Software PVRs Becoming Tivo Killers

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech's Jason Cross examines PVR software that runs on Windows -- applications from SnapStream, Cyberlink, and SageTV. With TiVo's mounting price hikes, service contracts, and 'features' like self-deleting shows, the DIY option is getting more appealing all the time." From the article: "All the major TV features you're used to with TiVo or Windows Media Center Edition are there--quick 30 second skip, padding show recordings (start early and stop late), a nice integrated guide with easy-to-read program info. The interface design isn't quite as good as either of those two other options, but it's one of the best we've seen in a Windows-based PVR application outside of MCE. If we had to pick an annoyance, it's that you can't seem to bring up the program guide or navigate the menu without stopping the live TV or recording that you're watching. TiVo plays the current TV program in the background, and MCE plays it in a small window in the lower left. We didn't miss it until it was gone."

Great timing on the topic

[fak3r]

I'm shopping for DirecTV now, and was amazed that their 'free' PVRs come with a monthly fee! While the software PVRs get better and easier to install, I'm going to go that route to be free of fees and restrictions. So, the million dollar question, which is the best bet right now:

http://freevo.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
or
http://www.mythtv.org/ [mythtv.org]

or is there another option I'm missing?

What about MediaPortal?

[Cymage]

I see they wanted Windows only, why didn't they include http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]MediaPortal? It is open source, has the features they want, and runs on XP. Now, if someone (anyone) could include QAM support, I would be all set.

Re:Windows based? Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm running a Radeon 9600, and a hauppage somethingorother (hardly "specialized" hardware) without any hiccups. Running it all 64bit on AMD64 too, still everything has "just worked" so far. *shrugs*

-GenTimJS

Beyond PVR

[neologee]

Joe ya, but what about the guy that wants to network a multimedia system over his ousehold! Frankly i think it's easier by starting it out with a central PVR computer.

You can then have several drones take care of sound all over. Could be real cool. But i'm not sure what the average joe can do to have that?

Re:Price Point

[mikemuch]

Hey, we're in an energy crisis here! How bout turning the thing off when you're not using it?

Re:Great timing on the topic

[linedpaper242]

I am running mythtv. If you follow a guide it is quite simple to get a basic installation going. I suggest using the FedoraMyth guide, it is the easiest I've seen. (http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/ [wilsonet.com]). Once you've got it running you can tweak the configurations to your hearts content. It's decently stable and there is so much you can do with it.

MCE and PowerCinema

[gregbains]

I have had two MCE2005 computers and loved them both, unfortunately the first one had the motherboard melted, apparently couldn't cope with my 24hour 7days a week uptime, but the current one is doing great (3 months old :d ) Inbetween them I had a Power Cinema software installed on a Windows XP machine, and that was awful. MCE gives me unlimited (hard drive is huge) recording time, free guide (one off payment for machine), and is one of the most easy to use software packages I have seen in a long time, the GUI is also lovely. Microsoft did this right, and it is MCE that is keeping me from switching to Linux, because I love my MCE

Slashdot idiocy

[93 Escort Wagon]

"With TiVo's mounting price hikes..."

What series of price hikes are you referring to? The prices for the Tivos themselves have been consistently dropping, albeit with rebates (and the before rebate prices haven't been going up). The monthly subscription fee has increased just once in the past several years - certainly not at all in the 2+ years I've been a subscriber - and the multi-unit fee has actually DROPPED.

I'm guessing you've never had a Tivo - you just get all your "facts" from Slashdot discussions?

Re:My reason...

[Utopia]

Games, Weather, Phone etc. are also avaiable on MCE.

Re:Windows based? Who cares?

[carlcub]

The reason the MythTV documentation seems intermittent is that MythTV doesn't really care what kind of remote control you use. It uses LIRC [lirc.org] for remote control. The remote controls supported by LIRC change with each release, and those releases aren't synchronized with MythTV releases. The LIRC homepage has a comprehensive list of IR and RF receivers that are known to work.

Re:Easy to use Windows PVR software: GB-PVR

[thebosz]

Jeez, don't click that link. Stupid me, it's: GB-PVR [gbpvr.com]. They've got a nice forum and a dedicated developer. Unfortunately, it's not open source. But neither are any of the commercial offerings.

Re:MCE for me, unfortunately -- TRY GB-PVR

[jvbunte]

Another poster already mentioned Media Portal (an excellent opensource choice for Windows) but there is also GB-PVR over at http://www.gbpvr.com/ [gbpvr.com] which is also free to use however not open source. Its in active development with active forums and lots of plugins available. It supports xmltv as well as zap2it for EPG. I recommend a hardware based encoder (I use Hauppage 350/150) for either.

Both of these fine products are easier to setup than MythTV or Freevo (I tried those too).

Just another alternative to MCE.

Re:MCE for me, unfortunately

[tchuladdiass]

For me, the main attractions for MythTV (or other Linux based pvr) is 1) I can throw the captur card(s) into my existing server (the one I used for general file storage, net gateway, email, etc...), and 2) I can throw together extremely cheap front-end boxes. A front-end consists of a motherboard with integrated net & video, case, and power supply. It network boots so it doesn't need a drive, and it pulls programming off the backend server so it don't need any capture cards. Total cost for a front-end box, ($30 for a cheap case / power supply, $40 for an integrated motherboard, $40 for a CPU, $20 for memory) is about $130. Could probably get it down a bit cheaper by skimping on the cpu speed and case/power supply quality, or by scavaging parts.

Re:Easy to use Windows PVR software: GB-PVR

[thebosz]

Yeah, unfortunately, I have a habit of proofreading after I post. It would be more helpful if I did it before.

This is one topic I'm rather passionate about and I'm always talking to my co-workers about PVRs and how having one has changed my viewing habits. For example, we (the wife and I) just used to watch whatever was on and our experience wasn't the best. But now, we find that we watch what we want to and consequently, watch less TV overall.

Personally, I'm really excited because GB-PVR has a built in MediaMVP [hauppauge.com] server which means that you can have a ~$40USD small, quiet front end for all your TVs and keep the huge, noisy server in the basement or whatnot. Having seperate front-ends and back-ends was a major plus in my book for MythTV, but I was getting concerned about the cost of building small and quiet (wife-acceptance factor is really huge here) front-ends for my TVs. With a MediaMVP (a wireless version is in the works), I won't have to worry about it.

Re:What about MediaPortal?

[Necromancyr]

I'm setting up a PVR currently. MediaPortal is unstable. Highly unstable. It crashes all over the place and doesn't really have a decent recovery mechanism. Looks amazing though.

Re:Windows based? Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hauppauge. Newegg.

Idiot.

Re:Windows based? Who cares?

[L0J46K]

YOURE ABSOLUTELY WRONG!!! "People who have ATi graphics cards and/or people who would rather buy such a graphics/DVR capable card from the local Best Buy or CompUSA instead of ordering a specialized Linux supporting card from a more obscure source." You can buy a Hauppauge WinPVR at Compusa, Circuit City, etc... http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/buy/wtob_us.html [hauppauge.com] These cards are not obscure or specialized. They work well on many platforms and are easy to buy! These are hands down the most compatable / reliable PVR cards out there for Linux and they work well in Windows MCE. I am not going to crap on Windows MCE because it does have some nice features, but let me offer some insight to my ignorant friend. Regarding ATI - They have horrid Linux support. I have seen a handful of people successfully use their ATI TV Cards (Not AIW cards) for Myth. (http://www.mythtv.org/ [mythtv.org] The AIW series support just isnt there. However, the Nvidia driver support has been wonderful thus far. I set out to put together my own PVR. At first it was windows based due to the ease of setup and install. It sucked. It was resource greedy and there are subscription costs. I do not want to pay for a TV guide which should be free already. So began the MythTV install. I have successfully set Myth up on Fedora and KnoppMyth. Both are viable solutions depending on your experience. KnoppMyth (http://mysettopbox.tv/ [mysettopbox.tv]) is extremely easy to install and setup. You have a handful of hardware options. I use an Nvidia Ti5200, and old SB Live, and a new Hauppauge PVR250. Relatively cheap stuff in todays market. This system is incredible! You can configure multiple frontends (Including the nifty Xbox Frontend) on a single backend server, have a special server to cut commercials, or just one box to do it all. You have Mame, SNES9x, Nes support, RSS Feeds, a Web Browser, a web frontend to schedule from another pc..its great. So many people have done it now the documentation is very comprehensive. If you have ever played with a Linux box or built your own PC this project is not beyond your scope. Get off the microsoft bandwagon and dive into a real PVR. You will not regret it.

Re:MCE for me, unfortunately

[beernuts]

Odd, my myth box has uptimes measured in months. It'd be longer than that, but it goes down when the power goes out (no ups) or I add new HW (drives, mostly). Also, to date I've had 1, count 'em, 1 segfault. This is starting with the 0.15 release and continuing up to the 0.18 release. Lest you think it's lightly used, it's a dual-tuner rig with an s-video input and serial connection to the cable box to record channels over 100. It records a minimumn of one show per day (daily news), but I'd say averages about 3 (news, a movie or hour-long tv show and Family Guy or something like it).

If by "ease of use," you mean the install is a pain, I totally agree. There are online guides that mitigate that as well (search for Jarod Wilson). Once it's running though, I've found it no more difficult than any other DVR or cable box I've used, and that includes MCE. Regarding integration, folks are running xboxen as frontends, though I've yet to do that myself as I'm working on using my old hauppauge mediamvp for that purpose.

Give it a second, more thorough look, I think you'll find you like it.

small error in article re: program guide

[_Shorty-dammit]

in Snapstream's BeyondTV, if you hit E or have a remote button assigned to E then you get a semi-transparent program guide without having to stop LiveTV/playback. The author of the article was unaware of this apparently, as he thought you had to stop playback of a recorded program or LiveTV to get to the program guide. BTW, been using BeyondTV for over a year here, and couldn't be more happy with it. Had some trouble at first due to the capture card I was using (software-based) and after getting a pair of hardware encoder (hauppauge pvr-250) cards all was great.

Re:Slashdot idiocy

[devaudio]

Tivo sent out a letter [to the tivo box, under messages](at least to NY Customers) that said they were increasing the price by 8.25% because of Sales Tax laws. Also, it's gone from 10.95 to 11.95 to 12.95 over the 5 years i've had it (the subscription price, not the price for the hardware)

Re:Price Point

[kbdbdbdad]

Based on my non-technical family and friends (and remembering that 99+% of the tv viewing public is non-technical), their machines are so infected with spyware and viruses most of the time that it would make turning their pc that they use for internet browsing into a dvr impossible.

TiVo Too

[north.coaster]

Galleon [sourceforge.net] and other projects provide many of these functions (such as weather) to your off-the-shelf network-connected TiVo

Re:MCE for me, unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm...

Okay, I'm using SageTV right now... just starting messing with it about 3 weeks ago... and it DOES indeed have an easy to use LiveTV that is as good or better than the DirecTV tuner boxes I'm forced to use (cable's not available).

I am very pleased with SageTV... it has support for playing ripped DVDs in a fashion MUCH easier to create than with MythTV (although I am an strong linux supporter). It has all the features of my Tivo box (the DirecTV Tivo). It has support for REMOTE tuners... yeah, so you can have more than one machine do the recording. It has support for network clients... yeah, so you can put a box in front of each of your TVs and still centralize all your equipment if you've got to deal with the DirecTV thing.

The blurb just doesn't look like they did very much "comparison".

I've used Tivo, MythTV, SageTV, BeyondTV, and MCE 2005 and I'll tell you from experience that of those I'm using SageTV for a reason.

They should have also mentioned GB-PVR and MediaPortal since those are free for windows... and of course Freevo too.

Don't get me wrong, Sage isn't perfect, but it's better than the rest (except maybe myth if you have time and patience).

When I started in this I started with a biased opinion toward MythTV. I installed and configured each of the above and spend several weeks doing a real comparison... I installed and configured and then had my wife (who is very familiar with the Tivo box we have) try it out... and even she was impressed with Sage for it's ease of use (yes, I configured the remote for her) and feature-rich environment.

In short, you guys need to do your homework before you go post about how great Tivo and MCE 2005 are. You're misleading the public.

Re:You Can't beat the Cable Companies Offerings...

[RockClimbingFool]

That is the problem. They already have implemented the broadcast flag on their systems. The broadcast flag everyone is up in arms about is for OTA digital transmissions only. There are no regulations against cable and satellite providers from implementing their own version of it.

As long as it stays on their hardware, I don't think they really care. They are against possible avenues of distribution. So they don't let you get the content off the box. Like I said previously, the firewire enabled boxes only dump to devices that respect their implementation of the broadcast flag already. PPV content is flaged do not copy.

Check out the boards at avsforum.com. There are many discussions of the problems associated with firewire capture, the only way to record high def content.

Media portal is MythTV for windows but ... BETTER!

[mtjs]

http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

it is open source and :

General
Flexible XML based skinning engine - Create your own skins, or choose one of the available skins !
Extendable via plugins. Media Portal can easily extended with extra plugins. Plugins can be overlay windows, modules, tag readers, players,...
Time, Date
Dynamic keymapping. You decide which keys you want to use for which actions
Remote Controller support (using an external program like girder)
Switch between graphics & LiveTV as background when browsing the menus
Internal support for several remotes (streamzap, MCE, redeye, winlirc, hauppauge, FireDTV)
Mediaportal comes with opensource MPEG2 audio/video codecs, written by Media Player Classic
Topbar support for basic remote functions
Windowed and fullscreen support
My TV

and so on... ;) (Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 33.9))

Re:Slashdot idiocy

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had TiVo for five years, and the only price hike was from $9.95 to $12.95. But then they reduced the multi unit cost to $6.95 for each addition box on your service, so i'm actually paying less now than before the increase. Perhaps you need to think a little harder and not make up figures?

Re:Price Point

[RomulusNR]

Most people have a computer powerful enough to handle it in their house, just need a tv tuner and software. True, it wouldn't be the best to use it as a pvr and primary desktop, but it could be a file or webserver.

In your world, most people, apparently, live in a cave. A cave with broadband and wifi, but effectively a cave nonetheless.

Most people do not have a spare 3GHz P4 1GB lying around with a 200GB disk.

Tivo = $99 + $13/mo (or less depending on deal) preinstalled, with free upgrades and built-in channel guide, one-touch recording, predictive suggestions, cable box interface, multiple in/outs, etc. Note that system, hard disk, and universal remote control are all included in price.

MythTV = whole new PC, nice big HD, lots of RAM, tuner card, hours installing and optimizing Linux and the server, no support, manual unsupported upgrades (both of kernel and server).

Sorry, until Tivo is $1000/pop or $100/mo it is going to beat out DIY solutions for the majority of people. Most people (even those who have the know-how) simply don't have the time or can justify the expense.

Re:Tivo Myths Corrected

[TheNumberSix]

There is no contract that requires you to keep paying for it, and there is no early termination fee.

You are in error. Please see the TiVo terms of service [tivo.com] and scroll down to item number 8.

I have quoted the relevant portion for you below. (Caps are in the source, not my own addition.)

WITH RESPECT TO ANY NEW TIVO SERVICE SUBSCRIPTION ACTIVATED ON OR AFTER SEPTEMBER 6, 2005, YOU AGREE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE TIVO SERVICE FOR NO LESS THAN 12 MONTHS (THE "SERVICE COMMITMENT"). IF YOU FAIL TO MEET THE SERVICE COMMITMENT BY CANCELLING YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO THE TIVO SERVICE (OR IF TIVO TERMINATES YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO THE TIVO SERVICE DUE TO A BREACH OF THIS AGREEMENT), YOU AGREE THAT TIVO MAY CHARGE YOU A $150 EARLY TERMINATION FEE, AND YOU AGREE TO PAY ANY SUCH EARLY TERMINATION FEE.

Re:HDTV support?

[thule]

For supported cards under linux see http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_cards [linuxtv.org]

I don't think the ATI is supported unless underneath it's accually using an off the shelf chip. I guess that's possible, but I didn't see that card mentioned on the Wiki.

I have an Athlon 3200+ and I can watch live 1080i TV using a simple 'mplayer dvb://stationname' command. Myth seems to put a little overhead on it and the picture breaks up a little. My understanding is if I recompile with PREEMPT this should help clean up things.

It strange that it requires a MPEG *de*coder. Decoding doesn't seem to require that much power as long as I'm using XvMC (Motion compensation support in hardware). ......So it seems that "soft" DVR's with support for HD is still a little behind in the Windows world. My only complaint is that the Linux software doesn't support all the extended programming information that is carried in the TS. Not too big a deal though since the PVR software holds redundant information except for closed caption data.

Re:Noooooo, thats so last year.

[MojoStan]

I HAVE heard that MCE 2006 was supposed to support CableCARDs, but recently MS announced that they weren't releasing a new MCE until Longhorn.

A few nitpicks:

I don't think a new version called "Media Center Edition 2006" was ever planned or announced. The article's introduction [extremetech.com] referred to the "massive Rollup 2 patch," which is a free update to MCE 2005. This update was supposed to include Cable Card support, but this feature was cut (according to Microsoft's Matt Davis). Here's the blog entry where I read about this: "More details on Rollup 2." [edbott.com]

Also, the next "new" version of MCE (Longhorn version) will not be called "Media Center Edition" anymore. It will be called "Vista Home Premium Edition" (details here [arstechnica.com]). This will probably be the first Windows version with Cable Card support. Ugh.

Re:My reason...

[Nugget]

No, what the original poster was referring to is the long-rumored and now imminent switch by DirecTV from using the DirecTiVo DVRs they're currently selling to one which is of their own invention, developed in house. The new DVRs will not be TiVo-based, which is a cause of some anxiety for the millions of happy DirecTiVo DVR users in the world. It's uncertain if the in-house DVR solution will be as good as the TiVo boxes that are currently sold.