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I've tried A LOT of PVR software over the years, and MythTV (via Mythbuntu) is what I'm currently using. That said, if you're looking for a Windows solution to run under XP, I found GB-PVR to be about an excellent choice. There are a ton of plugins available as well, so I'd say it is at least as full-featured as MythTV. If you insist on running Windows on your PVR, you could do much worse.

*disclaimer* I've not tried Media Center under Windows 7. I did try it under Vista and found it somewhat lacking.

+1 for GB-PVR. I just built two of them for family members as Christmas gifts. Roughly $200 each for a used Pentium 4 computer and DVR bits. Runs great at 1920 x 1080 on my 1080p LCD TV. Scheduling, recording and time-shifting are flawless. One thing I want to get working is sharing recordings between DVRs peer-to-peer style, a la ATT U-Verse DVRs: "Record on one TV, play back from any TV in the house." I asked on the GB-PVR forums about this, seems it's possible. I suppose I have to build myself several of these in order to test this out.

GBPVR is an excellent free Media Center/PVR that has worked wonderfully for me for several years now. I have a PC dedicated strictly to GBPVR and although it does require a bit of setup to get working initially, its nothing a slashdot regular would have any trouble with. Once set up, it runs itself without issue and is very easy to use. http://www.gbpvr.com/

I too have to give SageTV a big thumbs up. I've had it in place for over 5 years now and its been awesome!! I have it running on my main TV with a dedicated box and 5 tuners. It serves two bedroom TV's via a media extender product (via wired network tho wireless is supported too) as well 3 PC's in the house. It supports SD HD DVD (DVD "backups") and quite a bit more. Has support for music, weather and assorted other features that can be added via community packages. It does support changing the channel on STB (Set Top Boxes), as well support having more than one STB. I currently have one using the IRBlaster, and one using USB->Serial. This setup was fairly quick but did require some research on their forums. It is hands on though, and if you want to use any community packages you'll be reading the forums on how-to's. Again mine has been in place for 5+ years, with little effort since then to add new features, or make minor adjustments to storage locations, and setups for it. It uses Java and again for a "stable" production system, I've held back on any automatic updates to the main system. In short, I let the world test out the updates for a week or few before updating my main SageTV box with Windows or Java updates. While you are at it, take a look at GBPVR http://gbpvr.com/ Its FREE, so hard not to have a look. It does support many if not all features that SageTV has, including IRBlaster/USB->Serial to control a STB. My only issue with it 5 years ago was it didn't have as many features as SageTV, including ones I needed at the time. But again, it was and is FREE, so it is well worth checking out.

I have a non-Windows Media Center box that is the hub of my media. It really sucked when Zap2It went down. So, I spent an evening looking for a free alternative. I have a laptop that has Media Center 2005 on it (where it automagically downlaods its EPG data) and found a nifty application that will parse it into XMLTV format. I then drop that in a share on my media server where it picks it up and installs the latest data. Rinse, lather, and repeat. It bites that I have to manually do this every so often, but it sure beats manually parsing or screen scraping a website.

I use GBPVR under XP, and I am extremely satisfied with Yapi2xml, which uses Yahoo TV's API to get listings and outputs them as XMLTV. http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Utility/YApi2XM L

I am glad people have mentioned SchedulesDirect. But, you know, free doesn't mean "costs money", so I'm surprised so many people CONTINUE to post yet more threads on schedulesdirect.

          Found at http://forums.schedulesdirect.org/viewtopic.php?f= 7&t=43&start=10:

zap2xml
http://zap2xml.110mb.com/

YahooXMLTv
http://forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?t=27546

MSN_XMLTV_scraper
http://planetreplay.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=143 14

          I am using MSN_XMLTV_scraper, running under Wine personally. To run under Wine, you need msxml6.msi, install that with "msiexec /i msxml6.msi". For GZIP compression to work (which you do want, so MSN doesn't get cheesed and start changing the format...), I had to install wininet.dll into /root/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/ and run regedit, adding in HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Int ernet Settings/EnableHttp1_1=0x00000001 . This is equivalent to checking "Enable HTTP1.1" in the Internet Options with Internet Explorer I guess. More or less, run the app once to set it up, then put in a cron job that runs "wine MSN_XMLTV_scraper_v54.exe /d" and feeds the XMLTV data into mythtv (I have a shell script that does all that.)

          The first run is very slow, but it caches the detailed program info so after the first run it's pretty fast.

First of all, I commend the work the schedules direct folks have done and intend to subscribe, but not until the price drops. $5/month is too damn much.

For the next three months, there are a couple of free options that have been created for gbpvr: one gets guide data from Yahoo and one that gets data from TitanTV.

http://forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?t=27491

http://forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?p=205143

I know the TitanTV option does not screen scrape, it uses a SOAP interface to TitanTv. I'm not sure about the Yahoo option.

Both of them are windows-based and output a normal xmltv file; you do need to have a windows machine or use virtualization. I haven't gotten them to run under Wine (yet).

First of all, I commend the work the schedules direct folks have done and intend to subscribe, but not until the price drops. $5/month is too damn much.

For the next three months, there are a couple of free options that have been created for gbpvr: one gets guide data from Yahoo and one that gets data from TitanTV.

http://forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?t=27491

http://forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?p=205143

I know the TitanTV option does not screen scrape, it uses a SOAP interface to TitanTv. I'm not sure about the Yahoo option.

Both of them are windows-based and output a normal xmltv file; you do need to have a windows machine or use virtualization. I haven't gotten them to run under Wine (yet).

You can try out http://www.gbpvr.com/, it's a very nice dvr software for windows. It's not open source, but it's freeware. I use it at home, and i'm very pleased with it. You may have to play a little bit with the codecs, to get it working right with your tuner card.

As a Windows user, I used GB-PVR (http://www.gbpvr.com/) for 18 months with great success. Just recently switched to Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and am loving that too. It requires a bit more video card, though.

http://www.gbpvr.com/ does most of what MythTV does but for Windows PCs. I've used it with a PVR500 twin DVB-T tuner and it's almost flawless. And it's free though obviously donations are encouraged.

I'm running a Win XP PC at home with a hauppage PVR150 in it but instead of running the windows crap for watching TV, I just use gbpvr and I have not had a problem with DRM yet.

You can also use GB-PVR for free. I use it at home and it works pretty well.

Anyone ever check out GB-PVR?

I run it home on top of XP Pro SP2, I only have the software installed thats needed for the PVR function, no Office or anything like that. Makes the machine very stable! Multiple tuner support, web based programming.. its got all the bells and whistles of Myth. The nice part is, EVERYTHING that needs to be done on the PVR side of things can be done from the remote! There is a very active forum/developer community and sub, the owner/programmer is on there posting and helping people daily.

http://www.gbpvr.com/

http://www.gbpvr.com/pmwiki/

http://forums.gbpvr.com/

Anyone ever check out GB-PVR?

I run it home on top of XP Pro SP2, I only have the software installed thats needed for the PVR function, no Office or anything like that. Makes the machine very stable! Multiple tuner support, web based programming.. its got all the bells and whistles of Myth. The nice part is, EVERYTHING that needs to be done on the PVR side of things can be done from the remote! There is a very active forum/developer community and sub, the owner/programmer is on there posting and helping people daily.

http://www.gbpvr.com/

http://www.gbpvr.com/pmwiki/

http://forums.gbpvr.com/

Anyone ever check out GB-PVR?

I run it home on top of XP Pro SP2, I only have the software installed thats needed for the PVR function, no Office or anything like that. Makes the machine very stable! Multiple tuner support, web based programming.. its got all the bells and whistles of Myth. The nice part is, EVERYTHING that needs to be done on the PVR side of things can be done from the remote! There is a very active forum/developer community and sub, the owner/programmer is on there posting and helping people daily.

http://www.gbpvr.com/

http://www.gbpvr.com/pmwiki/

http://forums.gbpvr.com/

I know you're joking but there is http://www.gbpvr.com/

I was going to mention VideoReDo and BTY, but you folks already beat me too it.

There's also GB-PVR.....

>Windows DVRs: Uh... Go go gadget DRM! Aw, crap!

GB-PVR isn't half bad, and can use comskip just as effectively as mythtv. Quite a nice program without needing MCE.

Bah. I tried for a week to get mythTV to work with my hauppauge PVR-500, a card which mythTV said WAS COMPATIBLE, but I got nada -- even after changing tuner types manually channels above 50 would not work. The response from the mailing list? "Oh that's a new revision, those don't work." I switched to windows and installed GB-PVR and I couldn't be happier.

I know I'm going to get bashed for this, but after an unsuccessful attempt at installing MythTV and configuring it with my tv tuner and video card, I tried installing my own custom version of XP that I stripped down. I then installed a free PVR program called GBPVR and it works nearly perfectly for me. The hardest part about configuring MythTV was driver issues. I spent over 8 hours working on configuring the TV Tuner drivers before I finally got it to work. When I couldn't get video out to work on my ati video card, I gave up and went in search of an easier way. My picture quality isn't great by any standard but you get what you pay for. In this case, I didn't pay much. $80 for the tuner and an old Duron 600Mhz with 256MB RAM.

>no one I know have a stand alown DVD, since they breaks so fast.

You know, a few of us at work were talking about this recently, and the funny thing is that my DVD player from 1999, which has since moved from an apartment to two other houses is still almost fully functional (some of the newer discs give it fits, and it willfully does not read CD-R audio discs). Several other people have had more than one DVD player quit on them in one or more ways, the most common being a posessed tray that requires manual intervention (one output or another stopping working was also common). Of course, most of them didn't pay even $35 for the DVD player, and they just replace it with another $30 player. The well built ones actually do last longer (shocking!), and as long as they aren't as old as mine, they actually support all of the reasonable things (MP3, CD-R audio, etc).

That being said, I built a PVR box myself using a hauppauge PVR-500 for capture and GB-PVR and Myth-TV for the interface and such. That is where we play our DVDs in the family room now, so the old DVD player has moved to the TV in our room.

Try gbpvr - it's fully customisable (not open source, sorry - but it is free and well supported by the author). It needs a BDA compatible TV card, but there a lot of them around now. Certainly the obscure crappy DTV card I use is supported just fine. Setup is reasonably easy to get going - you setup the channels and EPG preferences (supports XMLTV, Bleb, zap2it etc) and setup the default directories, and that's it. (although you might spend a bit of time tweaking, but again, that's the beauty of these systems, you can tweak them to behave how you want them to).
I use it as a DVR and to play music and (ahem) downloaded content. It also has the ability to launch external programs for different media files if you need it to. It can also launch separate exe's with parameters, so you can use it to launch emulators from a list of roms, which is very nice!
WAF (wife acceptance factor) is pretty high too - it's pretty stable and easy to navigate.

What I've found to be the best option, is to get rid of the idea of a dedicated Media PC and instead just use my normal PC and a great little and cheap device called a MediaMVP which is both slim and tidy and connects to the network (wireless or wired) and can play pretty much any media located on the computer, which can be in a completely different room, and be used for other things.

Furthermore, you get all the benefit of a media center PC without actually needing one thanks to the software GB-PVR, which is free and runs on windows which provides an interface for the MediaMVP, which is skinnable and you can use plugins to add even more extensibility, from a TV internet browser, VNC, video library and many others.

From this, I get all the benefits of a media center PC and it works really well. The PVR searches the TV guide automatically and records my favourite programs as they come on, organises them into folders based on program and renames them based on episode, then converts them to small but good quality XVID AVI files.

I now have a nice library of all my favourite episodes on the extra 200gb hard drive in my system, I can watch live television, pause, rewind, view the TV guide and enjoy the various plugins, and all without needing an actual media center PC. It's simply another thing tacked on to my main PC, like any other background service. Not only that, but it's also very easy to both setup and use.

Just my opinion, but a slimline MediaMVP thin client, GBPVR server, and an extra hard drive for media works a lot better and comes out a lot cheaper than a media PC, and takes up a lot space too, good for keeping the people that dislike computers or wires in the lounge happy too.

"the MediaMVP is garbage as it is simply a VNC viewer and your PC does all the work (Yes I had one. it sucks). "

Actually, thats one of the best things about the MVP, meaning alternative user interfaces like GB-PVR (www.gbpvr.com) are possible. See the screenshots at http://www.gbpvr.com/screenshots.htm for an idea of what this lets you see on your MVP.

Your comment makes it sounds like everything is done on the PC. VNC is only for the user interface, all the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 decoding is done in hardware on the MVP itself.

There is also GB-PVR which has support for the MediaMVP and provides a much better user interface than the Hauppauge software or mvpmc. See some screenshots of what you'll get on the MVP here: http://www.gbpvr.com/screenshots.htm

I've got one massive server hidden in my home office, and 5 MVPs spread around the house.

I use this http://www.hauppauge.com/html/mediamvp_datasheet.h tm at the tv and this http://www.gbpvr.com/ on the computer (windows). You can also use this http://www.mythtv.org/ for linux

I've been meaning to build the mythtv/ubuntu combo like the article says but because im a windows fart, its taking me a lot of time to simply build the box and understand it enough to fine tune it.

So what i did in the meanwhile is installing my hauppauge 350 on my own PC, a winxp box, with GB_PVR) http://www.gbpvr.com/. Its free, its windows-based (.net) and it works great. As far as i understand from it, its the closest thing to mythTv on the win platform.

in fact, it work so nicely that i dont even feel the rush of building my ubuntu pvr.

Mine is just a FrankenPC P3-1ghz/512MB. I have it running GB-PVR, which has been working nicely, if a little quirky at times. The Hauppage PVR-150 does it's job well.
I have been playing around with MediaPortal a bit, although it's a bit too much for my system to handle, I think.
MythTV taxed my patience, and after much twiddling about with it, I've put it on the back burner for now in favor of the (gack) Windows based solutions.
I was recently given a 2.6GHz machine with a bad board in otherwise mint condition, so that's gonna be next in line one I order a replacement.

A good alternative for Windows systems is GB-PVR:

http://www.gbpvr.com/

It is free, as in beer, and runs great on XP, 2000 and even Media Center (2004 & 2005). I've been using it on a Windows 2000 system with great success (the mainboard sucks and most features aren't supported in Linux, damn HP!). The PC has a 900 Mhz Celeron, 192 MB of RAM and the WinTV-PVR 500 (dual tuner) - works great, I watch a show while it records two with no problems.

You might consider GB-PVR. Windows-based, easy to set up, and free (though not open-source). The software's skins are lacking, so if the wife-acceptance factor is critical, that might hurt. All in all, I've been happy with it. There are some significant problems (priority lists are hard to set up, automatically interrupts live recording to start a scheduled recording without prompting you...something that always seems to happen during important live events like the Super Bowl, etc...) but it's certainly good for what it is. It also has media functions built in, and I've had no problems playing/ripping DVDs. I'm sure Myth is more customizable, but GB-PVR is certainly not too bad for the lack of effort involved.

It's not open source, unfortunately, but has a very active development guy and a very good plug-in architecture.

My PVR is an AMD Sempron 2200+ with 768MB RAM, 360GB Hard drive space, two Hauppauge tuners (250 and 150-MCE) running in a small case on a Chaintech 7NIF2 board running Win2000. Everything works flawlessly and my wife loves it! She records all her shows and watches them whenever she wants. I've got about half of our DVD collection ripped and converted to Xvid sitting on there, ready to go (those discs aren't getting anywhere near the kids!) and everything is awesome.

When we move into our house, I'm going to run network through the walls and have a Hauppauge Media MVP as a small, quiet front-end in the bedroom.

The PVR itself is fairly noisy, but when the TV's on, you can't hear it so it doesn't really matter. When I do an upgrade, I might get another MVP and put the main server into the closet.

I originally tried MythTV (using KnoppMyth), but after a week of hassle and wrestling with it, I gave up and tried GB-PVR. I haven't tried MythTV since. I'd like to have only open-source, free software running, but I couldn't get it to work. I hope to be able to switch over in the future, but for right now, we're quite happy.

I believe reven has already written a front-end MAME plugin for GB-PVR - see here or here. (And yep - it's my PVR of choice too).

As for MAME support, GB-PVR has a very nicely done plug-in system (from what I've heard, I haven't actually done any myself). And I wouldn't be suprised to see that come along in the near future. There are a bunch of people working on plug-ins and tons of support for them, just check out the forums.

That said, thanks for the pointer... I'll have to check it out.

Another poster already mentioned Media Portal (an excellent opensource choice for Windows) but there is also GB-PVR over at http://www.gbpvr.com/ which is also free to use however not open source. Its in active development with active forums and lots of plugins available. It supports xmltv as well as zap2it for EPG. I recommend a hardware based encoder (I use Hauppage 350/150) for either.

Both of these fine products are easier to setup than MythTV or Freevo (I tried those too).

Just another alternative to MCE.

GBPVR, found here. It's great, free, and does some really cool features. It's definitely worth checking. I was actually prepared to drop money on a Windows software if I liked it. I don't give two craps about viewing photos, and I don't really listen to much music that isn't in the car or on my own computer. All I looked for was a good PVR that also lets me play downloaded videos/movies/ripped DVDs. I'll give the quick take on the ones I've tried:
1) Meedio/MeedioTV - buggy as hell. And slow. It's also very new, as in a few months (MeedioTV is, at least). Looks nice, though.
2) SageTV - the built-in video browser/viewer isn't that good. I found setting up plugins sort of a pain, and I could never easily get ComSkip to work well. Maybe it was just me. It's also kind of pricey.
3) BeyondTV - no videomedia component at all; you have to separately purchase BeyondMedia. Other than that, I like this one the best. Never really tried messing with any plugins.
4) GBPVR - pretty good as is, much better with the MyVideos plugin and some other plugins that are very painless to install. Downside is none of the skins, even the MCE port, are attractive at all. Also, sometimes there's a lag between hitting a key and getting a response. Few crashes, less than Meedio but more than Sage/BeyondTV (I have roughly one crash every 3 weeks, running 24/7). Have to renew your Zap2It profile every three months to get an EPG, which is kind of annoying. Installing ComSkip a breeze, and it will auto-ship commercials (BTV and Sage require you to press some button during commercials to skip them, presumably for legal reasons; I'm not sure with Meedio).

There you go. There are plenty of other ones, like Media Portal or Myth. I've never tried MCE, though, and most people I talk to like that best if for no other reason than the WAF (wife acceptance factor). Likely, my gf prefers software she's used to, and since I already showed her how GBPVR works, she's happy with it. As long as Desperate Housewives and The Daily Show are recorded, the GBP-vo stays.

Jeez, don't click that link. Stupid me, it's: GB-PVR. They've got a nice forum and a dedicated developer. Unfortunately, it's not open source. But neither are any of the commercial offerings.

Another alternative to windows MCE is http://www.gbpvr.com/gb-pvr. It's free and it's on windows. My setup consist of Hauppauge 150 ($60) and a regular big huge pc (I really want a small one but they are relatively expensive). I think I'll wait for http://news.com.com/AOpen+box+inspired+by+Mac+Mini /2100-1042_3-5885697.html which will be $399 to be my next HTPC

You would have to spend over 1K before you could get the same performance as a tivo.

That's pretty ignorant. I'm no zealot, but after analyzing all my options, including TiVo and ReplayTV, I went the DIY route, but not exactly HTPC. It is not complicated at all, the only caveat is that you get a device in your living room networked with your normal PC, wherever that may be.

I've got full what I believe is full TiVo functionality (pause/rewind live tv, robust recording options) and then some (auto-skip commercials, watch other videos, play mp3's). Two devices needed:

Hauppauge Media MVP $86
Hauppauge PVR250 tuner card $137
(I think you can spend less on a different tuner card; You'll want hardware encoding however.)

Didn't need a new hard drive. I just want to keep current on shows, I'm not doing long-time archiving here. I never use more than 20-30gb.

I use GB-PVR software for windows. This guy is really good. Very active developer and community, though the base project is not open source.

My main PC in the basement runs GBPVR on Windows XP. I also use it for gaming, surfing, etc. In the background, it records shows. Media MVP is RCA-plugged into my 27" TV in my living room, streams content from my PC over my home network.

Very easy if I want to take a video with me, there's just .mpg's on my PC's hard drive. Burn it to DVD, or copy it to my laptop for a car ride.

I like my setup.

I JUST built my own Windows-based HTPC using the free (as in beer) software GBPVR (http://www.gbpvr.com/

I am running it with XP Pro on an old P3/866, gig of ram, 1 10 gig HD for OS, 1 40 gig HD for recordings, a WinTV-PVR-150 (http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr1 50.html), and a Geforce MX4000 for TV out.

And when I say JUST built it, I started it last Tuesday. All I had to buy was the WinTV card as I had the other stuff lying around.

I tried mythtv, knoppmyth, and Meedio (windows HTPC software), but got the most bang for my time with GBPVR. In two hours I was up and running and within three days or so had it tweaked how I wanted.

I'm no noob to linux either (I run a few servers at work doing spam filtering/firewalling and have a web server at home for my wife's business, and run it on my laptop) but I did not want to put my wife/kids through TV "downtime" while I troubleshot linux stuff I'm not that familiar with.

Todd

" Why can't someone(not me, don't know how) make a PVR/DVR software that supports the crappy PCI tv cards you can get off ebay for $15?

If there is such a software, where can it be downloaded?"

There are plenty of software options that support the cheaper "software encoding" TV tuner cards including MythTV (hauppauge winTV go for example or other BTTV chipset ones).

Since you will be relying on your main CPU to do the MPEG encoding you'll want a decent machine.

I usually strongly recommend (FWIW) ponying up a bit more for a hardware encoding tuner/encoder card as it's usually better supported by the different software out there and you don't have to worry about dropped frames because you opened a web browser or something...

Spend a little more on the tuner card (like 70 bucks on a pvr150 MCE -- or at circuit city this week a Hauppauge wintv PVR 150 is 59.99 after evil rebates ) and then use the excellent and free GBPVR ( http://www.gbpvr.com/ if you're on windows that is, else mythtv/knoppmyth again)

e.

GB-PVR is free and supports most Hardware encoding PVR cars (In my case the PVR-250). It's free to use and has quite a few plug-ins and a TV guide.

I currently run it under win2k but I'll be upgrading to XP soon to take dvantage of some of the other features.
Cost of PVR - £240
Cost of DVD R to store films £12

Recording TV with out VCR resolution loss and in digital Stereo with free Bleb TV guide to boot.
Priceless.

FWIW besides Windows MCE 2005 the other windows PVR/HTPC solutions don't have any DRM (just mpeg2 goodness)

i.e. the free as in beer gbpvr, the not so free (except for the trial) BeyondTV, SageTV, and Meedio (there's more but i'm tired of typing in URL's already =) )

e.

"KnoppMyth has bugs(*), MythTV has bugs(*), the drivers have bugs(*), the hardware has bugs(*), the documentation is contradictory, the right documentation is hard to find, and the people on the mailing lists are generally unresponsive and unhelpful even when they do respond.

I did all the research, looked at all the reports of how people had done it, for months. I bought the best supported TV card (PVR 350), had a reasonably fast system (900 mhz), and used the most up-to-date versions of everything. "

I'm sorry you had such a horrible experience...

But a few points of contention... the pvr350 is NOT the most well supported card, the pvr250 is. Ironically, the hardest part of the install (dealing with the pvr350's TV out) was the easiest for you.

You've got a good point about the coherency/cohesiveness of the documentation out there. Although the best guide I've seen is jarod's fedora core mythtv guides

I can't speak for the mailing lists, but in general I try to cultivate a helpful community in the byopvr forum, I lurk/search the mailing lists and seemed pretty helpful IMHO.

What 900mhz system? is it a mini-itx EPIA board? I know recent knoppmyth builds have gotten better at supporting those boards.

Building a DVR isn't for everyone, and sometimes with some combinations of hardware and software you can fall into a crack like the above poster...

Would it be blasphemy to suggest that you consider a windoze solution, perhaps GBPVR (which is free as in beer)?

Good luck, and my condolences on your fustrating experience...

e.

because they're smart enough to use GB-PVR

If you want to go the Windows route, get a Hauppauge PVR-150 and a copy of GB-PVR. GB-PVR is not open source, but it is free, and even supports the Hauppauge remote right out of the box (the PVR-150 comes with a remote, the PVR-150-MCE does not, so stay away from that unless you're running Windows MCE and therefore have a remote already). I installed this, a 300 gig HD, and the GB-PVR software on Tuesday. I was going in 15 mins tops.

.net serves one purpose for me...to run GB-PVR

So until Windows intergrates something like fink or includes make/install like OS X (& Linux), there will always be a small slice of users that need .net (or its predecessor) to use free as in beer released software.

And a perfect companion server to the MVP is GB-PVR [www.gbpvr.com]. But the MVP support is just a subset feature of this free PVR. The core is mostly one man's ("Sub") private code, but it has a very open plugin architecture, and a solid community of coders and skinners making it one heck of a package for the cost.