PurePVR

In a statement that has set the internet ablaze with comments, ABC’s President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw made the following remark: “I would love it if the (cable operators), during the employment of the new DVRs they’re putting out there, would disable the fast-forward (button)”.

Now this isn’t directed at TiVo in particular (although I would imagine that they are a big one) but it seems like a pretty ludicrous remark to make. It appears as if ABC wants control not only over what you watch (e.g. you have to watch commercials) but also how you watch it. Needless to say the fallout from this remark has been fairly heavy. In the very off chance that this ever does happen, I am sure that the open source alternatives like GB-PVR, MythTV & Media Portal will soar in popularity.

Here are a few more links if you are interested in the community’s thoughts:

• ABC Trying to Kill PVR Ad Skipping - Gizmodo
• ABC Tries to Kill DVR Ad Skipping - Marketing Shift
• ABC wants to kill DVR ad-skipping - Ad Jab
• ABC Tries to Kill DVR Ad Skipping - TV Predictions
• ABC hopes to halt fast forwarding - ArsTechnica
• ABC Wants DVR Fast Forwarding Killed - Broadband Reports
• ABC Exec. Lobbies to Disable DVR Fast-Forward During Commericals - News Busters

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, MythTV, GB-PVR, Media+Portal, ABC

Once again, I am still catching up on some news from over the past week or so. During this time I noticed that MythTV seems to have had its share of the limelight. So without further ado, here is a quick recap of the stories:

• MythTV scores high in usability test – Slashbox
• Install MythTV on your Xbox! - Digg (Note: I am linking to the digg story itself - the Geocities page appears to be down at the moment)
• JRemoteforMyth - LinuxPVR.org (A Java based remote)

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, MythTV

In a move to gain more users, ReplayTV will be releasing a PC version of its PVR / DVR application. Right now you can sign up by going here. The deadline for applying to be a beta tester is May 31st.

I’m not sure how much of a market there will be for yet another PVR / DVR / HTPC solution. Right now there are a few pay solutions (most notably SageTV & BeyondTV), but more importantly there are quite a few free solutions (MythTV for Linux & GB-PVR for Windows, to name a few). Will a venture into the PC market by ReplayTV pay off? It might if they can offer something that nobody else can, most likely some sort of interaction between the software and ReplayTV units. If not, then it may just be a rash decision to try and get piece of the PC software market.

More info can be found at Build Your Own PVR.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HTPC, ReplayTV, MythTV, BeyondTV, GB-PVR

Diane Kristine decided that she wanted to foray into the world of PVR / DVR users. Although she is not technologically inclined, she did opt to use her computer as the device. A large part of that reason is because up here in Canada TiVo isn’t exactly a feasible option and a large part of the cable providers only have HD compliant devices (some of us are still on non HD TVs).

She initially tried out GB-PVR and MythTV, but soon found them too technical. So along with her Hauppauge WinTV-150 she proceeded to try out SageTV & Beyond TV. She had a few experiences which might help new users decide what software to go with (including having SageTV’s Intelligent Recording record a half hour infomercial). Her ultimate choice is indeed Beyond TV, but you may want to see why she chose it and whether it fits your bill too.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, SageTV, Beyond+TV, GB-PVR, MythTV

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

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