World's Smallest PVR? TiVX 2230 Review

Dave writes "GadgetZone takes a look at the DViCO TiVX 2230, the world's smallest PVR. The internal notebook drive means it can be used as a portable hard drive, then installed in the living room and used as a full media player and PVR. It's definitely a nifty little gadget."

Comments

HD for Cable subscribers

[Joe U]

The problem with these and other non-cable co DVR's is that you're limited to OTA HD content or unencrypted QAM (OTA HD that's re-broadcast pretty much). I hate to say it, but you have to get your DVR from the cable company of you want the full feature set.

I love my HTPC, I wish I could record (or at least watch) HBO-HD on it.

Re:HD for Cable subscribers

[the_crowbar]

Check out the Hauppauge HD-PVR. It records HD via component video and I think the newest firmware enables 5.1 audio. It is a hardware encoder and requires almost no CPU to record (you just save the video strem to disk). Playback on the other hand requires a very beefy system. Under Linux a 3.0GHz is about the minimum requirement. Windows users may be able to offload some of the video decoding to their graphics card.

Linky: http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

Re:HD for Cable subscribers

[Orphaze]

You can. All you need is this: http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

It is basically a hardware HD x264 encoder that works in conjunction with your HD tuner. Hook it up to the component outputs of your cable/satellite provider's tuner box, use an irblaster to change channels, and you're in business. (MythTV's support is nearly stable now last I heard.)

You lose a bit of quality in the A/D conversion, but it does allow you access to 100 percent of your HD material. That is, until analog outputs are made illegal, though I suspect that is many years away from achieving fruition.

Re:HD for Cable subscribers

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with these and other non-cable co DVR's is that you're limited to OTA HD content or unencrypted QAM (OTA HD that's re-broadcast pretty much). I hate to say it, but you have to get your DVR from the cable company of you want the full feature set.

I love my HTPC, I wish I could record (or at least watch) HBO-HD on it.

The HD Tivo accepts cable cards.

Re:HD for Cable subscribers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it depends on your area. We get a lot of unencrypted QAM here. It's not the full set, as you note, but it's plenty. We still use the cable company's DVR, but we supplement it with our own. On the cable DVR we record the encrypted stuff and stuff we "have" to see. On our own, we record any unencrypted content we might even slightly be interested in so we always have something to watch. We also record the unencrypted "have to" stuff on our own to have a second copy just in case the cable DVR barfs, which has happened.

Re:HD for Cable subscribers

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is basically a hardware HD x264 encoder"

H264, not x264. x264 is a free software implementation of the h264 standard.

Re:HD for Cable subscribers

[markdavis]

>you have to get your DVR from the cable company of you want the full feature set

That is not completely true. TiVo HD supports cable cards and can tune encrypted HD cable, as well as analog and digital OTA. For the moment, it can't deal with SDV, though.

Re:HD for Cable subscribers

[quenda]

I love my HTPC, I wish I could record (or at least watch) HBO-HD on it.

You live in the wrong place then. In Oz we get the best HBO shows in hi-def DRM-free DVB over free-to-air.
Of course they add 50% to the show length by mixing in adverts, so you need an HTPC to cut them out. I wish we could just pay for cable instead of "free" with adverts.

Re:HD for Cable subscribers

[zippthorne]

My cable company only even offers the OTA digital HD channels you insensitive clod. Actually.. that's not even true. They "offer" six of the roughly thirty-three OTA digital channels I can get, though many of the ones they don't offer or pass through aren't HD.

Re:HD for Cable subscribers

[jpyeron]

I wonder if there would be any merit to a class action law suit on this. I recently took advantage of the FCC decision http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-238850A1.pdf to require IEEE-1394 / FireWire out from the cable boxes, to find out the 160$ package I bought could not be watched on my FireWire enabled DVR & display.

So I went out and bought a HDMI to DVI cable http://www.mwave.com/mwave/SkuSearch_v2.asp?SCriteria=BA22631 to watch on my projector & DVI flat panel to get an overlay from the cable box that says "this output is not authorized" and my show in the background for every channel.

$399 or $599?

[DarthJohn]

I saw this here earlier today.

Interesting gadgets, but the PC Authority page says they will be $399 for the one reviewed in TFA and $599 for the one that will play Blu-Ray backups. I don't think I'll be interested in that market anytime soon.

Re:$399 or $599?

[DarthJohn]

Off topic? Really?

There's a story about an interesting gadget.
I read TFA, and another article on the same gadget.
I posted what I found most interesting, the price, and a link to the other article I read earlier in the day.

The links point to another article and another blog post, both about the same gadget.
The prices I quoted are the prices listed on the article I linked to.
How is that off topic?

Seriously, WTF?

Bayesian Show Recording?

[Colin Smith]

No? Meh.

Too many channels. Too much crap. Too little time.

 

TViX or TiVX

[HTH NE1]

Seems the people writing the articles can't decide whether it is TiVX or TViX. Looks closer to TV'X to me.

Re:TViX or TiVX

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because they are so used to typing divx, so the V naturally wants to migrate :P

popcorn hour

[Anonymous Coward]

I've considering getting a TViX, but with the unrealistic HD PVR capability, I'd rather just get a Popcorn Hour or something similar and stream my existing media.

Archos series

[QJimbo]

Judging from that picture, it looks *bigger* than the any Archos media player plus the DVR dock. I have an Archos myself and it is a great gadget and very useful in this respect.

I don't know why they're calling this the "smallest PVR" when there are smaller ones around.

Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst. Review. Evar.