PurePVR

Although this one is geared more towards the Windows Media Center Edition crowd, it is still an interesting product for anyone who is into home theaters systems and HTPCs. Chris wrote up a review of the Simplifi Digital AV Expander which is a PCI card that allows you to connect more devices to your MCE box (like game systems and HDTV devices).

I won’t spoil the review, but there is no doubt that a product like this is definitely something that a lot of people should look at. I personally have to specially configure my system to share inputs because I don’t have enough available, but for $100 USD I could probably solve a lot of my issues.

Chris’ full review can be read here.

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

Amex Digital has released specs on its MPC-505 HTPC device, which it claims is the first HTPC to support the next generation Blu-ray DVD format. Some highlights of the unit include the 3Ghz processor, 2 gigs of RAM and 1 TB of storage (that’s a lot of recorded TV!).

The unit also runs Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 as its operating system which means that users will be able to add customizations the look and feel of it by using plugins.

As of right now a price and launch date still have to be disclosed, but even without that, this HTPC sure looks like a great device for the PVR / DVR enthusiast.

Found via Digital Lifestyle.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HTPC, MCE, blu-ray

Do advertising companies really suffer that much from skipped ads due to PVR / DVR use? It all depends who you listen to. According to Neilson Media Research, about 1 million people used a TiVo or DVR to watch the April 18th episode of American Idol at least an hour after the original air time. Of that, a reported 800 000 skipped the ads (%80).

At first that number might seem staggering, but consider how many viewers watched that episode: 28.5 million. Out of that 28.5 million less than 5% used a PVR / DVR to watch that. The article linked above goes on to say that some advertisers are starting to talk about only paying for ‘live’ viewing. Will that really work?

I personally think these numbers aren’t what they are cracked up to be (whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I don’t know). For one, how can they track all of the do it yourselfer’s out there who have built their own PVR / DVR / HTPC? If it is a cable company DVR or a TiVo, then this stuff can be tracked, which probably accounts for these numbers. Secondly, how is this different than people who record shows on a VCR? Sure technology wise VCRs are quite old, but I am willing to bet there are a still a lot more VCRs out there than PVRs / DVRs / HTPCs.

Personally I believe that advertisers will have to start following other’s leads and get creative with advertising.

Found via Zatz Not Funny…

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HTPC, TiVo, VCR

For those of us who build our own PVR / DVR / HTPC solutions, we know that a TV tuner card can either make or break the whole system. Techgage has gone ahead a done a review of the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350 and overall they seem quite pleased with it.

The review looks at all sorts of different aspects of the card including what accessories come with it, the bundled software and the price. It’s nice to see a review with a bit of meat to it – it weighs in at 5 pages and has pictures to illustrate their points.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I use a Hauppauge PVR-250 for my PVR. Although I could have bought other cards for a cheaper price, I never regretted my decision. The card (and my system once I put Windows MCE on it) has been pretty much rock solid and I have never noticed any issues. Hauppauge is generally regarded as one of the premier tuner card producers, and with products like the PVR-350 it is clear why.

Found via nForcersHQ.

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

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

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

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

Part of the problem with making your own PVR / DVR is finding the right components that will fit into the right case. For example, right now my PVR is a beige tower that sits next to my wall unit. Although it isn’t ugly, it’s also not the most exquisite looking device. What can be done about this? Well I could buy a case designed to be used for a PVR / DVR / Home Theatre PC (HTPC), or I could buy a system that has a small foot print. One such system is the Mac Mini.

Chris Hamady posted a HowTo article earlier this month that describes the steps that he went through to turn his Mac Mini into a media center. The guide includes pictures and instructions that are easy to follow. The end of the article has been updated to include his experience using Apple’s Boot Camp to run Windows XP Media Center Edition on the Mac Mini.

I have considered using a Mac Mini for a PVR in the past, and now that it can boot Windows it is even more appealing. The main thing that needs to be added out of the box is a TV Tuner, but you can pick up a USB tuner relatively cheap.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HTPC, MCE, Mac, Apple

Media Center PC World has a write up about the new OMS-LX100 Digital Entertainment System. The system itself sports a new Intel Duo processor which is still a relatively new area for media center PCs.

With a store bought media center comes some benefits. For example, this unit runs quietly so you won’t be sitting there listening to fans whirring and the unit is also capable of playing DVDs, CDs as well as MP3s. The LX100 also ships with a wireless mini keyboard and mouse to avoid wire tangles and distance restrictions.

This is a perfect example of the difference between a do it yourself solution and a store bought solution. Sure this unit runs quiet, has a fair amount of storage, is in a nice case and is probably quite stable, but the price tag on it is $1395. For some people it’s a great investment, while for others $1400 is far more than they could justify spending on a PVR/DVR.

With units like these, it becomes very clear why there are a lot of choices that you have to make when you get into the home media center market.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HTPC