Wow! I could use that right now to get rid of this cold. If I only had an iPod. I've got a iNomadXtra so it probably wouldn't work anyway because of the Apple proprietary enter face...
I'd rather have an encoder card that does it in hardware. For regular cable, I'm using Hauppauge PVR-250's and getting fantastic results. I could hardly watch a VCR-recorded show the other day -- much poorer quality (home VCR resolution is about 1/2 that of the normal TV's capability).
My wife complained about the time and noise of fast-scanning through commercials. Much easier to just click on a "progress bar" in SageTV.
She said that she was "spoiled." Must be time for a new computer toy.
So far, I haven't found any either that are designed for cable systems. From what I've read, the cards on the market now are designed for off-the-air recording. The problem seems to be a lack of a universal standard for HDTV encoding on the cable systems.
For now, I'm extremely satisfied with my home made HTPC and non-HDTV cable broadcasts. I've retired my VCRs over quality, recording convenience and playback convenience issues. You can see my home theater PC on my site.
Glad I could make your day. Sorry I offended you by putting a Google adblock, 2 web host ads and "Get Firefox" ad on my web pages. I hope I didn't offend you with my computer tips, coffee articles, home theater PC articles or other content.
If site visitors click on an ad, that's fine; if they don't, that's fine, too. Perhaps, some day, I'll have accumulated enough ad clicks that I actually get paid something. Meanwhile, I'm contributing to the community.
Banner ads while fast-forwarding - what will they think of next?
After hearing about and drooling over the TiVo boxes. I'm glad I built my own HTPC using SageTV and Hauppauge PVR-250 cards. I can record and encode three shows simultaneously while playing a fourth. I can also stream to a client version of the software on my notebook. RealVNC lets me have in-depth control of the HTPC via my notebook to take advantage of my 1680x1050 notebook resolution.
I've got a writeup and pictures of my Home Theater PC setup on my website.
With the activation of prepurchased Half-Life 2 copies today, computer consultant billing rates are expected to skyrocket for the short term. Market demand is expected to drive the rates for available computer consultants to new highs, well exceeding those of the "dot-com" era.
Why, you might ask? In a market economy, goods and services are priced based on available supply and the demand for those goods and services. With hordes of computer consultants electing to "take a little time off to play Half-Life 2," consultants will be able to pick and choose among potential clients and price their services properly to compensate them for foregoing the thrills of Half-Life 2 for a few weeks.
Many political jurisdictions have passed laws designed to protect innocent consumers from predatory pricing after natural disasters. However, State and local "price gouging" laws are not expected to affect this market-based price rise, as the shortage of available consultants is not expected to qualify under the laws' terms. Politicians, reacting to constituents' concerns, are expected to quickly attempt to change the laws to treat "loss of email and/or web services" as a disaster.
I investigated the alternatives a few months ago, and picked Frey Technologies' SageTV ( http://www.sage.tv ) over Snapstream's BeyondTV.
Features I liked in SageTV:
1) uses TV cards with hardware encoding cards only. Cards using software encoding need not apply.
2) low CPU requirements, since the the encoding is done by the video card.
3) handles multiple TV tuner cards automatically -- I use two Hauppauge PVR-250 cards. BeyondTV supports only one card. (The wildest SageTV setup I've read about included two PVR-250s, one PVR-350, four of a USB variety and one ATI E-Home Wonder.)
4) free TV schedule/guide. They use Zap2It for those, and I was already using www.zap2it.com for my TV watching plans.
5) ability to use directories across the network for recording or serving shows
6) ability to stream mpeg2 video to a SageClient on another PC. (BeyondTV can't stream mpeg2 -- either record in a Windows Media format or spend your time decoding/re-encoding to make a copy you can stream!)
7) ability to watch live TV, effectively as if it was already a complete recording (start late, jump around, etc). BeyondTV does this if you record in mpeg2, but it can't stream that file to another machine!
8) ability to automatically control SageRecorder (optional related program) on another networked PC that has its own TV card.
9) full-featured, time-limited trial versions of SageTV, SageRecorder and SageClient.
10) does not require or use.Net
11) does not require DirectX9
12) open beta program -- beta installs over any registered copy.
The most commonly used card is the Hauppauge PVR-250. SageTV has out-of-the-box support for Hauppauge and another remote, and support for third-party IR receivers.
While I write this, I'm watching mpeg2 video streamed to a window to this 650MHz notebook. SageClient is the remote client version, which receives and displays the streamed mpeg2 shows and also lets you control the recording schedule remotely.
Slashdot Mirror
It's just you.
Wow! I could use that right now to get rid of this cold. If I only had an iPod. I've got a iNomadXtra so it probably wouldn't work anyway because of the Apple proprietary enter face...
I'd rather have an encoder card that does it in hardware. For regular cable, I'm using Hauppauge PVR-250's and getting fantastic results. I could hardly watch a VCR-recorded show the other day -- much poorer quality (home VCR resolution is about 1/2 that of the normal TV's capability).
My wife complained about the time and noise of fast-scanning through commercials. Much easier to just click on a "progress bar" in SageTV.
She said that she was "spoiled." Must be time for a new computer toy.
So far, I haven't found any either that are designed for cable systems. From what I've read, the cards on the market now are designed for off-the-air recording. The problem seems to be a lack of a universal standard for HDTV encoding on the cable systems.
For now, I'm extremely satisfied with my home made HTPC and non-HDTV cable broadcasts. I've retired my VCRs over quality, recording convenience and playback convenience issues. You can see my home theater PC on my site.
Glad I could make your day. Sorry I offended you by putting a Google adblock, 2 web host ads and "Get Firefox" ad on my web pages. I hope I didn't offend you with my computer tips, coffee articles, home theater PC articles or other content.
If site visitors click on an ad, that's fine; if they don't, that's fine, too. Perhaps, some day, I'll have accumulated enough ad clicks that I actually get paid something. Meanwhile, I'm contributing to the community.
Banner ads while fast-forwarding - what will they think of next?
After hearing about and drooling over the TiVo boxes. I'm glad I built my own HTPC using SageTV and Hauppauge PVR-250 cards. I can record and encode three shows simultaneously while playing a fourth. I can also stream to a client version of the software on my notebook. RealVNC lets me have in-depth control of the HTPC via my notebook to take advantage of my 1680x1050 notebook resolution.
I've got a writeup and pictures of my Home Theater PC setup on my website.
Terry
With the activation of prepurchased Half-Life 2 copies today, computer consultant billing rates are expected to skyrocket for the short term. Market demand is expected to drive the rates for available computer consultants to new highs, well exceeding those of the "dot-com" era.
Why, you might ask? In a market economy, goods and services are priced based on available supply and the demand for those goods and services. With hordes of computer consultants electing to "take a little time off to play Half-Life 2," consultants will be able to pick and choose among potential clients and price their services properly to compensate them for foregoing the thrills of Half-Life 2 for a few weeks.
Many political jurisdictions have passed laws designed to protect innocent consumers from predatory pricing after natural disasters. However, State and local "price gouging" laws are not expected to affect this market-based price rise, as the shortage of available consultants is not expected to qualify under the laws' terms. Politicians, reacting to constituents' concerns, are expected to quickly attempt to change the laws to treat "loss of email and/or web services" as a disaster.
We've come a long way from the "AMD is Dead" and "Intel Rules" days.
Intel let its marketing people get caught napping. Intel pushed the Itanium and said it will never make a 64-bit chip that is x86 compatible.
AMD came out with the 64 bit chip that was compatible with the x86, and it got rave reviews. And, it gets sales!
Now, AMD outsells Intel again. Did you see that -- the article said "again."
Not bad for a company that was being written off a couple years ago.
And how are you going to pay that $3000? With your credit card?
And your dollars keep going, and going, and going...
I investigated the alternatives a few months ago, and picked Frey Technologies' SageTV ( http://www.sage.tv ) over Snapstream's BeyondTV.
.Net
Features I liked in SageTV:
1) uses TV cards with hardware encoding cards only. Cards using software encoding need not apply.
2) low CPU requirements, since the the encoding is done by the video card.
3) handles multiple TV tuner cards automatically -- I use two Hauppauge PVR-250 cards. BeyondTV supports only one card. (The wildest SageTV setup I've read about included two PVR-250s, one PVR-350, four of a USB variety and one ATI E-Home Wonder.)
4) free TV schedule/guide. They use Zap2It for those, and I was already using www.zap2it.com for my TV watching plans.
5) ability to use directories across the network for recording or serving shows
6) ability to stream mpeg2 video to a SageClient on another PC. (BeyondTV can't stream mpeg2 -- either record in a Windows Media format or spend your time decoding/re-encoding to make a copy you can stream!)
7) ability to watch live TV, effectively as if it was already a complete recording (start late, jump around, etc). BeyondTV does this if you record in mpeg2, but it can't stream that file to another machine!
8) ability to automatically control SageRecorder (optional related program) on another networked PC that has its own TV card.
9) full-featured, time-limited trial versions of SageTV, SageRecorder and SageClient.
10) does not require or use
11) does not require DirectX9
12) open beta program -- beta installs over any registered copy.
The most commonly used card is the Hauppauge PVR-250. SageTV has out-of-the-box support for Hauppauge and another remote, and support for third-party IR receivers.
While I write this, I'm watching mpeg2 video streamed to a window to this 650MHz notebook. SageClient is the remote client version, which receives and displays the streamed mpeg2 shows and also lets you control the recording schedule remotely.