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."

MCE for me, unfortunately

[dada21]

I currently run MCE05 after years of Tivo and love it. It never fails, the interface is usable by the lady, and it was a breeze to install.

I tried EVERY other Win & Lin PVR and none were as stable or easy to install/use. The new Rollup2 for MCE adds copy/view restrictions but they're relying on the video driver and encoder to pass the flag. I found a driver that doesn't pass the flag, and I'm happy.

I'd love to switch to Meedio or MythTV but recent trials a few weeks ago vetoed the idea. Stability and ease of use weren't there yet. MCE is a performance hog but it works. No kludges, never crashes and really integrates well in my house with the Xbox Extender.

DirecTV

[Anonymous Coward]

While I don't like the games Tivo is playing of late, one of the biggest appeals of my DirecTivo is that it captures the satellite video stream directly, without any degradation due to re-encoding. When I watch a recording it is EXACTLY the same as when it was "live".

BeyondTV for portability

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The one thing I like about Beyond TV- other than the fact that it runs just fine on obsolete hardware and an obsolete operating system- is that it produces WMV files. I believe MythTV on Linux does so as well- but TIVO fails in this regard. What do WMV files do for me? Give me two hours on the train every day to watch TV, during my commute, on my Windows Mobile IPAQ. That's five half-hour shows (once you skip the commercials) or three hour length shows- and I use the showsqueeze function to put them into a very watchable, 60MB/hr format that fits nicely onto flash cards.

Re:Not for Joe Public

[slipnslidemaster]

To date, I've used the Comcast PVR and TiVo. I have to say, that getting a TiVo was one of my best purchases this year. I come home and have an entire menu of show's that I want to watch. It's truely cool!!

I was using the Comcast PVR and was impressed that it allowed me the ability to record TWO shows at the same time AND watch TV! I am not sure if this is due to the picture in a picture (2 tuners) and haven't had time to look this up yet but if I would LOVE to be able to record two shows using my TiVo.

Either way, using OnDemand, the PVR, and knowing that Comcast is offering VOIP and soon the possibility of ordering DVD's from my PPV selections, Comcast is very quickly leaving my "evil" company list and moving to my "cool" company to watch list.

Regardless, I come to work and am did you TiVo "this" and "that" all the time now.

Oh and Battlestar Galactica rocks (especially when you have 8 hours TiVo'd when you get home)!!!

Re:Windows based? Who cares?

[Golias]

My thoughts exactly.

Why mess around with a Windows-based PVR, when there's Linux and OS X?

I've seen enough Windows-based solutions to be 100% positive that I made the right decision going with a Mac and the EyeTV 500. If I cared about streaming video all over the house, I probably would have looked at getting my fingernails dirty with MythTV on Linux, but I don't so the Mac does a fine job of what I want.

So why even look at whatever "me too" offering the Windows world is currently coming up with? Go for one of the obvious choices and spend your time agonizing over which projector to buy.

Tivo Advertising a Household Name

[SumDog]

What I really find interesting about Tivo is their advertising model. I don't think I've even seen an actual TiVo ad, but rather product placement in every TV show imaginable. I head it mentioned in Law and Order, The Daily Show and there was an entire segment dedicated to it in Family Guy complete with TiVo sound effects.

Although some of these references may have just been for the hell of it, like on talk shows, when the name comes up in sitcoms and dramas, it's pretty safe to assume the plug was paid for.

Living in the southern US, everyone down here likes to refer to generic products by their brand name. Every soda in the word becomes a "Coke" even if its a Pepsi, every portable mp3 player becomes an "iPod" even if it's an "iPlay" and now ever PVR device is being referred to as a "TiVo" when it's really a Comcast PVR (which is probably made by Motorola or some other company).

TiVo might go away, but the name will stick in every household.

Noooooo, thats so last year.

[tgd]

This year its "they both suck because neither supports QAM/CableCard HD".

And, in fact, they both suck because neither supports QAM/CableCard HD.

Until there are input cards that accept a cablecard, software PVRs will always be a fringe hobbiest activity. Joe six pack doesn't want to deal with the hassle, so Tivo or a service-provided DVR makes more sense. And anyone who has bought one of the 16.5 million HD sets in the US doesn't find them terribly useful either. I have three Tivos sitting in my storage unit, and I'm sure I'll never use any of them again because I don't own an SD TV anymore. It may piss me off to be stuck using the near-worthless Motorola box that Comcast provides, but at least I can watch and record HD, and most stuff I watch is, in fact, in HD.

And I'd bet it'll be a long while, if ever, before we see a cablecard-compatible input device.

Dish Network DVR

[trogdor8667]

I, personally, use Dish Network's DVR, and am quite appalled with it. Not only do I have to pay an additional $10 a month to use it (its supposed to be $5, but they give you a hidden fee), but its fairly unreliable. The system powers itself off if its not used in awhile. Thats not a bad feature. The thing is, if it does this, it doesn't record programs once its off. Quite annoying. To top this off, it will sometimes say it has recorded a program, but it didn't. So, when you try and re-record it (if you're this lucky), it will cancel the new recording because it will say its a duplicate. To add insult to injury, the box itself can become quite noisy, as it heats up a good bit, and the fans are loud. The Dish Network service is great, it rarely goes down, and is great, except for some occasional lags between the video and audio, but I'd be glad to trade my DVR in for a computer-based version any day of the week (mostly for DVD burning capability).

My reason...

[KingSkippus]

I can't speak for the parent, but one reason I'm attracted to MythTV is because of external modules, stuff like MythGame, MythWeather, MythPhone, etc.

As for TiVo, they still (for now) have one big advantage for me: I'm a DirecTV subscriber, and TiVo is the only device that will record the digital signal instead of the analog conversion. When DirecTV starts offering their own DVRs, I'll probably start using it instead. I love my TiVo and MythTV, but the most important thing to me is seeing what I watch in its glorious original quality.

What's wrong with Tivo?

[Blitzenn]

It seems like Tivo is becoming hated around here for some reason. Even the review as posted freely admits that nothing, not even Windows Media Center comes (due to large screen picture quality) close to Tivo features and function. When you account for the cost of the other options, you have a real difficult time justifying anything else. A base Tivo unit is now $49, plus a liftime subscription for $299 (total cost of $348). The software and PC and tuner card(s) for the other options will cost at least twice that. There is nothing to install with Tivo short of screwing the cable in and plugging in the network, nothing to check compatability with. It's upgradable for those who like to tinker. The hacks, that give skip functionality and such, can be found from links off the Tivo site itself, and a simpleton can run them from the remote and have worked from day one and still work today. I love to put together solutions myself, but until the software comes on par with Tivo functionality and pricing, I can't justify changing. I would gain nothing and lose quality, functionality and money.

Why pay for MCE?

[tcoop25]

I have used MCE2005, and MythTV, and I got sick of both of them. There were too many problems with DRM with MCE and it wasn't as customizable as I wanted. I still wanted to use my computer to play games, and switching between dual booted OS's got annoying. I finally went with www.xlobby.com. It is a free, completely customizable HTPC fontend. It supports programs like SageTV, zoomplayer, ffdshow, winamp, etc (the most popular HTPC programs). It has built in control via xremote and your pocket pc or tablet. Its easy to install and customize. I would highly recommend this program.

MediaPortal for Windows is FREE

[andyatkinson]

...and under active development. I set it up on my old PIII box to serve music, DVDs, web browser, and there are even some games I can play with my MCE remote. Nice FREE alternative to MCE, Snapstream, etc. The PVR functionality is there for when I have time to play with it, otherwise it makes a great media content server. MediaPortal: A Free PVR for Windows [paininthetech.com]

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

[fupeg]

Totally agree. I had a DirecTV/TiVo setup at my old house. I was holding out until the price of the HD version came down a lot. Then I moved and took a look at Comcast's HD-PVR offering. One look was all it took and it was all over. I called DirecTV to cancel my subscription and they asked me why I was cancelling. I told them that I wanted an HD-PVR without having to pay $1000 for their offering. They offered to chop $300 off the price, but that was still not good enough. I thought I would really miss TiVo's interface, but I haven't. The only thing I wish I could change abot my Comcast HD-PVR is that it doesn't allow for picture-in-picture, even though it has two tuners (and allows for two shows to be recorded at the same time.) I was told that there would probably be a software update that would enable this in the future. The home media option would be nice too, but this was disabled on my DirecTV/TiVo box anyways so I'm not missing anything there.

Re:Slashdot idiocy

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had a Tivo for a year or so and am perfectly happy with it. I bought the Tivo after evaluating DIY PVR systems by actually building a couple of them in standard PC cases. My conclusion? The Tivo unit is cheaper, quieter, and fits in with my other entertainment components better than the DIY alternatives. In fact, my Tivo (bought one of their refurbed units for $100) cost about one-fourth of what just a suitable case for a PC-based unit would have cost. Plus, of course, all of the other components required and my own time. Given the current Tivo subscription price, I estimated that I could pay for approximately seven years of Tivo subscription by not doing it myself.

Re:MCE for me, unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Not ill supported as much as begrudgingly supported. You constantly see frustrated "did you search the archives?" posts. And this after one of the main forums for knoppmyth was wiped out by a hack or some such disaster.

I have often seen Isaac (MythTV author) as well as Cecil (KnoppMyth author) rip into someone because they weren't seeing things exactly their way. They are extremely "un-Linus-like" in their project leadership. It makes it so you don't WANT to ask the ideal people to provide the support that might be needed...

Re:MCE for me, unfortunately

[Waffle Iron]

What does MythTV offer that you don't have with MCE?

For me, one killer feature is MythTV's timestretch. Maybe MCE and/or other PVRs have it, but Googling it only seems to come up in association with MythTV. (This feature speeds up the playback while keeping the sound pitch normal.)

I've found that most shows can be sped up by a factor of 1.4X without me really even noticing it. Things like plodding documentaries are usually acceptably watchable at 1.7X speed. Between skipping commercials and 1.7X speed, I can watch an hour-long show in 25 minutes.

This feature has saved me a lot of time. I've easily made up for the extra time I spent setting up the MythTV system. (I figure that the risk that my head will actually end up exploding like on Max Headroom is negligible.)