Best PC DVR Software, For Any Platform? 536
jshamacher writes "I've used MythTV for several years (first on Slackware, now via Mythbuntu) and it's good. But not great — I have a list of annoyances as long as my arm. For example, even 0.22 still has problems playing many DVDs and I frequently have to fall back on Xine. Since upgrading to new hardware, I've had issues with sound dropping out; these problems only occur for Myth, not for anything else. So now I'm trying out alternatives. Freevo seemed promising when I tried it a few months ago but it had its own issues. I'm also increasingly getting pressure from my family to get things like NetFlix streaming working on this machine. This seems to imply migrating to a Windows-based solution. I threw XP on it and tried MediaPortal but could never get that to control my Motorola cable box via the IR blaster. So my questions to you: What DVR software do you use? Are you happy with it? What don't you like? Are there any packages out there that 'just work' as media hubs and for time-shifting cable TV?"
Snapstream? (Score:2, Informative)
When I was looking at making a media center box a while back I was looking at Snapstream which is Windows based software that seemed to support a lot of the Happague DVR cards and remotes. Since then I decided I didn't need the actual DVR function as much as just a box to stream SD videos from my PC to my TV so I took my old XBox and softmodded it to XBMC.
Re:Snapstream? (Score:5, Informative)
I've tried many different solutions, and there is only one that "just works": Media Center. I know it's Microsoft and all, but the thing works. It doesn't do half of what MythTV is all about, but it just works. And with a careful set of codecs you can read pretty much anything.
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Re:Snapstream? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, My Movies 3 is probably the best thing since sliced bread for playing movies.
To be fair, sliced bread didn't help much for movies.
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I mean, My Movies 3 is probably the best thing since sliced bread for playing movies.
To be fair, sliced bread didn't help much for movies.
Didn't hurt this movie: Love Is a Slice of Bread [imdb.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Linux MCE (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Linux MCE (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux MCE is an integrated bundle of software.
The PVR part is MythTV, so may be be what the OP is looking for
I personally love Myth, and wouldn't change it for anything
but saying that, I use it as a media front-end only (no broadcast TV)
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Re:Linux MCE (Score:5, Interesting)
This doesn't solve the Netflix issue. Netflix is in bed with Microsoft and delivers using Silverlight 2.
It doesn't make any kind of sense that a business would deploy any solution using Silverlight, but whatever. I've whined about this before and obviously Netflix doesn't care.
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Roku has closed source player software, and drm is handled by dedicated hardware.
If any other DVD by mail people supported linux for streaming I would switch now. I have told netflix, but they do not care.
Re:Linux MCE (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix also works on the PS3 system by Sony. My brother rents Netflix and they let him see movies on his PS3 via an App he downloaded for it.
Novell Moonlight does work as a Silverlight plug-in for non-Windows operating systems like Linux, etc. Some people want to boycott Novell because they licensed Microsoft technology but when you need C# and Visual BASIC.Net for Linux, *BSD Unix, and Mac OSX they got you covered with Mono, and Moonlight for Silverlight support. I compare Silverlight to Shockwave Flash, just another virtual machine system and they both kind of do the same things.
Re:Linux MCE (Score:5, Informative)
Moonlight does not support DRM, MS refuses to let them and both it and the mac version are falling behind.
Silverlight is a fucking trap!
Moonlight does not work with Netflix (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Linux MCE (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Linux MCE (Score:5, Informative)
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As Microsoft refuses to release the DRM package Moonlight will never work. Also the Mac version is now falling behind.
Microsoft will never create a multi-platform solution, all their software exists first and foremost to push windows.
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The quality of Netflix's streaming video went down significantly when they switched to Silverlight.
Also, even if their streaming app works under Moonlight, we'll never know, because you can't fool it into trying.
Re:Consoles (Score:4, Insightful)
Because neither one records live tv?
Or lets you run your own apps?
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Under the main television that we watch is a PS3, which sees the backend as a UPnP media server without any fuss. All recorded programs show up under the "video" menu. Any machine in the house can also be used as a frontend, if Mythfrontend is installed. Myt
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Not once they go to silverlight 3.That adds lots of "features" that only work on windows.
Interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.playon.tv/playon/how-it-works [playon.tv]
A tidy, secure-ish and affordable (if you use XP) solution might be to install it on a Windows VM running on your Linux server...one box still does all the serving and if the Windows VM gets pwned, you just bring it back from a backup in minutes. The VM will have a separate IP via its virtual network adapter so it shouldn't conflict with the host box. DRM might be an
VCR (Score:2, Funny)
Just make sure you get the clock set first
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SageTV on XP (Score:4, Informative)
Re:SageTV on XP (Score:4, Informative)
I used to swear by SageTV up and down. I was a very early adopter of this software and was promised "Free Upgrades" when I originally purchased it. Apparently "Free Upgrades" only applied until version 5.0+ was released, then it started costing money for every major revision.
It's still good software, however I have a problem with advertising "Free Upgrades" and then skipping out on that claim. I stopped using them on that alone. (Don't lecture me on how they need to get paid for their work, I get that. Don't advertise "free upgrades" if you aren't going to follow up with that claim.)
I have since moved to XBMC http://xbmc.org/ [xbmc.org] running on an ASRock ION 330 plugged straight into my home theater receiver and it plays 1080p pretty well, 720p flawlessly. The only drawback of XBMC is that it doesn't record (it was never meant to). Its playback capabilities are unmatched in my opinion (mplayer backend, if mplayer can play it, so can xbmc). It's crazy easy to install and use. I use the genuine Microsoft MCE usb remote control which is supported out of the box with no special LIRC knowledge.
I use MythTV with a Hauppage HD-PVR back end for video recording, and although I believe there is a MythTV FrontEnd addon for XBMC, I simply share my recordings directory via CIFS and let XBMC mount the share directly for playback. I like the seperate MythTV backend because I have two XBMC/ASRock installations and both can then read from the same source for playback in either room.
XBMC: Free (Please Donate, its really that awesome)
MythTV: Free (Please Donate, its really that awesome)
ASRock ION 330: About $350 on newegg
Hauppage HD-PVR: About $200 on newegg
Re:SageTV on XP (Score:5, Informative)
EyeTV (Score:3, Informative)
Re:EyeTV (Score:5, Informative)
I'll also throw in with EyeTV. But, the thing to remember with EyeTV is that everything centers around TV:
* TV Broadcasts
* Output(s) from TV tuners (Sattelite/Cable) - and you would want an IR blaster for channel changing
EyeTV does not play DVD's, or any other media other than that which is recorded by EyeTV.
But what EyeTV does, it does well:
* TV Guide Integration is pretty good, with a number of providers, depending on your locale
* Scheduling (and auto-scheduling of series)
* Editing of TV episodes - it's good enough for cropping out commercials if you want to keep the show.
* Good hardware support
* Easy to use
* Auto (or manual) Exports to a variety of formats. (Whatever QuickTime supports - which is pretty much anything if you have the right plugin)
* Easy (and automated, if desired) exporting to iTunes (for iPod or Apple TV's)
* Can stream to an iPod Touch or iPhone
* iPhone/iPod Touch interface application.
* Integrates with ElGato's "Turbo.264" hardware, which is a USB H.264 encoding accelerator. Not the best compression quality, but it's generally faster than a dual-core Intel box.
* If you have EyeTV on other macs in your network, it can use Bonjour to stream the TV shows to the other machines.
So while it has a number of features that are quite Apple-centric (ie. good iPod/Apple TV integration), iPod Touch/iPhone application, etc... it still lets you export to pretty much whatever format you want easily. Or, if you don't want to do it that way, you can look inside the "eyetv" recording, and you'll find the raw MPEG stream, and you can use whatever software you want to export it.
Windows Media Center (Score:5, Informative)
Windows Media Center, specifically Vista media center, has worked out well for me. I got a cheap ($250), refurbed gateway that came with a dual tuner card and Vista home premium. The listings are occasionally flakey, and the scheduled recordings won't automatically adjust if shows are pre-empted by football games running long. I control everything through the xbox360 using a $10 remote I bought on ebay. Very user friendly and cheaper than heck.
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We did the same thing (refurbished Gateway w/ Vista Home Premium), a number of years ago (not long after Vista was released). We couldn't use the machine for a desktop because Vista was so non-functional (our first, last and only encounter with it), but we had a tuner card unused from a long-dead machine and put it in the Vista box and have been using it as our "TV" ever since. Amazingly, it actually functions as a TV. Netflix streaming works from within Windows Media Center without problem, every DVD we
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I'm curious myself. (Score:3, Interesting)
I like the freedom of MythTV, I've been running it for about 4 years now, but it can often be tricky to get working if there is a problem. Particularly if there is a MySQL problem when I don't have a great deal of expertize in database administration. I'd like to take advantage of the new cable-card hardware coming out for high definition too.
Right now it pretty much seems either windows media center or giving in and getting a TiVO, but I'm curious about some of the other things out there like Sage TV. Sadly, not everything is available online right now without having to go to bit-torrent, especially high-def content.
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You can get hidef over component, their is a happauge product that uses them and is supported in myth.
Windows Media Center (Score:5, Informative)
Now, cue the MS Haters and mod me down. I know, I know... I'm stupid and don't know what I'm talking about.
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Seconded. It's simple, the remote isn't too bad, it has a clean UI and a bunch of addons out there (greenbutton.com or something).
Best of luck!
Re:Windows Media Center (Score:5, Informative)
Definitely agree on Windows Media Center.
With my multiple HDTV tuners, excellent remote, Netflix, and Hulu plugins, and also Internet TV, it's basically irreplaceable. I'm not even mentioning you can stream to multiple Xbox'es on your house over the network... Oops, I mentioned that :)
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i've used many of the other DVR/PVR applications (MythTV, SageTV, Nero, etc) but none have worked as smoothly as Media Center, Windows 7 MCE really brings its A game. :)
i have a remote and IR blaster and mainly use mine to record just network tv; i can also easily access any of the recorded tv shows over my homegroup on any of my other Windows 7 laptops/netbooks and even my PS3.
MP4 movies look and work well inside of MCE too (atleast on Win7, vista had a few issues w/MP4/h264 codecs sinc
Re:Windows Media Center (Score:4, Interesting)
I've got Windows 7 Media center running with a Linksys Media Center Extender.
On the positive side, It Just Works. Having a paperback sized MCE (cheap on Ebay, BTW) next to the big-screen rather than a PC is very nice.
On the negative side, Microsoft keeps trying so hard to prevent users from doing what they'd like. .wtv file format late in the Vista cycle, which broke things like dvrmstoolbox that was used for commercial skipping, and had no desire to help fix it. That's fixed by the community now, of course.
For example, they changed to the
They also broke ripped DVD playback on the extender. For the Vista media center, it was found that by creating a hard link to the DVD files (and giving the hard link a ".mp4" (IIRC) extension), DVD's would play fine on the extender. With Windows 7, sorry, but that workaround has been disabled.
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Yes, MCE is pretty good as a out-of-the-box DVR. However, it can suck if you regularly download video to watch. It can neither play much of it (out-of-the-box) nor does it organize it very well. Be pepared to tweak.
I also find it to be a bit piggish on resources. The interface is slower than I'm used to. It is often useless if accessing shared files over a wireless connection as it spends too much time & bandwidth indexing generating thumbnail previews to playback video properly. (on a 150Mbps (ma
Re:Windows Media Center (Score:5, Informative)
One more vote for MCE.
-CableCARD support
-Netflix client built in (though no HD for now)
-Great remote
-Very simple but functional UI
-Free if you have a half-decent edition of either of the last two Windows releases
-Xbox (with software), Xbox 360, and numerous other devices supported as extenders for a single central home DVR
I won't give up my HD cable channels, so Windows MCE, TiVo, and Moxi are the three options, end of story. Only one of those allows me to build my own machine and centralize all the tuners. If Myth or one of the others gains CableCARD support in the future, they might be worth considering. Until then...
Mod Parent Informative (Score:2)
I had similar issues with Windows Media Center.
Windows Media Center (Score:2)
Out of all the ones I've tried, Media Center ended up being the best fit for me. Others might have some more features, but Media Center had all the ones I cared about and most of the time implemented them better. The only problem I've run into is that their TV listings updater causes an ungodly amount of disk I/O and CPU usage for several minutes whenever it runs.
TiVo for the win? (Score:5, Informative)
The Original Questioner asks " So my questions to you: What DVR software do you use? Are you happy with it? What don't you like? Are there any packages out there that 'just work' as media hubs and for time-shifting cable TV?"
I realize that the TITLE says "PC based DVR software" and the questioner certainly mentions only that, but they don't mention commercial solutions at all, so I'll throw in my answer:
TiVo
I have a Series3 that I bought with a lifetime contract ~2 years ago. I do not pay a monthly fee, and as of now, I am "saving" that cost (the lifetime contract covers ~ 2 - 2.5 years of monthly service fees).
- It has two built in tuners.
- It integrates with most IR remotes.
- It can be controlled via IP (there are free remotes for iPhone/IPod and other devices to control it, etc.)
- TiVo maintains a web site where you can log in and tell your DVR to record something.
- Any Internet enabled TiVo (Series3, TiVoHD, TiVoHD-XL) can also hook into AmazonVideo, Netflix and Blockbuster accounts.
- It also passes "the wife" test.
Outside of initial setup (when we were on cable TV and I had to get TWC to come out and put CableCards in the thing), the ONLY maintenance I've had to do is reset its listings when we decided to drop cable completely and switch to using an Over-The-Air antenna, and changing the batteries in the remote.
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- It also passes "the wife" test.
Forgot you were on slashdot, huh?
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He did not say that it was *his* wife.
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I'm in the Tivo boat on this one. It's just easier. I spent so much time setting up MythTv (I've done it on PCs, laptops, and even an xbox) and maintaining it was always a pain. I finally got fed up enough and bought a Tivo. Since then, I haven't had any complaints, except as he said, resetting listings when you switch providers. I've really enjoyed the Tivo suggestions feature as well. I was tempted to get the lifetime contract, but instead I'm willing to pay ~$100/year for someone to maintain my DVR for m
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Until Tivo supports my cable provider of choice (DirecTV) in HD, it's not really an option. I am not alone in this.
All those dishies on the rooftops means that Tivo is effectively locked out of that household.
Re:TiVo for the win? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm on the TiVo boat as well. If you want to serve up media from a PC, throw pyTiVo [sourceforge.net] on it, and point it at whatever directory contains your video files. The format of the video files doesn't even matter -- on the back-end it uses ffmpeg to do the video conversion.
I have a refurbished Compaq with a 2.4Ghz Core2Duo I bought last year, and it can convert at about 200fps, easily saturating the TiVo's network capabilities. Once setup, the system just appears in the Now Playing List. It has easily passed the wife test in my home over and over again (especially as she has access to the movies directory over the network from the desktop of her Mac -- if she gets something she'd like to put up, she knows to just drag and drop it into the folder, and then start playing it from the NPL on the TiVo).
Yaz.
Re:TiVo for the win? (Score:4, Interesting)
Last time I tried pyTiVo with my TiVO HD, the results were far from stellar. I do store many of my DVD's as 1Mb/s 264 + AC3 AVI files and it just didn't seem to like it. It down-res'ed them horribly and the resulting video was poor. Plus, I believe it trashes the AC3, resulting in just stereo (yuck) sound.
Now, it has been at least a year since I messed with it (and gave up on it). If you think it has improved, I will give it another shot.
Not having decent local streaming of video files has been my #2 complaint with TiVo (#1 being that we can't easily backup the damn settings to a USB key or something so if the unit dies we can recover many hours of work done with preferences, season passes, stations, etc). Otherwise, the TiVo HD is *extremely* impressive and I highly recommend it... it runs circles around any cable provider's DVR or "software" solution I have seen.
Tivo Warning (Score:5, Informative)
A HUGE warning about the Tivo:
Tivo lists show transferring is a big feature but...
EVERYTHING worth watching on cable is DRM'd. EVERYTHING.
It bugs me that they advertise this as a feature.
Blame Time Warner, Cox, Comcast, whoever you want, but the TIVO does not transfer anything but your fox, nbc, and cbs channels.
Analogy:
- Ford makes a car that can't drive over speed bumps
- Ford advertises the car jumping speed bumps
- After buying the car, Ford tells you to drive on limited roads or YOU can call your local town hall to fix every speed bump in town. Ford has no responsibility, and will not assist in any way.
Only 2 months left on my contract, and I'm done with this scam.
Mod parent informative (Score:2)
Important details!
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Nero LiquidTV (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had TiVos for years and years and years. I have a Series 3 now. I love it.
But if you want a truly PC based solution, how about Nero LiquidTV [tivo.com]? It is basically the official PC version of the TiVo software. It still needs a TiVo subscription, but it has all the features and the same fantastic interface.
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Yeah, but are they any good?
My (admittedly cheap) stereo reciever has one of those upscaling DVD players in it.
IT'S CRAP!
I get MUCH better results from my software based video player.
Neuros (Score:2)
Link: Neuros website [neurostechnology.com]
It's flexible and that's a problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
The nice thing about a completely open and flexible system is that you can route around it's quirks with other tools. The fact that you can just drop in xine or mplayer is one of the key strengths of MythTV and would likely be necessary in any replacement. I've never gotten this fixation and insistence on using only MythTV for anything myth related. It doesn't have to be that way and that's kind of the point.
Play with MCE and Front Row and see for yourself. The grass may not necessarily be greener.
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He's looking for something that works, not something he needs to tinker with for half an hour in the middle of his movie date.
I'm sure this is an honest mistake on your part, though. I mean, who would even consider user behavior as bizarre and alien as going on a date?
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DVD? On date? Just what kind of loser are you?
OTOH, when it comes to WAF it's hard to beat having her favorite shows ripped available at the touch of a button iTunes style.
Even a 3 year old can handle MythTV in this capacity.
Are you as capable as a 3 year old?
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The terible thing about existing completely open and flexible system is that you have to route around their quirks with other tools.
There. Fixed that for you.
[FC]I am Jacks complete lack of tolerance.[/FC]
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...except that MCE doesn't play any arbitrary video file.
Neither does Front Row.
You are Jacks complete lack of taste.
Sage probably does much better but it's not what the Lemmings want to push.
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We are talking about a DVR. It only needs to play back what it recorded.
If you want to play arbitrary video files, there are plenty of awesome solutions (both open and proprietary) for that, and none of the awesome ones have any DVR functionality.
[FC]I am Jacks bias detector.[/FC]
For viewing? LG BD390 (Score:4, Informative)
I'm still using MythTV for recording TV, but I'm currently selling off my MythFrontends.
For viewing I've switched to an LG BD390. Much less hassle, plays everything I've thrown at (including HD streams recorded by the MythBackend) via UPnP and also does NetFlix and YouTube streaming.
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How well does it actually support MythTV though?
I imagine its just a "dumb" video stream player that can't skip commercials or modify any of the programming that a regular Myth frontend can do?
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As far as modifying during playback...
It supposedly supports captions with .mkv files.
At some point I need to write a script to clip commercials from and transcode Myth's recordings into mkvs with subtitles.
And before anyone asks- no, I'm not remotely concerned about inaccurate results from trusting mythcommflag to catch commercials.
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Does it stream NetFlix?
Network AV streaming devices are a dime a dozen these days. NetFlix is the killer feature of the BD390.
GBPVR (Score:2, Informative)
DVD Recorder with hard drive (Score:2)
I gave up on this and have been using a DVD recorder with a built in hard drive for the last few years. The only hassle is having to program things twice due to lack of built in EPG, but my PVR is now old and I believe there are models that work now with digital EPGs where I live (Australia).
HD cable box with pvr (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Have to echo this, especially since my TV habits have moved away from watching most of the crap I taped off TV and instead watching stuff I've ripped from my DVD's.
Been using Myth since 2002/2003 so I'm no novice (still using the same DB I had in late 2004 - certainly been fun keeping that in sync with upgrades!) and it's a really nice recording platform once you've spent a year or two of hair loss exploring it's foibles. But the frontend is poor; very little in the way of swish or eye candy... yet still pa
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This only adds stuff to your queue.
most STB's are linux the best would be TiVo (Score:2)
most Set Top Box manufacturers actually use linux so I would choose one that can be controlled via firewire unless your going to get a TiVO see http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/
again MythTV depends on the hardware that you use so I would say get some better supported hardware or buy something that they have done the integration for you
regards
John Jones
Windows 7 and Media Browser (Score:4, Informative)
In years past I've used XBMC on the Xbox and Linux, then more recently Boxee and MediaPortal. I started wanting something that just worked, and was a bit easier to setup. I really like many of the Linux media programs, but they do take a bit of maintenance. So when the RC of Windows 7 came out I figured I'd give it a go. Once I found Media Browser (www.mediabrowser.tv), I was sold.
So reasons I think Windows 7 is the way to go.
1. Media Browser - Fantastic plug-in for media center. Almost as good as XMBC in it's prettiness and useability. Very impressive to show off to your friends and high Wife Acceptance Factor.
2. Easy - It took me about a week of fiddling after work to get it setup the way I wanted.. and I had no issues getting DTS HD or pass-through audio to work. Very easy to get hardware accelerated video to work with ATI. If you use windows 7, check out the antipack, gets your hardware accelerated video working fast, along with all your audio. (http://babgvant.com/blogs/andyvt/archive/2009/08/02/antipack-get-your-videos-working-without-destroying-your-pc.aspx)
3. Cheap Video card - I bought a Radeon 4350 off of Newegg, with passive cooling. Does 1080p video with 1 - 5% cpu usage.
4. NetFlix , Media Center has a NetFlix plugin, no HD video, yet.
5. Easy TV - Has a nice TV Guide, easy to make it work right. I do not have a cable card tuner for it yet, but Ati has on you can get off of ebay, and new models are coming out next year. Cable card tuner would eliminate your ir blaster issue. In the mean time there are a few MS Media Center remotes that come with ir blasters. Also TV shows go right into Media Browser.
As this is slashdot I bet I will get spammed for saying so, but IMHO it is the best all around system out there right now.
MYTV + Xbox - XMBC (Score:2)
XBMC (Score:3, Informative)
Mythbuntu plus (Score:2)
I run mythbuntu with a boxee launch item in the main menu. Mythbuntu works flawlessly for capturing media and playing it back, boxee does everything else flawlessly. FTW!
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Sound dropping out and elusive PVRs (Score:2)
Since upgrading to new hardware, I've had issues with sound dropping out; these problems only occur for Myth, not for anything else.
Hallelujah! From the lack of responses to my post about this issue on the Mythbuntu forums, I thought I might be the only one experiencing this problem. No one has stepped forward to either acknowledge this problem or offer a fix, which is very frustrating: I've been using MythTV for several years, and was only recently forced to reinstall everything after my HD died. I've
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I've got an LG DVR that works fantastically for my purposes. It records TV, let me watch just about anything, including .AVI files encoded with DivX. (Home movies, of course.) It'll even play directly off a thumb drive or other USB storage mechanism. Favorite movies can be copied to the hard drive, and children as young as 5 can be taught how to turn on "Cars" or "Enchanted" and watch them. (The first is a home-made documentary on the manufacturing of internal-combustion vehicles, the second was a PBS speci
Boxee - Not a DVR, but still awesome (Score:2)
Recording HD? (Score:3, Interesting)
While we're on the topic - is there a good solution for recording HD from cable? I'm currently using analog cable with a Hauppauge card to record programs in standard definition. Potential solutions:
1) DVR from cable company. Problems: I've gotten anecdotal information that these DVR's have poorly designed UI's and tend to be somewhat flaky (worse than Windows). Also, they are a closed system, I can't move the recording to a mobile device for portable viewing.
2) PC + HD ATSC / Clear-QAM tuner card - this gives me the ability to record over the air broadcasts and cable channels that support Clear-QAM (which is a fairly small subset of cable channels).
3) PC + HD Tuner Card + Cable Card - does anyone make one of these? Anyone have any experience with this?
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Cable box + firewire output (Score:3, Informative)
I use:
4) Cablebox with Firewire output + firewire port on PC.
It works really quite well.
Cable companies are required to offer cable boxes with firewire (usually the HD ones all come with it). However, depending on your cableco, the firewire output may or may not be encrypted. You can only connect it to your PC if it is not encrypted.
Note that the presence or absence of encryption on the Firewire output is *totally independent* from whether the data is encrypted on the cable line. The cable box decrypts the
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I'm somewhat wary of this: "IR Blaster to change the TV channels in your set top box". Seems like a bit of a hack.
There are 3 prime-time PVR's on Windows (Score:5, Informative)
Media Center is very "Microsoft-y", and it's not as configurable as the others. The upside is that it's seamlessly integrated with Windows, and it passes the WAF test rather well.
Sage TV is a tinkerer's dream, but I never managed to get it successfully up and running with QAM channels mapped.
Beyond TV was my favorite for a long time, as it's both configurable and stable. The only problem is that Snapstream has slowed active development of the consumer product. Their prime focus is on developing for the Enterprise market. (Think one server, recording a dozen news channels at once, extracting closed-caption information to create a searchable database.) BTV has one great bonus feature: It can automatically re-compress video down to H.264 and drop the show in to iTunes as a Podcast. This is pretty slick, since it lets you save several TV shows to your iPod or iPhone and take them with with you.
BTV and Sage can both record HD through the Hauppauge HD-PVR, and all 3 can record ClearQAM content (usually your local TV stations.)
Windows 7 Media Center will also record encrypted QAM cable with a CableCard, but the CableCard capture devices aren't quite ready for public consumption yet; I believe the ATI box's firmware is still in closed beta, and the Ceton device will hit the market early next year. (The Ceton card will record 4 SD or HD shows at the same time.)
BTV and Sage can control your cable box with a USB-UIRT or MCE Remote (with an IR blaster). Media Center will only control your box with an MCE remote/blaster. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000W5GK5C/ref=ox_ya_oh_product">Amazon has one for about $40 that works well.</a>
BTV and Sage both can also stream live video to other PC's on the network. Media Center can only play back pre-recorded video; if you want to watch live TV an another PC, that PC needs a tuner card.
Popcorn Hour? (Score:2)
I'm currently a Tivo Series 3 user (Works awesome and basically zero maintenance, other than the monthly fee and a very occasional spontaneous reboot--???!!!)
--That said, I've been keeping an eye on the Popcorn hour boxes...http://www.popcornhour.com
--Looks like it plays all the media you can throw at it, and toss in a blue-ray drive and you can even watch those-
It supports a Huge laundry list of features, but it looks like the one thing it doesn't actually do is the DVR of actual tv streams... Anyone know
What if I don't need recording capability? (Score:2)
I've been looking for a media jukebox that I can dump all my audio/video content onto. I *never* watch cable TV and have no interest in recording it or watching it with the system. What would be a good solution for this? I'd prefer to stick with something that runs on Ubuntu 'cuz that's what my extra box is currently running.
I use (Score:2)
Cyberlink power cinema on WInXP, with Gigabyte USB tuner. Works great.
MythTV automatic commercial skipping (Score:4, Insightful)
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My Suggestion is SageTV (Score:2, Informative)
Hauppauge HD-PVR and Snapstream BeyondTV (Score:3, Informative)
BeyondTV downloads the TV guide, manages the recording schedule and controls the HD-PVR and Motorola HD box with the USB-UIRT. The recording format is an H.264 transport stream (the file type is
My next step is to configure a DLNA enabled LG Blu-ray player in my living room to which I can stream the recorded files.
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Does it honor the no-copy flag?
If so, that will make it useless quite soon.
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The reason I'm
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It doesn't have DVR capability, but I have decided to rely on torrents. Torrents are better for a number of reasons, the main one being the fact that networks don't always start and end their shows at the scheduled time. In this day and age, that's ridiculous. (Some may question the legality of t
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I would give a strong thumbs up for BeyondTV (by snapstream). I have used it for several years and have not complaints. If you are looking for a DVR solution, look no further. In your requirements though, you elaborate on wanted a media hub, which IMHO is not a DVR. If you are looking to record and view TV, BeyondTV is awesome and much better than tivo. For one thing, they have smartskip which attempts to mark commercial breaks. It isn't perfect, but when it works it is a godsend.
More importantly, bey