Turning the PC into a Digital Video Recorder 202
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..."
Sample Video Capture Code (Score:2, Informative)
a linux based PVR you might want to check out (Score:5, Informative)
Re:any decent linux video recorder? (Score:2, Informative)
I use the toolset to cap several shows a week with my G400-TV, edit them, clean them up, and encode them to SVCD. The results are great.
-ZK-
ATI All in Wonder does a decent enough job (Score:3, Informative)
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).
NYT Registration (Score:4, Informative)
Pass: dummy
Works for me as a member login.
Snapstream (Score:3, Informative)
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.
TiVo still rocks, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Hauppauge has a new card [hauppauge.com] that I've been looking into, and the Navis-Pro [pentamedia.com] 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
Re:what would you say are the key features? (Score:3, Informative)
tunner support for cable, broadcast and satellite signals in one box
I've got DirecTV at home, plus local cable for the local stations. DirecTV signals start at channel 100, the cable tops out in the mid-60s. No overlap at all. But, if I want TIVO to be able to record them both, I've got to get a non-DirecTV model, and use a separate tuner for the satellite (which means, of course, that I can't watch one satellite program and record another). And the situation doesn't change if I drop the cable and put an antenna on the roof. The DirecTV TIVO receiver (or the regular DirecTV receiver, for that matter) is not capable of tuning to non-satelitte channels.
I can't imagine that the reason for this is technological. Can anyone explain this to me?
Re:any decent linux video recorder? (Score:2, Informative)
"OpenSource Video streaming solution for every OS !"
ok, so it doesn't do the redording but it can sure serve video all over your LAN. The price is nice, too.
Here's a great Linux PVR solution (Score:4, Informative)
Check out MythTV [mythtv.com], 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 [mythtv.org] is rather pretty [mythtv.org] as well [mythtv.org].
Re:ATI? (Score:3, Informative)
I gots me one of them there ATI 8500 All-In-Wonder DV cards and I have to say I love it.
Two complaints tho';
1. The TV window has to be the active window for the remote control to work
2. I've had instances with the scheduled recording feature where I've set up the event, closed the scheduler interface (The scheduler still runs in the background), and when the time comes to record the program an error pops up saying that another device is using the tuner.
Somewhat frustrating, but over all the device is a lot of fun.
IMHO, as per
J:)
Re:Linux PVR (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Linux PVR (Score:5, Informative)
Open Source Tivo Web Project (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Radio frequency remote? (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sure they use some low level packeting, and I tend to be channel surfing when I'm using my Remote control so I'm not normally using my mouse. I've never noticed any issues.
J:)
CMU research...informatix or something? (Score:3, Informative)
Oh here we go, I found a link [cmu.edu] 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."
Re:what would you say are the key features? (Score:4, Informative)
The direcTivo just extracts the mpeg stream directly from the sattelite signal, it has no mpeg encoder in the box. Thus its cheap enough to put in 2 recorders because they just dump the stream to disk.
The standalone tivo on the otherhand has a chip for doing mpeg encoding in realtime. It can only process 1 stream at a time. I guess its a price/value call for the tivo company not to include 2 of these in the box.
The one thing I like most about the tivo vs a PC based solution is that the tivo is a sexy little box that does its 1 job very very well. I don't want to have 2 pc's to do that same job. The only big advantage to me for the PC based solution is the fact that it would be far easier to archive the video that I capture.
Re:Here's a great Linux PVR solution (Score:2, Informative)
It will come there in time both PVR, DVD-R, etc (Score:1, Informative)
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
It's already easy enough under linux (Score:5, Informative)
Then, all you need is a good audio sync maintaining capture program like NewVideoRecorder [sourceforge.net] and a good MP4 codec [xvid.org], 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. [slashdot.org] 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.
Re:Why was this published at Slashdot? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cost (Score:2, Informative)
YES, it IS a one-time investment. A few of the other replies to this parent said that a program listing isn't available with a PC PVR, while at least with TiVo you get it with a subscription. Check the ATI AIW 8500DV interface--it has FREE program listings that are downloaded from the internet. This, in my opinion, is vastly superior to having to pay for listings on a set-top box. However, the TiVo and other set-top PVRs certainly have their advantages, that may exceed PC solutions.
Re:So let me see if understand... (Score:3, Informative)
It's not the processor, it's the codec. I built a PVR out of a 400 mhz Pentium 2 that captured at 640 by 480 @ 30 fps. Magic, eh? No. The MotionJPEG codec by PicVideo handles it just fine. As a matter of fact, it only used about 60% of my system resources.
The down side is that it is quite a video hog. I think it was 2 gigs an hour, but it might have been more than that. However, it did capture elegantly, and it played back smoothly.
I actually started speccing out a new PVR based system using this codec. I was going to have a 10 gig buffer (I think it was good for roughly 4 hours at good quality...), then on the shows I wanted to keep it'd run an extra background process to recompress that video into something like DivX or Windows Media or something.
I even wanted to go to the extra step to make it run at 60 fps. This *is* possible. I've managed to do it. However I ran into one major problem: I had to tell it whether it should start on the even fields or the odd fields. Choose the wrong one and the video looks like it has parkinson'.
I couldn't automate a way to automatically detect the field and process from that. DAMN!! Hopefully that problem will get resolved one day. When it does, my P2 400 will be a rather envious capture box. 60fps video on a PC looks sooOOOoo much better than 30.
Re:The importance of listings, and hooks into p2p (Score:2, Informative)
XMLTV (http://freshmeat.net/projects/xmltv/) is a great way to get listings into a personal database. I think the only stipulation is that you cant redistribute them publicly I think. I use it in my *cough* blatant plug *cough* WebVCR+ project (http://webvcrplus.sourceforge.net/) and it works really well, IMO.
Re:Cost--electricity (Score:1, Informative)