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TiVo to Go Released
SimCityHippy wrote to us with the news that TiVo has TiVo To Go. Right now, the To Go feature is supported only on Windows XP & Win2k; no word on whether the feature will be rolled out to OS X or WinME. It's also interesting to note that while they recommend Windows MP, VLC gets a nod as well.
ReplayTV supports transfers over the network via DVarchive. The old 5000 ReplayTV series can share over the network nativly.
On the TiVoToGo FAQ:
Are TiVoToGo(TM) transfers available for Apple Macintosh computers? At this time TiVoToGo transfers are not available for Apple Macintosh computers. TiVo is working hard to enable TiVoToGo features available on TiVo Desktop for Mac. We are currently working on ways to enable playback on Apple Macintosh computers. We will let our customers know in our newsletter as soon as this feature is available.
Having both a Tivo Series 2 and a Myth TV box...
Out of the box, Tivo is much nicer. After pulling hair and much fighting, MythTV is a heck of a lot nicer. There was a lot of pain to get there though, definately not for the faint of heart.
The main thing I learned in the process is don't overcomplicate. A PVR-250 is a fine card to use, the PVR-350 is just more features to pull out hair over.
TV Listings are a pain though. I have Direcway satellite as nothing else is available. The satellite receiver does some strange proxying. Because of that, my MythTV TV listings must be fetched via a ssh tunnel to a tinyproxy box at the office, otherwise it just fails.
If you have time, and patience, the MythTV solution is much more satisfying, otherwise Tivo is probably a better bet.
In our house, both are used. When Tivo finally dies though, it'll be replaced by MythTV.
*Note: Not all shows may be eligible for transfer from your TiVo box to your computer. Programming providers may restrict or limit the ability to record, display, view or transfer any particular program using a variety of copy protection mechanisms.
TivoToGo is a feature that allows Tivo subscribers to transfer recorded content from their Tivo devices (Series2 only) to their PC/laptop for viewing and/or burning to DVD. At this time the transfer is only one-way (Tivo -> PC), there is not current ability to archive to PC, then put back on the Tivo for viewing later.
According to http://www.tivoblog.com/ this update could take several weeks to be deployed. Hopefully it doesn't take that long.
Same situation here - Series 2 TiVo and a nice orphaned Windows PC-turned-MythTV box give me some experience with both.
I find myself hardly using the TiVo these days. I've moved all the "season pass" show schedules over to the Myth box. Originally got going with Myth because it would let me play my assortment of DivX movie files and let me record/watch tv simultaneously with a second tuner card, and the level of control linux/myth give me is keeping me on it.
One oddity - the best way to share video in multiple rooms with myth seems to be to NFS a huge volume with your recorded video. I remember Tivo's multi-room viewing gave you a combined list of programs and, when requesting one from another Tivo unit, simply downloaded the program to the one requesting the video and played it when ready. It'd be nice if I had each frontend contribute storage to the other frontends without having to build a huge storage machine and worry about it frying one night and losing all my saved programs.
Anyway.
I agree that the 350 is more needless hair-pulling for most, but if you're setting up separate backend/frontend boxen, a 350 is a nice one-card solution for watching TV on a cheap-o linux machine. Then again, so is a motherboard with on-board TV-out and ethernet.
My main concern right now (and one of the reasons I've not dumped another grand into building a nicer backend machine and some frontends around the house) is Myth is currently only useful for analog cable. The HDTV cards out there can only receive OTA signals (unencrypted) and the future of cable TV seems to be cable company-provided receivers w/ PVR capability that aren't easily controlled from a PC. Sure, there's some work being done for the firewire ports on some of the newer receivers, and you can usually get an IRblaster going or something to control the unit, but, bye-bye multiple recordings to my backend, and so on.
Myth could use some polish (I still like the satisfying little beeps and blurps when I use the Tivo) but I'm surprised at how much it does already. KnoppMyth is making strides to lower the learning curve for new setups. DVD burning still takes some hard work, but it's getting easier, and MythDVD has built-in background ripping/transcoding. Cool add-ons like MythPhone and mfe are fun to play with and could become more useful soon. And the Hauppauge cards are just wonderful - kudos and much thanks to Chris Kennedy and the IvyTV community for supporting this hardware so diligently. I'll be a Myth user for a long time if I can get an acceptable HD solution working with it.