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Turning the PC into a Digital Video Recorder
gearfix2 writes "The NYTimes ran this story in today's paper about how to turn the PC into a personal video recorder (a la TiVo)... It's got pretty thorough coverage of PC-based hardware with the conclusion "the TiVo outshines the PC-based systems by being easier to use and by offering more built-in intelligence." Conspicuously absent are El Gato's EyeTV for the mac and SnapStream's Personal Video Station... Anyways, the real question is whether PC PVR will *ever* get there. No one does it quite right yet..."
Could oyu imagine a beowuld Clsuter of these!?1
In Soviet Russia you dant have to put up with these crappy jokes
how long before this sends the MPAA and associated fiends into a tizzy? OK, who's got the egg timer?
I've heard good things about the all-in-wonder, and even that there are free data feeds for all the value-added stuff that Tivo brings. You have to set it up yourself, but you don't have to pay for a service either.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
I'm not surprised that he's using You for anything!
Wasn't there a story on some PVR software for Linux a while back? Anyone have the link?
There has been a lot of dispute over software the is able to erase your comercials. But if you are using a PC, instead of say TiVo, nobody will really be able to stop you. The disputes are just a waste of time.
accurate up to date free TV listings.
able to auto-configure to any cable or satellite setup
dual tuner
program suggestions
season pass
easy interface
video quality
exactlly what is missing in the current PC PVRs?
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
I used to use VirtualDub when I was on Windows, and it was rally nice. Did everything from recording, to cutting out commercials, to encoding into a variety of formats.
Wondering if there's any similar program on the *nix side?
I do know of Video::DVDRip and drip for ripping DVDs, but spefically looking for cable. (to use w/ my WinTV card)
For those who want to make a start, here's some sample code to start off with.
I moved across the us recently and decided to ditch all my tubes (tv & monitors). i got a ati tv wonder usd and it's totally kick ass. works off either cable or antenna. plug it into a networked computer, give it a zip code, and voila!, u have tv in that local area. :(
my friend has tivo, and it's cool. but when i get my projector goin (ati also has a remote for this), i'll have a mobile projection system. even a 640x480 projector on a wall will look better than most tubes. i basically gave my tv away. just like the old radios yr granparents mighta dug and have since bitten the technology dust, so will tube tv's.
expect more tv wonder type devices. now, if only it worked on my tibook..
If you are average or even above average consumer and are given the following choice:
1) Go out and buy a $450 ReplayTV that provides 40 hours of record time, network sharing, and was builting from the ground up to be an integrated part of your home theater system.
2) Go out and buy a PC for 300-400 then buy the video capture card, a video card with a TV out, an IR receiver, and software. Then hook it up to your home theater system and always have this odd looking box sitting next to the rest of your equipment.
Gee, I wonder why the PC PVR thing hasn't caught on. We are only now getting to the point where the left over machines we have from new purchases have the performance necessary to handle being a PVR. I've tried to do this a bit myself, and the basic problem I ran into was that my processor just wasn't fast enough to handle the demand. If you have an old PC that's fast enough, it might be worth hacking but otherwise, it's WAY easier and similar priced to just buy a Tivo or ReplayTV.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
There is a fairly neat open source PVR at mythtv.org. It is still rather early in development, but has neat features like an on-screen display, a program guide, pausing and rewinding of live TV, etc. Pretty neat stuff.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout.
I personally own a AIW Radeon 7500 and am *extremely* happy with the advanced features it offers over a Tivo, most notably the ability to save video directly to VCD format, for cheap, easy, longlasting storage...
To compensate for a lack of external intelligence in the average couch potato, no doubt.
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
I used the new ATI A-I-W 8500 for a while and the tools were easy to use. I wouldnt compare it being on par with other solutions out there, but if you wanted a PVR and a Good Video Card thats one way to go.
The Live-Pause feature was quite good and the image jitters once (when it starts recording) and does a good job, but the file sizes were obviously too large (Half an hour of high quality video translates to 3 GB of space).
Where as Nvidia's Personal Cinema, though boasting a superior Chip had the worst software tools. I was surprised to see the Live-Pause feature to be totally useless, where you try to play back the video that got recorded was so jittery and of bad quality that it was practically useless. I wish they would do a better job with their suite of tools next time.
As for me, I would try and see if ATI does some good work with the 9700 A-I-W, coz as for me, thats the card I would buy (till DoomIII fades out and QuakeV gets in).
Rapid Nirvana
User: dummy
Pass: dummy
Works for me as a member login.
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
...is if someone could put together a cohesive package for linux/windows/whatever. Something that works out of the box with a selection of TV cards (hey the BT chipset is common like dirt... you could even make a commercial package that included a card).
You could make money from a subscription service (to get the TV listings online).
The most challenging part would be the interface - people want it to work like a piece of home electronics - much like the tivo manages, they just don't want to pay tivo prices (or if you're like me you don't live in a tivo supported area).
BlackNova Traders
I've been using Snapstreams' PVR since the Winter Olympics and I've found it to be an amazing tool. It's pretty simple to use through the web interface but the web interface is slightly slow... .Net technology and allows you to surf a tv guide and record straight from that.
Although the version I have currently encodes to WMV (then I use the MS media decoder to convert it to fixed version of wmv and then use virtual dub to convert it to divx) the newest version (Quartz) can encode right to divx =)
If you have an older version then you can upgrade to Quartz for free.
Also in Quartz, there is a service you can buy that uses
But...since I prefer recording shows at custom lengths I find the text interface pretty easy to use (I even recorded all the World Cup games using the PVR).
So...PC PVRs aren't all that bad...at least Snapstream has a good PVR...I suggest it to those who like good software, it's well worth the cost.
internet like monkeys'
Does anyone knows/tested any solutions that exists to use a PC with satellite TV?
A big problem with the existing set top boxes is that they are not reliable at all.
I have a dishplayer (dishnetwork) at home, but if I could use my old PC to get rid of this box, I would do it!
Basically there has to be the tuner (compatible with current switch boxes), and the CAM module to plug the access card.
The CAM part is what is holding me back: the access card and CAM are "married" in a normaly subscribed system, hence, you can't use any access card in any box.
Anyone has any ideas on how to do that?
I just use the at daemon to schedule ffmpeg to record to 700kbps divx in real time. The only problem is that on a machine slower than a 1.7 ghz athlon, the sound is off sync. Occassionally, the sound clips once every few minutes if I don't keep calling sync(). I just have a "watch sync" running in an xterm to handle that. Anyone know if Reiserfs or ext3 is better for this? I suspect the tail packing on Reiser may be slowing the fs down enough to cause the audio sync problems. My cpu is only at about 30-40%, so it can't be process scheduling causing it.
"No one does it quite right yet..."
Err, one company does. Stop comparing it to Tivo and just get a Tivo. It's made for its purpose and won't require countless hours of hacking and tweaking and kludging to work. I'm all for building your own and Open Source and blah blah blah, but now and then a product is actually produced for a decent price that does a great job doing what it was made to do.
(But for those who prefer a lot of hacking and tweaking and kludging, you can get a BASH prompt on it and go nuts fiddling with code to your heart's content.)
------
Today's Top Deals
When figuring cost, keep in mind that the PVRs are a device and subscription service wheras the PC solution is a one time investment.
Hauppauge has a new card that I've been looking into, and the Navis-Pro is also supposed to be good.
Similar cards were in the thousands of dollars a couple years ago. Now they're around $200... and falling. We're not long before its very easy, very good quality, and very inexpensive. We're not quite there yet though, and for now TiVo and the like and certainly the way to go.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
here is the link to the PVR posted in a previous slashdot story:
h tm l?tid=162
http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/
and here's the story itself:
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/04/09/1428207.s
Anyone that owns an ATI All-in-Wonder; does the radio frequency remote interfere with other RF devices (such as a wireless RF mouse)?
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
Quartz has a load of neat features, like being able to encode things directly to DivX format, the ability to mess with your PVS anywhere over the net (as long as you know your IP, or have a snapstream.net account), and live streaming preview of what's currently recording. It's not a PVS in the sense of a TiVo, where they upgrade a VCR with a hard drive. Snapstream seems to be designed to be used with a mouse from a computer, not from a set top box.
No one does it quite right yet...
Not yet but soon. Microsoft is working on their version of TiVo. You wonder why the Nforce2 has dual ethernet ports? Well, basically, Microsoft is going to take over the loose ends that are hanging in various markets.
Hollywood doesn't want you copying their crap, the cableco's don't want you using more than a single PC on their crap (without paying extra for it) and Microsoft doesn't want you doing anything without paying for their crap.
In the end, you get a set-top box with a built in web-server, network router, PVR features / AV features, gaming, etc, etc, etc. It is a wonderful idea and will likely take everything by storm. The cableco's will stick one of these MS boxes on your TV for free. In return, you'll be able to rent games and movies from them. If you want to add another PC - no problem - the system will automatically run a wizard which will register the system with the cableco, and most importantly - your bill.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Check out MythTV, from the author of Freeamp. It uses Linux, Qt, and a TV tuner card to provide an entire solution for dropping a box next to your TV. Here are a few features:
Other things such as support for various emulators are on the todo list. The frontend is rather pretty as well.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Ah, but what if one could operate Tivo *from* a PC? Or even better, from any internet-connected PC anywhere in the world? Check out the The Tivo Web Project. There, you can also find info on hacking your Tivo to get a ppp or ethernet connection.
Personally, I can't imagine living without Tivo, but I hear that they (much like Major League Baseball) are conspiring to take over the world by collecting all sorts of sinister marketing information about my viewing habits. . . Should I be afraid?
boobip boobip,
d.
My favorite part of an Oreo milkshake is the sludge at the bottom when you're almost finished.
mmmmmmmm!
I remember being shown "current" research into this a couple years ago (winter 1999-2000) on a campus tour at Carnegie Mellon--anyone remember this? It was called "Informedia", and it promised to monitor closed captioning on all channels for keywords, and record the A/V stream as well as save the closed captioning.
Oh here we go, I found a link to it. Very interesting stuff. As it turns out, the use is to store this video in libraries...it would be recorded from WQED and similar educational stations and accessible for playback later. Very entertaining project, IMO.
Here's an early overview of the project.
"RATIONALE of the Informedia Digital Video Library Goal:
The Informedia(tm) Digital Video Library Project at Carnegie Mellon University is creating a digital library of text, images, videos and audio data available for full content retrieval. The initial testbed will be installed in several K-12 schools and students will use the Informedia System to explore multi-media data for educational purposes. The Informedia system for video libraries goes far beyond the current paradigm of video-on-demand, by retrieving a short video paragraph in response to the user's query.
(Why is this project needed, why now)
Vast digital libraries of information will soon become available on the nation's Information Superhighway as a result of emerging multimedia computing technologies. These libraries will have a profound impact on the conduct of business, professional, and personal activities. However, it is not enough to simply store and play back information as in commercial video-on-demand services. New technology is needed to organize and search these vast data collections, retrieve the most relevant selections, and effectively reuse them.
The Informedia Library project proposes to develop these new technologies and to embed them in a video library system primarily for use in education and training. The nation's schools and industry together spend between $400 and $600 billion per year on education and training, an activity that is 93% labor-intensive, with little change in teacher productivity ratios since the 1800s. The new digital video library technology will allow independent, self-motivated access to information for learning, exploration, and research. This will bring about a revolutionary improvement in the way education and training are delivered and received."
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
I disagree. I've got a Dish Network PVR 501 that works wonderfully.
- All the guide information comes down through the sat signal.
- The hard drive stores the raw MPEG bitstream, not a recompressed version.
- The quality is therefore identical to the live sat broadcast.
- I have a 10-second skip back.
- I have a 30-second skip forward.
- Live pause is perfectly integrated.
- The guide search works great now.
- Built-in on-screen caller ID.
The only things I miss are the ability to change out hard drives for a bigger model, and the ability to dump a show to CD or DVD. These features I can live without. This little box works great.Now if I can just get caller IQ I'll be all set.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
It seems to me that the key missing element is some sort of database of listings. It seems that it ought to be doable -- we have freedb's of CD track names, for example.
A computer with a PVR card is a more complicated replacement for a VCR, and unless you want to edit or share the video, it doesn't give you many advantages. If you just want to watch the show you're going to miss because you're going out, a VCR is a better solution.
TiVo is a lot more than a VCR -- you program it, and you never miss your favorite shows again. You have a pool of programs waiting for you, a queue of shows you like that's available whenever you have the time to watch them.
Imagine coupling all of the funcationality of TiVo with a p2p system -- so you could even get shows that you forgot to record, or earlier episodes of a show you've just discovered.
Kazaa lets you do things that go a long way towards proving the potential of this technology. You can tell kazaa to get some specific episode of south park, and it will, although it might take awhile. But the selection of shows available on kazaa is pretty poor.
If a p2p system shared all the shows that people recorded for themselves, then everything would be available. We'd all end up in jail for copyright violations, but there'd be a lot of good video on the network.
Better yet, the system would be international. We could watch British shows here in the States, or Japanese shows, or whatever.
This stuff has a lot of potential to be insanely great.
For the needy, I just made cipherpunk44:cipherpunk44
cipherpunk:cipherpunk used to be the magic account available almost anywhere, but it seems that some careless fellow changed the password for that account on the NYT web site.
:wq
they have everything they need...
A friend of mine bought the EyeTV soon after it was announced. The software that ships with it is really buggy. Most annoying, you can't leave the USB connection plugged in for more than 24 hours. He's had a bunch of other problems with it too (I don't rememeber the specifics off hand) but the thing seems to be usable. Just barely. I wouldn't recommend anyone buy it until they do a lot of work on the software.
Is the ATI TV Wonder USB. Anyone have any experience with or feelings about this one? I don't watch enough TV regularly to justtify actually owning a TV, but it's not a medium to which I want to lose access.
r *
*muttermutterdon'twanttomissstartrekmuttermutte
So given that the ATI USB TV tuner is the same price as Hauppage's but seems to be better feature-wise, does anyone have any grounds on which I shouldn't get it?
Cheers,
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Of course it's there. The TiVo and Replay both do PC based PVR very very well. They just happen to bundle their software with some hardware and charge for it. The real question is, why ignore this solution, since it seems to work so well?
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
I have been working on this very thing the past feww months, and have found that while there is an associated learning curve, there are advantages to using a PC to record over a TiVO.
Since my job requires some travel, I have found that it is a definite boon to collect movies. Using my workstation as a PVR, I am able to capture to the hard drive, do some postprocessing and write a DivX to a 700MB CD-R which I can then take with me and watch on business trips. And its all perfectly legal, since I am archiving for later viewing. On the other hand, getting the same from a TiVo requires modifications of questionable legality. In addition, I can make backup copies of my DVDs on 700MB media so I don't have to risk leaving my DVDs in a hotel room somewhere.
As for the cost issue, if you have a system with the right specs (a modern PC should pretty much do it), then the only additional cost should be a tv capture card, which can be had for $20 or $30 US. The only thing that one could point out is the time cost and the learning curve involved in making the hardware and software do what you want it to. But it is that way with anything. If its worth doing, you're probably going to have to teach yourself.
--Storm
I listen to talk radio, and I want to be able to record broadcasts for later listening.
Are there any solutions out there for doing this? I'd need AM support.
I'd love to be able to use my radio just like a TiVo.
There are some good project working with user friendly interface to video/audio recording.
/
freevo: freevo.sf.net
VDR: http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/
just to mention two that are under way.
Varios projects are also dealing with DVD-/+R(W) recording. See links below for how you can burn DVD-Video under Linux
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dvd-create
and http://dvd.chevelless230.com
I'm quite sure that sooner or later we will have really nice easy to use Linux "living room computers" that will do dvd,cd, hd recording - play dvd,timeshit TV etc.. It's just a matter or time.
Cheers
I ditched my vcr months ago. Just get a tv capture card with the bttv848 chip for video in [I recommend the winTV-FM, as it also has a stereo decoder and sound capture dsp on the card, leaving your existing sound card free, about $50 street]
Then, all you need is a good audio sync maintaining capture program like NewVideoRecorder and a good MP4 codec, and you're set! Oh, you probably need a least an athlon 1800 or equivilant, to do realtime 640x480 encoding capture with good deinterlacing. Much weaker systems can easily handle 320x240, which isn't much worse than vhs. Add in a few 80gig drives, a fast CDR, and you've got entertainment bliss.
Did I mention that the hauppage card comes with a remote, and it too is supported. So, sit back on the couch, with the computer hooked up to both record and play to your big screen tv, easily controlled by a remote.
It's being done right now, today, on peoples linux boxes. I've been doing it for over 4 months!
The only bad thing is that, currently, I still find the best application for editing commercials out of shows I want to archive, to be virtualdub [a win32 app]. It runs under wine, sure, but it still kind of hurts to have to do it. At least it's GPLd, though.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
None of this software holds a candle to Showshifter. Easily the best PVR software for windows. You can do any of the options talked about in the article and you're not locked into any single codec like MPEG-2 or any proprietary remote control. One of the problems mentioned was the quick use of hard drive space which can easily happen when using MPEG-2. With showshifter you control the codec used. DivX or WMV8 sure do a better job at keeping the file sizes down than MPG. I've used this software for over a year and am very happy. If you plan on trying to use your PC/TV as a PVR you should take the time to evaluate Showshifter, just like the reporter should have. I think he might have had a better experience.
-Mike
I've actually picked up a refurb Sony PCV-MXS10 relatively cheaply and it does a pretty darn good job of integrating the PVR cababilties into the PC. It's got a cut little LCD display on the front of the case that I can't wait to hack...
Most may hate the idea of MS delving into TV, but with their recording feature at least one major corporation will be anti-no-recording-of-TV when it comes up for debate.
If you capture MPG's to Andromeda's folder, they'll automatically show up in the web interface, and you should be able to stream them over your network. (I already play collected videos to my Wi-Fi enabled laptop)
From my experience MPG is more stream-friendly than AVI (which wants to fully download).
Seems like it could be pretty cool...
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
...the magic is in the software-hardware combo, and the money is in the hardware.
Plus supporting only their hardware means many fewer support headaches.
Now, maybe something like TiVo-on-a-PCI-card and TiVo software that only works with that card would fly from a technical standpoint, but then the ability to trade shows would be accessible to the average user. Jack Valenti would pop a vein in his forehead. Right now, it's possible to extract the video from a TiVo only if you're willing to futz under the hood, so the majority of TiVo users can't do it, so it's not THAT big of a concern-- like MP3 trading on Usenet and FTP was, before Napster came along.
And then we're back to support issues. You put a PC TiVo kit on the shelves at CompUSA, you have to hire people to help Joe Idiot User who can barely work Windows but now expects to get his PC and cable box talking nicely to each other.
~Philly
I tried my best to get into using my PC as a PVR, excited about the idea of chopping out the bits I don't want (ads, etc.) and having all the recorded programs sorted in directories by name instead of sprawled across VHS tapes.
After around six months of experimentation with my All-in-Wonder Radeon and a copy of ShowShifter (which was better than ATI's TV software), there was one thing I could not escape -- the picture quality just looked bad. Whether I maximized the TV display on the PC or output the video (either via composite or s-video) to my 34cm or 68cm TV, the quality was simply YUCK. Very soft, poor colour reproduction, and pathetic bleeding of bright parts of the image (which I clearly see demonstrated in screenshots of other TV card reviews). And this was before I compressed anything. Whenever I tried out DVD on my PC, outputting to a TV, the result was also poor -- an soft image clearly inferior to my standalone DVD player.
All in all, my VHS tapes were easily superior to anything my PC and ALL-in-Wonder could spit out.
These PC based PVRs are interesting, but they don't seem to have the ability to handle the higher channels that digital cable and/or satellite offer.
So, how does one, living here in Dallas, do an unattended record of something on the SciFi channel (161) and then something on NBC (5)?
Has anyone seen a device that can send a AV signal to a TV through 802.11b/a network link?
I saw a panasonic prototype at CES in Vegas but no word yet on if this is going to show up on the market..
IOW: send a AIW PVR video feed through your network to a composite AV signal..
Thanks!
There's a large ad for Microsoft Visual studio on this post (well in my browser anyway). Dunno whether this is good or bad but something made me laff - or is it just the 2 bottles of wine I've sunk.. who knows..
hehe
So, will the MPAA sue the NYT on DMCA grounds? After all, the only reason one might want to turn a PC into a PVR is because one is an Evil Content Pirate(tm).
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
I found the following comment very amusing:
"When was the last time two people used your PC at the same time? It's a pretty neat trick."
"The NYTimes ran this story in today's paper about how to turn the PC into a bread cooking device (a la Toaster)... It's got pretty thorough coverage of PC-based hardware with the conclusion "the Toaster outshines the PC-based systems by being easier to use and by offering more built-in intelligence." Conspicuously absent are El Gato's Ez-Toast for the mac and SnapStream's Personal Toasting Station... Anyways, the real question is whether PC Toasters will *ever* get there. No one does it quite right yet..."
Maybe we should focus less on "can it be done?" and more on "does anyone care?"
...that if anyone can probably pull off the seamless, user-friendly integration of PVR and personal computer, it will probably be Apple.
:-)
Think about it, they have, or will have, a lot of the pieces. They could make (possibly even in partnership with TiVo) a set-top box that connected with the Mac via Rendezvous and AirPort (possibly 802.11g) and some special software on the Mac side. Hell, throw in a web interface or make the control app highly AppleScriptable so people like me can roll their own.
I'm just kinda tossing this out there, I haven't really given it that much thought.
~Philly
Currently, none of the commercial PVR manufacturers support HDTV. So, if you want to record Digital TV, you need to build your own. By the way, Digital TV is great for PVR's, no compression is needed, the TV program is an MPEG2 stream - making the PVR's job easy. This is very similar to the PVR's for DirecTV.
There are a few choices for HDTV PVR cards:
Telemann Hipix - They have a semi-open source project for their Windows drivers. Availability seems to be a problem.
AccessDTV - Has some nice features, like pausing live TV. But, they have some drawkacks - Locked video files, so they can only be played back on the same machine - and their PVR guide is a subscription service.
MyHD - Newer card, some nice features like DVD vob playback (scaled to 1080i or 720p, looks great!)
Hauppage WinTV-HD - Not sure if this is still sold. Not well supported if it is.
Pop one of these into a computer system, add a big hard drive to hold those HD programs (~ 9GB/hr), and off you go.
I use the MyHD card, and I have been using the DVD scaling feature as much as the HDTV reception. I copy my DVD's to the hard drive of my system, and now I have a pretty nice video library, with immediate access - no swapping disks.
Wish I remembered my /. PW. For now, I'm just "Anonymous Coward"...
Anyhoo, I recently built myself a PC-based entertainment unit. It isn't finished yet (hence it's not as user friendly as a TIVO yet), but it can do the following, off the top of my head:
- Play downloaded video on my 35" TV (I now own all the Futuramas, Greg the Bunnys, Seinfelds, etc.)
- Play 1000's of arcade games via MAME
- Play N64 games via emulation (P64, etc.)
- Play 1000's Super Nintendo games via ZSNES
- Play Sega Genesis games (again, emulation)
- Use N64 joysticks for ALL games (PC, or emulated) via the awsome Adaptoid USB adapters
- Play & decode surround sound via the SB Audigy card (and the amazing Klipsch 5.1 speakers!)
- Play streaming internet radio (mp3 or realaudio) by tying the entire system back into my LAN which is DSL'd out to the world
- Surf the net if you want (Why do this on a TV though? Good for checking headlines though)
- Record like a VCR (Via the amazing "Showshifter" program -Which coincidentally can not only compress video after recording, but will also burn it to CD for you afterwards. Instead of a VCR tape, you get a nice little CD to label and add to your collection)
- Play MP3's, Wavs, CD's, DVD's, and VCD's
And more... But you get my point.
Yes, a PC based system's a little more complex than the average TIVO, but it also offers immensley more value for the money.
Oh, did I mention that this is all controlled by remote? 8)=
Yes, I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, but remote suffices for about everything.
Give it a try... Mine's a very modest system (1.2 Athlon, 512MB, 80GB HD, ATI 8500DV), and it continually amazes me how good it works.
(Incidentlally, for a mind blowing experience, use WinAmps visual plugins at 480x480 with all options on. It really looks awsome sync'd to music on the big screen! Try that with your TIVO!!)
Of course, the Tivo gives you a little bit of that hacking goodness. You can use the "Hinsdale How-To" to add an additional hard-drive. I added a 120G drive to my 30 hour unit and now have ~180 hours of capacity. That's more than I'll likely ever need, but it gives me the flexibility to rarely-if-ever have to erase something I haven't watched yet in order to make room for something else.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
offsetting the subscription cost is the significant additional energy cost to keep the PC running--
Even if you figure it (conservatively) at an additional 100 watts, it comes to something like 35 cents per day-- which comes out within about a dollar per month of the monthly subscription fee
Essentially, the PC solution has you paying your subscription fee to the power company instead of Tivo
In addition to being able to upgrade the hard disks, which I think most people know about, you can buy an ethernet card for TiVos that allows you to upgrade your (first generation TiVo or DirectTivo):
- Acquire guide data over broadband, rather than over the phone line
- Allow most of the user interface, including scheduling of programs, to be run via a web interface that runs on the box.
- Allow the MPEG data to be transfered directly from the hard drive. With some tweaks, you can direct the TiVo to record 720x480 video, which is directly DVD compatible! (See the forums). In the case of a DirecTiVo, the MPEG data is that which was stored directly off of the satellite...).
Note that all but the last are supported (or at least not discouraged) by TiVo corp. The latest version of the software (3.0) even includes the required ethernet drivers.One thing I didn't see mentioned is the side benefits of setting this up. I have used the same system to listen to my MP3's. At times I have switched the input to a video cam for a baby monitor. We keep photographs on the PC and have done slide shows on the TV. If desperate you can surf the web although the resolution sucks. Everthing that doesn't require extensive typing or high resolution is now available in the living room. Lastly you get a TV on your PC.
"the TiVo outshines the PC-based systems by being easier to use and by offering more built-in intelligence." Well, duh. In other news, tests show that a toaster beats a wood-burning furnace for toasting bread. There ARE advantages to specialization.
ECS K7S5A Motherboard (SIS 735 chipset)
Duron 950 running at 1050Mhz (Soon to be an XP 2100+)
256mb PC133 SDRAM
Windows 2000 SP2
ATI All-in-wonder Radeon 7500
Sound Blaster Audigy OEM
60 Gig 7200 RPM WD IDE hard drive
DVD-ROM
CD-burner, 24x
Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse (very nice!)
32 inch RCA TV being driven off S-video
Harmon Kardon A/V reciever with dolby 5.1 speaker setup.
Latest ATI drivers and MMC 7.7
This is what I'm able to do with this system as it stands:
Watch DivX movies from CD on my TV instead of a computer monitor.
Record TV shows and movies to MPEG-2 format at up to DVD quality. I can then do any damned thing I want to with the files. (Obviously I can copy them accross our lan)
Record TV shows and movies in DivX format (only 320x240 till I upgrade the cpu). With 60 gigs of space I can record for three days continuously at this setting and the results are significantly better than VCD format.
Needless to say I can record things in MPEG-2 format and re-encode them to DivX for burning to CD using flaskmpeg.
Once I get a DVD burner I'll probably just burn them straight to DVD's.
The only downside to this current configuration is that only the video is compressed, the audio is saved in PCM format. Current systems aren't quite fast enought to do real time capture and encoding of audio and video at DVD quality levels. Obviously this will change within a year or so. Whether the software will also change is hard to say but I suspect that it will. I'd love to be able to just record a movie straight to DivX and dump it on a CD.
The software that comes with the AIW features all kinds of tivo-like stuff such as the ability to pause live tv, view TV listings online, and schedule record times. I don't really use these but they are there. You don't have to pay a subscription fee either.
I also play DVD's on this system and the output as good or better than any console DVD player. ATI's DVD software does an excellent job and the S-Video output on the AIW looks absolutely fabulous on my TV. It has no flicker and is sharp and clear. I can sit in front of my coffee table with my cordless keyboard and mouse and websurf. I can also play video games such as Max Payne thanks to the not-too-shabby 3D capabilities of the 7500. It has a wireless remote control as well.
At this point I just need a slightly faster computer and better software and this system would kick the living shit out of anything that a Tivo can do. AT this point it already does do better than what a Tivo is actually meant to do.
How much did this cost me?
Motherboard and current CPU: $99 Fry's special
Memory: $45 (I already had it)
Case: $59
HD: $89
CD-Burner: $59
DVD-Rom: $40 (I already had it)
Floppy: $12
SB-Audigy: $60
ATI AIW: $150
Wireless KB/mouse: $80
Total: $693
I don't know what a Tivo costs these days, but I'll bet you I got more bang for my buck by far.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Your cable network will NEVER support descrambling of digital channels, and pay channels on your PC :-( But, with the TIVO DirecTV tuner, you can record all channels. The PC PVR market will never be serious until we can record Six Feet Under, Sex in the City and Queer as Folk off the pay channels when we're not home!
"I can only be impressed to a certain point if he's using Me for anything."
This is not a troll, there's actually a good point here. PVRs need to have really good uptime, something that nobody will claim with Windows ME.
Windows 2000 is a good PVR OS. The uptime on my PC-PVR was well over 2 months.
'Television' is owned by the few...all content in the US is approved by fewer than 100 people (ok, maybe 1000) I want to be able to ZAP my son's first baseball game and send it to all my relatives. (They won't watch it, but it is still a better choice than 50 of the 60 channels on here.) Release us from this video prison. What's on is CRAP, even my son could do better. I want a VIDEO recorder, not a TV or buybox . Take your TIVO and ... just gimme a video INPUT jack on one end and a DVD compatible disk on the output end. I haven't seen anything on TV in a decade that I'd want to watch again (ok maybe Babylon 5, but the decade mark for that is coming fast.)
The recording industry is losing its hold, and they should when you look at whats on TV these days... I would rathcr watch 10 year olds play sports anytime to the criminals in today's professional sports. There have been 10 movies in cinema's in the last 5 years here in the US that feature TALENT instead of big hollywood money. (its about who you know anymore.. you can't be good and get on any screen anymore, and if you do.. the set is crowded with daddy's girl thats IN, so your talent is more than offset by el-stinko.)
I got a 2nd hand Compaq Deskpro ENS (small form factor) with a 800Mhz cpu, added 384mb (cheap these days) and a whooping Western Digital 120Gb (8Mb cache) harddrive. The multimedia is taken care by the following three cards:
Creative Labs Soundblaster PCI 128
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-pci, for the video capture.
Realmagic Xcard that does MPG and DiVX playback.
- The Xcard can play back MPG and DiVX files using hardware decode. It will only play DiVX files from 4.02 upwards, and it can't handle the DiVX 5.x ¼ pixel motion compensation (QPEL) or global motion compensation (GMC). The Xcard playback supports a resolution of 720x576 at 30fps, with a maximum bit rate of 15Mbps.
Both these cards don't really require powerfull cpu's, so I could have gotten a simple 400Mhz processor, but I think I'll do some DiVX compression of some recordings in the future. I travel quite a lot for work, so I really need the ability to control the TV Scheduler remotely. For this reason, I decided to use the Windows 2000 Server operating system, and use the Terminal Service to publish the TV Scheduler application through a secure channel (SSL 128bit). Now I get to start my PVR from a Internet cafe across the world.I just bought a $20 card off of eBay (it's a TView99 card, i think (anyway, it has a conexant chipset)) and I captured my movie or television program using AVI... then I took some software that came on my computer and I rerendered the presentation as an MPEG... Yeah it doesnt have the nice looking backend for the functionality but it works, and it looks better than half of the stuff I have seen from those PVR packages.
How much trouble "our" parents will have when they have to set the video-timer in cron.. =) They used to have problems with the "normal" video timers...
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
He's near bit interviewer's heads off for proposing 'Set Top Boxes' and other similar TV-computer things. He's quite adamant that a Computer is NOT a TV & TVs are for lemmings... More than a little unreasonable on that subject :)
I have an ATI All In Wonder Radeon 7500 and have been blown away by it features. I use the card to drive a 32" TV. I have no monitor for the system. I use it as another of my componets for my Home Theater setup. I use its TV Guide software to record my favorite shows. I also record all my videos at VCD quaility so I can transefer them to CD. It is real easy to use and comes with a remote control. I also use a Wireless Keyboard, Mouse, and LAN. The system plays all the curent games and cost less than $500. There are some downsides to it. I cannot record the Premium channels without looping the video back in (Pain In the Ass). You also need to download the TV Guide channel update every week. The remote is terrible for mouse negotiation. No DX 8 features are the only other problem I see with the card. As far as the last part, (DX 8 Support)so few games today use it I do no miss it. The card is a great buy overall with a price of under $150. It may not be as dumbed down as TIVO but I am content.
In europe we have vcr with a feature called "ir blast" to fix this problem - The vcr simply have a build in ir transmitter and uses this to select the channel on the sattelite receiver. It should be simple to such a device to connect to a PC...
For media playback in a HTPC configuration, I would recommmend Zoomplayer for Windows.
I'm not sure about any possible MacOS offerings...
For a linux based system I've not seen anything that works too damn well in the particular setup. Xine seems best as is, but to truly be cool for HTPC, another interface would be designed. Until I found Zoomplayer, it looked like my solution would be a custom interface to mplayer or xine, but with ZoomPlayer, it looks like Windows is still the best choice for HTPC...
I would love for someone to give evidence to the contrary, however,,, I like having solutions that I can tweak for my indicual taste..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
It's got a remote control as well as an internet based program guide, multiple A/V I/O.
8 3x 5881x9353&catid=9353&itemid=35312
truely integrated multimedia functionality. If you want a well designed PC A/V unit, this is it.
Provided you have the moolah to spend of course.
http://www.sonystyle.com/home/item.jsp?hierc=96
If you don't want to wait for the US model, "kenwinning" is selling them on ebay (now that I can read!).
I've successully played video clips (I showed everyone at my way-too-long-running project South Park's Orientation to Hell. 'That would be "The Mormons." The correct answer is "The Mormons".) but battery life is horrendous. (You could hack some together an external battery pack out of a Walmart flashlight, a USB extension cable, and a USB power adapter like I did, I suppose.)
Well, I guess the encoder really is a TiVo-like black box, but the media is portable and encoded into a form that would work on a Linux laptop or desktop just as well as a Z. That's the cool part, me thinks.
If any of you buy one, let me know how it works out ;)
you obviously haven't been following microsoft's new product to be released this november. I think I am going with either Samsung or NEC's unit.
I got a SPAM from snapstream, about half an hour ago, announcing a 24 hour sale, aimed at slashdot readers. Grrr.
My roommates and I have been PC PVR'ing for about a year. It quite hard to get it setup even for a software guru, but once you do its pretty cool.
/wait virutaldub /ssettings.vcf /b"d:\in\","d:\out\" /x /r
One tip I've learned is to get good software. ATI's in the box PVR software is in currently pretty bad shape. It crashs all the time, and generally just sucks.
The best PVR software I've found so far is iuVCR: It's nice because it lets you choose the codecs and it uses the win2k scheduler so it works. It also is very stable.
If you combine that with PICVideos MJPEG codec at setting Q19 then it looks pretty good at 2GB/hr.
And then if you want it small then use VirtualDub to post-process recompress it with DivXNetworks's Divx v5.02 at 600bps to get it down to 0.35GB/hr.
If you like to automate it you can use the scheduler to run a batch file VirtualDub and pass in cmd line args to make it automatically recompress all AVI files from one dir and output them to another. Just run vdub and setup the settings the way you want, and "Save Processing Settings" to a file called settings.vcf (say) then run this at night:
start
move d:\in\*.avi d:\in-done
Good luck
showshifter is missing a bunch of stuff and has been for several releases. first, the scheduling engine sucks -- this shouldn't be complicated or tough to get right. snapstream provides a much easier way to record a show weekly, every weekday, etc. additionally, showshifter lacks any media server capabilities... being able to stream shows around over the home network, being able to copy them to the Pocket PC. finally, the UI on showshifter, unbelievable. makes me think of amateurish amateur sci-fi.
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
I have ATI's TV wonder, and while the tvguide software leaves a little to be desired (on the plus side its free) I can watch and record all the spongebob i want.... i mean....
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
What, you don't think that TiVo's consume any power?
I was pleased to set up an Athlon 500 with an ATI Rage 128 Pro AIW on WinXP. Using MMC 7.6 Hitachi 60" HDTV.
The real secret is to go from the computer into a transcoder into the component video inputs - it's as sharp as a computer monitor.
The recorings in ATI format look really good. it uses about 2 gigs for 1/2 hour.
If you want to store it, it makes most sense to capture in the format, rather than rerendering it. With the guideplus software, you can select the store format.
I also put my other system - Xstasy Everything / Athlon 900 up against it, but I found the ATI on the lesser machine to be less choppy in motion and the audio seems to stay right in synch.
I'd like to use a TiVO yet, building your own PVR is a necessity if you live outside the USA. No convenient on-line TV listings and your TV eats PAL not NTSC.
...it'll keep you nice and busy for longer before you realise there's nothing worth watching.
1. The hardware is relatively inexpensive, you can buy a machine that records 35 hours for $200 or less.
2. The subscription is either $10 per month or just $199 for the life of that unit.
3. TiVo will not fail, it is backed by America Online, NBC, HBO (need i say more).
4. It can't get any easier than TiVo.
5. The only thing that needs to be on is the TiVo unit, saving energy and keeping secure my computer system from hackers and lightning storms.
6. Everything is controlled by a remote!!!
7. I can start watching the show while it is still recording. This is especially helpful for sporting events. I don't have to worry about being home a little late, because I just start watching it at the beginning, fast forward through commercials, and eventually I catch up to real time. That way I don't miss any of the action (Plus you learn really fast how much of the time in the game is really on commercials).
9. TiVo showcases give previews of movies and shows that are available that month, so I can checkout what new movies HBO has for the month very quickly and have it record the show in the middle of the night so it is available when I want to watch it. I can do the same for PPV movies/events as well.
10. TiVo gets to know my viewing habits and starts automatically recording shows I might be interested in.
11. While I am watching the news, if there is something that I didn't quite catch, or I wanted to show my husband a news story, I can rewind right then and there (same for any show I am watching as it is always recording).
12. The TiVo software is constantly being upgraded by TiVo adding new features all of the time. I am sure it won't be too long before you can e-mail a show to a computer or another TiVo user.
13. Commercials for some programs allow you to just press a button on your remote to record that program (so you are watching West Wing, and a commercial for Dateline comes up that sounds interesting, you just click a button and it records Dateline).
I have been using TiVo for almost 2 years now. In the past 2 years, there has barely been 1 program I have watched live, therefore I rarely if ever watch commercials. Every night when I come home from work, the national nightly news is waiting for me (really, who gets home at 5:30pm!!). After that I cook dinner, and then look on my "Now Playing List" to see what I would LIKE to watch. I never watch those stupid filler shows (you know the stupid sitcoms they put between the good programs).
Basically, TiVo has completely changed my life. I actually watch LESS TV than before, but what I watch is what I want to watch.
You can mess around with PC DVRs, because after all, you are a techie, but personally, I want technology to simplify my life!! TiVo is the way to go!Jen
This is only if you have no other use for your computer than as a TiVo replacement. I think we all are in agreement that this is blatantly false.
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
Name: Logitech LVC-HD120 "TV Tank"
Category: AV
Price: Open (but 80,600 yen from Logitech Direct at www2.ld.logitec.co.jp/)
The Gist: It can't blow up stuff and would probably get bogged down in a muddy field pretty darn quickly, but Logitech's new LVC-HD120 "Tank" can do something your average M1A1/2 Abrams or Challenger MBT can't, and that's record television programs. Infinitely more practical, but maybe with less immediate impact, the TV Tank houses a 120GB hard disk, turning it into a state-of-the-art video recorder. Logitech claims that the Tank can record a whole week's worth of TV and helpfully provides an example, saying you could record 17 hours (from 7am to 12pm) of television every day over 7 days and it'd all fit on the hard disk. That's 119 hours in total, fact fans, although unless you have some serious satellite package being beamed into your apartment, you'd be hard pushed to find that much good stuff to record each day, I reckon. Recording at the same resolution as DVD (720x480 dot, it says here) in MPEG-2 format, the TV Tank is compact at 105 x 145 x 220mm and finished in silver so that it won't look out of place alongside the rest of your AV gadgetry in the living room. There's a USB 1.1 port for connecting up to Windows-compatible PCs and transferring video and what's recorded is represented as thumbnail images onscreen for simple navigation.
See: In Canada: no Tivo. No ReplayTV either. Not available as a product, and the subscription is US only.
:) So I guess this Linux PVR is the way to go. [shrug]
I *wish* we could get something like a Tivo for $450 (canadian.) By the time it does finally come out, it'll end up costing Canadians $999 with a $50 a month subscription and only if you happen to go with one cable company (probably Rogers.)
Rip off living in this country.
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