PurePVR

One of the commonly advertised features of PVRs / DVRs is the fact that you can use time shifting technology. Time shifting enables you to pause and rewind live TV as well as record a show to watch it when you want (therefore shifting the original air time). In a similar fashion, place shifting allows you to decide where you will watch the show.

Ok, what use is this?

A common example of place shifting is the ability to watch the recorded program somewhere other than the through the PVR / DVR unit. This usually means a laptop or computer that is hooked up to the same network. This is useful if you can’t use the TV (e.g. someone else is watching something) or if you want to go sit outside in the backyard.

Not all commercial PVR / DVR solutions offer this, but there are a few that do. For example, SageTV just announced that they will be adding place shifting features to their future releases. Windows XP Media Center Edition has extenders which can be used to allow viewing and controlling through your Xbox (click here to read a recent post on The Green Button site about using an Xbox 360 as an extender). MythTV (which is a free solution) allows you to create front ends that stream the video from the main unit so that you can watch it on other PCs or an Xbox.

On top of PVR / DVR solutions that offer this functionality, there is also one mainstream device that is dedicated to this technology: Slingbox. Slingbox sits between your TV and and your input signal (wether it be regular cable or a digital cable or satellite box) while also being connected to the internet. Once connected to the internet you can actually use the Slingbox to view your programming from anywhere in the world that has a decent internet connection. This is truly ideal for people who travel alot. Slingbox is currently designed to be used with NTSC based signals, which includes the US and Canada.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, SageTV, MCE, Xbox, MythTV, Slingbox, Place+Shifting

There is an interesting thought piece over at TVPredictions.com which talks about a common belief that PVR / DVR owners all skip commercials. The author goes on to give his views about why this is more myth than fact, and he points to a study to back it up.

The main argument is that most people prefer to watch their show in real time if possible. I know that I personally can’t always wait to see the next episode of a show (24 comes to mind), so I will watch it when it is on. Will I watch it through my PVR? Yes. Why? Because you never know when the phone will ring, or when someone will be at the door, or when the kitchen will catch fire, etc. The majority of the time I don’t even use the pause features.

The other main argument in the TVPredicitions.com article is that the TV advertising industry is trying to create an illusion that their ads are not being seen. The reason: in hopes that TV networks will lower their advertising rates.

Other interesting results from the study show that PVR / DVR users tend to watch 2 more hours of TV a week than non PVR / DVR users. There was also an increase from 11% to 17% of adults who own a PVR / DVR.

All in all, the study is quite interesting to read. If nothing else, it shows fits in with all other evidence that suggests that PVR / DVR technology is experiencing a strong growth.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR

You folks in the UK seem to be getting a lot of good stuff as far PVR / DVR solutions go.

Evesham have released the e-box3 which if geared towards the HTPC market. This thing is more than a simple PVR / DVR. It runs Windows Media Center Edition on an AMD 64 bit CPU. It also comes with either a single tuner, or a dual tuner which allows you to record one show and watch another, or record 2 shows at the same time and watch previously recorded content. The e-box3 also sports a 400GB hard drive which can hold up to 150 hours of video (that’s about 6 days worth of TV).

Since this unit is a more of HTPC device it also plays your DVD’s as well as MP3s and it has USB and Firewire connections so that you can add new media to the device (photos, video, etc).

If you opt to go with the digital TV tuner, you will also get access to over 30 Freeview channels.

The price tag of this puppy is £699, which isn’t too bad when you consider that it is a DVD player, a CD player, a PVR and a PC.

To read more about the e-box3 check out the articles at Media Center PC World (which reads more like a press release) and Digital Lifestyle. The Evesham product page can be found here.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HTPC, Evesham, MCE, Windows

One of the downsides about building your own PVR / DVR solution is the fact that you have to maintain the integrity of the system. This could range from things like replacing hard drives or memory, or more commonly, software patches, which brings up the point of this post.

Yesterday Microsoft released a new update for Windows XP MCE. Generally these aren’t too big of an issue to install – it’s not like a major revision to the Operating System. It can still be a pain though for those of us who do not want to patch our entertainment devices.

This particular update appears to contain small bug fixes as opposed to new features. Update Rollup 2 is required before you can install this newest rollup however.

A further measure that you can take to make sure that you are up to date is to check the version number of your MCE. Ed Bott recently made a post that describes how you go about doing this.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, MCE, PVR, DVR

Just days after Yahoo! purchased Meedio comes a new product: Yahoo! Go. The program offers a nice, slick interface quite similar to that of Microsoft’s XP MCE. It also offers integration with other Yahoo! services, such as Flickr, to provide a whole media center feeling.

When Meedio was initially bought out by Yahoo! there was a lot of speculation that this product may in fact be free. Well guess what – it is. You can grab it here. Dave Zatz posted a few screen shots as well that you can see here.

This whole merger and product release is a bit interesting for Yahoo!. Not too long ago they made a deal with TiVo which allows you to schedule recordings through the Yahoo! web site. Now that Yahoo! has a competing PVR / DVR solution, what will happen to its TiVo partnership?

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Meedio, PVR, DVR, MCE, TiVo

Digital Home Canada has posted one of the most in depth PVR guides that I have seen for Canadian customers. The roundup is 4 pages and it is based on feedback from current HD PVR users. They look at solutions available from the cable companies (Videotron, Rogers, Cogeco, etc) as well as two satellite options (StarChoice & ExpressVU).

The most common complaint from the respondents seemed to be buggy firmware. Most of the respondents were willing to overlook that flaw though and many claim that they will never go back to the old VCR.

If you are thinking about buying a PVR / DVR solution, then you may want to see what the story has to say.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, Canada

As I posted previously, I use a Hauppauge PVR 250 as the tuner card in my home built PVR / DVR solution. Initially when I used GB-PVR I was able to get the remote that came with the card working, but after I switched over to Windows Media Center Edition I lost the functionality. For the longest of times I gave up on it and I just used the wireless keyboard and mouse that I had. A bit clunky, but it worked none the less.

Well a few days ago I was inspired and I finally decided to sit down and configure my remote to work with MCE – I sure didn’t want to spend the money on a new remote when I had one that should work. After some Googling and a lot of clicking I found this post over in the Hauppauge support forums. The second post in the thread has 2 attachments (there are 2 different remotes) along with instructions on how to use the files included to get MCE working with the remote.

So far I haven’t had any issues with it. It’s a lot nicer to use the remote as opposed to the keyboard. I have by no means put it through a barrage of tests, but the basic functionality works great.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, Hauppauge, Windows MCE, MCE

After doing a few posts and talking about all of the different options availble for PVRs, it occured to me that I did not mention once what I use personally.

First, lets start this off with a bit of history. My first foray into the whole PVR / DVR world was with MythTV. I remember the days clearly. I had just purchased my Hauppage 250 tuner card and I was getting giddy. I brought it home and popped it into my system and started installing a Linux distro (I can’t remember which, but most likely Fedora). After a lot of tweking and package installs, I finally got MythTV up and running in a somewhat acceptable manner. Channels came in, they keyboard worked, but my wifi card didn’t have proper support under Linux. I needed the network connectivity to get the new program guides so I hooked up a cat5 network cable. It was quite the eyesore though - going clear across the room.

After fooling around with that for a bit I gave up on it. I didn’t want to spend all of my time trying to get a network card to work, so I decided to try out Windows Media Center Edition 2005. I did this more on a whim than anything else. I sat there and installed the software and let it boot up. Once it did boot up I found that there wasn’t much of a difference between it and Windows XP (I was dead wrong though). Since I knew nothing about the product I had no idea that I actually had to open up the Media Center program to get things going. I messed around with it for a bit (probably under an hour) and I wiped the machine clean and reinstalled Windows XP.

Up until this point, this had all taken place within about a week of me getting the tuner card. With XP now on the machine I found GB-PVR. I soon fell in love with it. GB-PVR has a decent support forum and an active community. I managed to get my Hauppage remote working with it (something I still need to do with my current system) and I had a lot of plugins for things ranging from weather, to movie theatre listings and most importantly commercial skipping features.

I used GB-PVR for months and it worked great. I did have one or two minor hiccups which I did get fixed, but finally it became extremely unstable. My program guide wasn’t updating, my recrodings either ended prematurely or did not record and the system became very sluggish. I tried very hard to get things sorted out, but after a week of not having a functioning PVR I decided it was time to move on. Once again I formatted.

Along with this newest format came a piece of past: Knoppmyth. Knoppmyth a Knoppix based CD which was designed specifically for MythTV. It installs all of the software you need and contains a good amount of drivers. I decided to give MythTV another whirl since I was impressed with it the first time. I sat there one morning installing everything and I got it up and running. Initially I had it running off of a network cable again (mainly so I could download drivers and check for updates) but I did finally manage to get my wifi card working with it. The only pain was that I had to run scripts everytime the machine started up. I finally scripted everything into a file and saved it on disk. I then proceeded to reformat the system since I now knew exactly what features I wanted/needed. I wanted to run a clean system. In the process though the floppy disk was damaged and I lost my script to get my wireless card working. At that point I did not have the patience to put it back together. I had crafted it from about a dozen different web pages and the only copy I had was lost.

Being fed up with everything that I lost I tried GB-PVR once again. Unorftunately between the times that I initially stopped using GB-PVR and came back to it, there were no new versions released. The same problems were still there and so was the frustration.

Discouraged, but not lost, I collected myself and gave Windows Media Center 2005 another whirl. I figure I would try it one more time (for a break if nothing else) before trying MythTV again. This time I installed everything and I found the Media Center program right off the bat. I soon realized what I had missed the previous time. The setup was quite easy and all was working well. The hardest bit I had was trying to figure out how to attach it to my home theater system. Since I already had a DVD player, an Xbox, a cable box and a TV hooked up to it, I decided to get a simple audio out cable and use the Tape input. This worked quite well and I eventually got a soundcard that supports digital out (although that is another sotry).

So as it stands now, I have an AMD Athlon 2400+ CPU, 410GB of hard drive space, 1GB of RAM and a Windows MCE based PVR. I hope to get my Hauppage remote working with it soon (I know it can be done, I just need to sit down and do it). I also have plans to put my MCE box onto the domain I run at home, but that’s a story for another site.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HTPC, MythTV, MCE

Hauppauge, one of the top producers for PC TV tuner cards and accessories, has released a new USB dongle in the UK dubbed the WinTV Nova-t Stick. The device appears to be about the size as most USB thumb drives and it just plugs into an available USB slot (no word on whether USB 2.0 is required or not).

The dongle was designed to be used with Freeview, which is a UK based service which is described on their own website as:

FREEVIEW is a free digital TV service offering over 30 TV channels and 20 radio stations for just a one-off payment and no contract. FREEVIEW is received through your normal rooftop aerial.

The 2 other real nice features about the Nova-t Stick are the fact that a) it is a USB device so it can be transported from one computer to another with ease (which makes for extremely easy PVR / DVR capabilities) and b) the dongle is actually HDTV compliant which means great visuals.

According to the article over at Computer Active, the device will retail for £49.99

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HTPC, Freeview, Hauppauge

Windows Media Center Edition has a nice feature that allows users to install custom extensions to the basic program, called plugins. Plugins can range from something like local weather forecasts to something more advanced like pulling movie information down from IMDB.

OK, the idea sounds good but where can I get a taste of the plugins available? Well, first off there is MoreMCE.com. This site has quite an extensive list available for a variety of languages. It is one of the larger and better organized lists that I have scene.

Another place to check is MCESoft.nl. They don’t host quite as many as MoreMCE.com, but they do have some of their own that I haven’t seen elsewhere (although I could be wrong on that – please correct me if you know otherwise).

One other great site is the forums over at The Green Button. The Green Button is a community driven site that has a large active audience. In their forums they have a sticky post that lists quite a few plugins as well as links on where to download them and get more information.

Plugins are a great way for developers to extend the whole Media Center Edition experience without requiring an extensive knowledge of the system. By finding the right plugins that suit you, you can add a lot of personal value to your MCE box.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HTPC, MCE, Windows Media Center