Current Crop Of HDTV Recorders Compared 177
rbrander links to this "nice review of all the HDTV Recorders from the Washington Post: DirecTV's based on the TiVo wins for best interface, but Dish Network's gets a few nods. There's also a nice swipe ('...spectacularly stupid decision') at JVC's for allowing only (copy-protected) Firewire input to the one HDTV tape recorder on the market."
You can record HDTV content on a current Tivo (Score:4, Informative)
Now you do lose the enhanced resolution BUT it does record in widescreen format which is nice for movies over cable.
Only copy protected? (Score:2, Informative)
I can record lots of open signals over the Firewire. The lower end one can be found for around $300, but the newer and more expensive ones are made a lot better.
Re:What about PC-based HDTV recorders? (Score:5, Informative)
Their disadvantage is that HDTV can be quite the high-bandwidth application, and that means the limitations of the PCI bus, and even the AGP connection can sometimes cause quality loss. PCI Express seems to be the solution to that in the pipeline, and that's most likely what the mainstream vendors are waiting for. An HD card on the market today has to be labeled as an "early adopter" model.
On the other hand, maybe this is a technology that you want to be an early adopter of to avoid cards that end up getting crippled by "broadcast flag" laws.
Re:What about PC-based HDTV recorders? (Score:2, Informative)
The problem with trying to build an HTPC with HDTV powers, as I see it, is getting component output to the TV, or finding a TV with RGBS input (VGA plugs like your monitor). Scan converters from VGAHDTV are expensive and the picutre looks like ass.
Re:What about the SA8000HD (Score:2, Informative)
But, I have to say, it's nice to be able to record HD shows and the technology is only going to get better.
Oh, and 5 bucks a month for the box isn't too bad either...... considering DirectTivo is around 1000.
Re:What about PC-based HDTV recorders? (Score:3, Informative)
They're in separate systems and have access via NFS and SMB to a RAID array to save/playback all programming.
Re:DirecTV really needs to get with it. (Score:5, Informative)
And at that point the DirecTV code froze, while development for the standalone TiVos continued. Apparently, DirecTV now must pay for any new features they want added to the DirecTV DVRs, meanwhile TiVo continued to push its latest stuff out for free to their direct subscribers. All of the things that a standard Series 2 TiVo can do that a Series 2 DirecTV DVR cannot were added after that point in time.
Re:some more gmail invites for you all (Score:2, Informative)
Soon to be illegal ... (Score:5, Informative)
DirecTV HD Tivo HR10-250 (Score:3, Informative)
That said if you do not plan to use the HDMI port by all means get one immediately DirecTV has several HD promotions going on right now and has plans to add a lot of HD programming in 2005 and 2006.
I have the HD Tivo (Score:5, Informative)
The price: 999.00 (ouch, don't tell my wife)
I have had DirecTV HDTV for about 6 months and really hated not being able to record the shows I like to watch. I found myself using my hacked/upgraded tivo (series 1 non-hd) to watch shows that also are aired in HD simply because I like skipping commercials.
The quality of recorded shows are simply amazing. Especially Disovery HD and movies on HBO-HD. Very nice sound as it keeps the DD 5.1 soundtrack.
Was it worth the 1000.00 I paid for it? Well, I priced out building a similar HTPC (Home theater PC) with 2 HD tuners and 2 OTA tuners and it was more expensive to roll my own. Also, mythTV does not worth well with direct (from what I have read). So I do believe it was worth the 1000.00 considering it does come with a 250gb hard drive (150.00).
Re:What about the SA8000HD (Score:4, Informative)
You can't search for shows very easily, if at all...
The series subscription interface is horribly featureless...
It doesn't give a darn about what you like, and certainly won't offer any suggestions of what you might like.
Configuration menus are strewn about several different sections, accessable from lots of specalized buttons. TiVo's interface and menus are like a massage by comparison.
If only the Tivo would record HD from cable.
I do like having the cable box, HD convertor, and DVR in one single box, though.
But for the time being, I'm going to let TiVo record to its heart's content.
IMO, nothing will ever surpass TiVo in perfection of interface...
TiVo 4 evar!!!
Not a stupid decision - an economic decision (Score:5, Informative)
The nice thing about firewire transporting this is that the video arrives preencoded in a nice transport stream in full quality. The not-nice thing about it is that the FCC is also allowing the firewire to be C5 encrypted. I really really hope someone is working on breaking this one.
HDTV - PVR / DVR under $200 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about PC-based HDTV recorders? (Score:3, Informative)
Grid-view program schedule pauses nothing new (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about PC-based HDTV recorders? (Score:5, Informative)
For playback, the MyHD card includes an MPEG decoder and component, VGA, and DVI output (as an option), so your PC can plug right into your HDTV. It can playback to a PC monitor, too. The driver and application are pretty well polished and easy to use. It comes with an I/R remote and a remote sensor that plugs into a serial port so you can keep your PC and keyboard hidden away and control card functions from the remote. It will also playback DVDs as well as DVD content ripped to hard disk.
The The pcHDTV card relies on software applications (Xine) to decode and playback. The driver is enormously stable in my experience. Playing back content relies on correct configuration of Xine, the mpeg decoder, the program stream demultiplexor, and so forth. Not too hard for more experienced users.
In my setup there's a Linux box that's responsible for recording only and a Windows box for playback only.
Re:DirecTV really needs to get with it. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Washington Post likes TiVo? (Score:2, Informative)
Making your own HD-PVR using firewire (Score:4, Informative)
Most the channels here in Tampa are analog and there is no MPEG encoder chip on the Scientific Atlanta 3250HD box, so that means nothing comes out of the firewire port for those channels. The rest of the channels are encrypted and flagged as CCI "once", meaning that only hardware that supports 5C can read it and that hardware must respect the "copy only once" intent of the flag. As far as I know, there is no way to decrypt 5C content in software, which leaves the user with unusable transport streams.
I'd still love to work on a pure digital PVR (one that doesn't make several analog->digital->analog->etc convertsions once the signal gets to the box), but firewire definately doesn't further that cause.
neat.. but whats the point :/ (Score:5, Informative)
I have a Hughes HDVR2 Series2 DirecTivo. It was cool and all, but what I really wanted was a way to get content off of it and watch it on a computer. No home media option for DirecTivo users though. Nice.
The real reason we axed DirecTV (and have not replaced it, nor do we plan to) is that the content just isn't there compared with the price you pay for it.
My big interests are F1 racing and World Rally. Speedchannel's coverage of same amounts to under 10 hours a month, tops. Sure, there is other stuff i _can_ watch (cartoon network, for instance) but i could take or leave it. One issue i find with a tivo is that i have all this stuff in there that i feel obligated to watch because its there and i enjoy watching it...
My wife on the other hand is a minnesota twins fanatic. Yet there wer eless than 5 games available to us, even though we live within 3 hrs of minneapolis and have the local tv pack. The MLB extra innings deal is like $70 or $80 or something silly, and you cant ever get a straight answer on what will or wont be shown because of the ridiculous blackout and regional rights issues related to TV.
So I was basically paying for a few races a month and then some time sucking.
My wife was getting no twins games, but a whole boatload of junk off of TLC that managed to suck her day away. It would start innocently enough - "oh, i'll just watch an episode of blah while i do this chore" and then shes managed to waste the whole afternoon watching crap that isn't even all that interesting.
So $45/mo for a bit of racing and a whole bunch of time wasting didn't seem like a good deal to us anymore.
HD seems like an even worse deal. Where's the HD content ? The devices for doing HD PVR are "cool" (although i think any directivo solution will still have the lack of home-media i cited above) but you're talking like $60+
IMO, alot of whats coming right now is technology for technologies sake. I admit that i am captivated by the appeal of a distributed mythTV setup with FEs all over the house, but really, i shouldn't be watching enough tv to justify that.
Re:What about PC-based HDTV recorders? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about PC-based HDTV recorders? (Score:4, Informative)
Uncompressed HDTV could cause those problems sure, but compressed streams (what you would be recording) are about 19.2Mb/s, a far cry from the theoretical cap of PCI. The AGP slot should be able to handle the uncompressed stream fine for display, after all it is only 1280x720 @ 60hz or 1920x1080 @ 30hz (or rather 1920x540@60hz) and most graphics card can exceed that by quite a bit (right now I'm at 1600x1200 @ 85hz on an old laptop).
Myth TV (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about PC-based HDTV recorders? (Score:4, Informative)
Far more of a concern is how fast you can write those bits to disk, though even there I've never had a problem.
Re:Not a stupid decision - an economic decision (Score:3, Informative)
Even the lamest quality HD MPEG-2 encoders on the HDV prosumer camcorders are at least several hundred dollars.
Tivo Interview questions (Score:3, Informative)
I would love to collect good questions for this Tivo Interview [lcd-tv-reviews.com]. Please feel free to visit the site and post your questions and I will do my best to get answers.
Re:Over The Air vs Cable/Satellite (Score:2, Informative)
The QPSK is pretty standardized, whereas the 8PSK is still being tweaked by various parties for maximum bandwidth. Of course, most HDTV broadcasts use 8PSK.
Once you get above the encoding layer, there's the encyption. The cable industry appears to have settled on cablecard as a means for standardizing the encryption setup (I think this may have been forced on them by the FCC).
However, unlike in Europe, where satellite receivers have been standardized, US satellite systems are very proprietary, and even where they use international standards (Dish uses DVB and Nagra encryption), they will not let you subscribe using anything but their own proprietary hardware.
they left out some others (Score:2, Informative)
RCA-DVR10: this is a firewire only solution. two plugs: power and firewire. I hear it is unreliable, plus you can't buy them in a local shop. You should be able to daisy chain to DVHS.
Firewire ain't that bad. To record HD, I go onto my integrated set, then tell the timer to record a show, it turns on the vcr, sends the show to the DVHS deck (mine was $90 at Best Buy) and turns it off. Again I have 2 cables: firewire and power. Yea, it's tape, but I'll spend $90 plus a few tapes (which can be found for much cheaper online than their "retail" prices) before I spend $600+ on a HD unit.
I'm not that much on the bleeding edge. I'll wait for prices to come down and more features to be crammed in. PLUS, other units are coming that support cablecard. I can afford to be patient, as long as I can record the occasional HD show that I absolutely cannot miss.
DVHS seems to be a stopgap technology
Last thing: the article implied that the JVC deck should have been able to record over component video. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but recording an analog HD signal over component wires would require the signal to be (re)encoded in realtime to be recorded. This is $$$ for the chip, compared to just recording a straight digital signal.
Re:DirecTV really needs to get with it. (Score:1, Informative)