile devices and some set-top boxes such as Apple TV is CPU-intensive. A Core-i3 8145U will support simultaneous streaming to an iPad and Apple TV.
Watching and recording video is a time-sensitive affair – no-one likes stalled playback or having that critical scene not find its way to the hard disk. For the best experience it’s strongly recommended that you dedicate a system to running the Entangle DVR platform. While the recorder side of the DVR was designed to coexist with standard applications, playback may degrade due to contention for the CPU, system hard drive, or other shared resources.
- For ATSC 1.0, one or more HDHomerun OTA ATSC tuners. All models from the first generation HDHomeruns to the current Quatro are supported. The fourth-generation HDHR4 dual tuner and fifth-generation HDHR5 dual/quad tuner models are recommended for their excellent performance in receiving ATSC 1.0 broadcasts.
- For ATSC 3.0, one or more HDHomerun OTA Flex 4k Development Edition, Airwavz RZR-1200, or Airwavz RZR-1400 tuners. Note that HDHomeruns must be running “Development Edition” firmware.
- A subscription to SchedulesDirect for program guide information. SchedulesDirect subscriptions are $25/year or $6 for a 2 month short-term membership.
- An iPad, iPod or iPhone running iOS 9 or later, or an Apple TV running tvOS 13 or later.