I’ve been watching the trends for recording video at home lately. People I know that have purchased a TIVO seem to love it and the freedom you get…its revolutionized television watching. The monthly fee rubs me the wrong way though…I want to pay once for the hardware/software then never again. So I’ve been researching options that would allow me similar functionality to TIVO without the subscription.
So what is the best route to take? I did some searching and came up with this list of software DVR options:
SageTV
MythTV
ReplayTV
FreeVo
MediaPortal
GB-PVR
I know very little about any of them. Has anyone here tried setting this up at home and had success? Any other software that is missing from my list that should be included?
I’m assuming I’ll need a copy of XP Media Center Edition, a decent PC with lots of hard drive space and a burner, and a DVR capable video card. I’d appreciate any suggestions or opinions on the topic for what hardware/software works for you.
Which functionality? I don’t know a lot about TIVO, but from what people seem to say its main functions are: A. you can schedule it to record shows B. you can somehow watch a show while it’s taping but a different part of it is airing.
I don’t see the point of B, honestly, and A can be done by any DVD-Recorder hooked to your TV. I don’t do it myself because I tape things while I watch them, but our digital cable box is set to work with the DVD recorder to tape shows you pick every time they air, too. More expensive DVD recorders than mine have hard drives and skip over the commercials during playback as well.
However, I know of no DVD recorder that will independently decide that you must like Mexican pornos, though.
Basically I want to automate the recording of television broadcasts just like TIVO does. The more it does the better which is why I’m asking which software products do it best without the monthly fees.
No suggestions, since I’ve never used any of the aforementioned software, but you won’t need XP MCE. Indeed, the most widely-used software out of the ones you have listed (MythTV) runs from Linux.
B is maybe the best part of the whole deal. You can schedule it to record, and start watching whenever you want. You don’t have to do something else for the entire show, only to come back afterwards to watch. I do this all the time with one of my favorite shows. It plays at 5:30, so I’m usually working or getting dinner ready when it starts. I can sit down and start watching at 5:45, instead of having to miss the whole thing and start up again at 6:30.
B also allows you you pause mid-show, so you can answer the phone or get the laundry without missing anything.
DVR isn’t just recording, it really changes the TV watching experience.
You might want to look into any DVR that your cable system provides. It’s likely to be cheaper than TiVo, and with no up front expense. Less functionality perhaps, but more seamlessly integrated into your setup than a PC based unit.
I set up a MythTV box a while back, and have been using it happily ever since. It’s not as polished as TiVo, but is incredibly customizable and has many features TiVo lacks, such as automatic commercial skipping, DVD ripping, and a bunch of plugins for music, weather, news, game emulators, etc. If you want to be able to watch TV from more than one location, it’s easy to set up frontends which can all access the recordings from the main backend machine (instead of having separate TiVos for each TV).
It’s Linux-based, though, and not at all trivial to set up. There’s a ton of documentation on the web, though, and it’s incredibly satisfying once you have everything working the way you want.
I use ReplayTV, but it was not free. I paid a one time fee ($200?) that lasts for the life of the machine. I like their software fine.
What you are paying for is the cost of compiling the listings and delivering them to you in a way that is usable to you (each cable company/satellite provider has its own channels). The problem with using a computer based solution is that you have to watch it on the computer or rig a connection between the computer and the tv, which can be a pain.
I second the suggestion that you investigate the options provided by your cable provider.
I’m like the OP, I want some way to record HD stuff, not just normal SD TV. The only ones that do that are the newer TIVOs, and I’m not paying $300 or so plus the extra $15 a month, and a couple of the cable companies. I don’t see what’s so hard about having a hard drive and a tuner so I can record stuff, but no one wants to make one. The second I find one, or can build on cheap, I’m dumping my cable.
Now that’s interesting. The main thing keeping me from giving in to the TiVo revolution has been that the recording has to be watched on the unit that recorded it – my old-fashioned VCR tapes have it all over TiVo in that regard.
I think the problem is that many of the HD cable channels (all but the over-the-air broadcast network channels?) are encrypted, so the simple capture card + hard drive solution won’t work for them. It’s quite unfortunate, as I’d love to upgrade to HD but I’m not willing to sacrifice my MythTV functionality to do it.
I’m only worried about the OTA channels anyway. I’ve had cable for years, but only the very basic. I haven’t missed any of the extra channels except for here and there. That’s why I don’t want a TIVO or something like that, I don’t need it to tell me what I like, I want to tell it what to record and be done with it. I’ve only kept my cable because of the need to record shows if I’m not home. Give me an HD recorder for $300 and I’m all over it.
I am going to add that I use Option B the most as well, but different than you do. I routinely let a show that I want to see start and go 30-40 mins into the broadcast, while doing or watching something else. I will then start at the beginning of said desired show and fast forward through all the damn commercials. Sometimes I have to watch the last 5-10mins “live”, but I get to skip most of the crap that is aired between the show.
Ok, I was going to keep this a secret but what the heck. My secret plan is to begin advertising a service building DVR PCs. I’d like to try making a few bucks on the side. Maybe an ad in the paper would net me one or two customers a month. I’d offer a lower end PC with lots of storage, a DVR enabled video card, and installation and training on how to use it. I’m still early in the investigative phase here but to my ears it sounds like something I may be able to make a few bucks doing…at least for now. If I take the no month fee angle I figure enough people might be interested to give it a try.
Does that sound like something viable for a part time business? Would any of you guys buy one at a reasonable price?
FYI, that’s the reason I don’t want to look at Comcast DVR options.
I’ve seen this idea come up on the MythTV mailing lists a couple of times. The problem is the TV listings. Those are currently provided by Zap2it for free to users for three months at a time in exchange for filling out surveys and usage information. Selling boxes which use these listings is a violation of the user agreement. You’d have to negotiate a license with them directly, which would likely be far more expensive than you could ever hope to make selling these boxes.
Even if that wasn’t a problem, if they were to discontinue the service, you could potentially be sued by customers who bought a box from you that suddenly doesn’t work any more. Overall, I think the idea is too fraught with peril to be worth it.
Not everyone wants or cares about TV listings. I know what I want to watch and when it comes on. If I don’t I know how to look it up no problem. All I want is something that starts recording when I tell it to, stops when I want it to.
Bongmaster, I would be interested in something like that, very interested if it got HD. Otherwise I have a DVDR that works fine. I could give you some ideas on what I would like, but I’ve got to run right now.
Keep in mind that I’m not selling or reselling the free software, just the service for building the PC, setting everything up, then installing it at someone’s home and training them how to use it all. I don’t want to violate any free software license agreements.
I’ve seen lots of guides on how to build these things but I have the feeling that the skills are one step removed from the average PC user.
Excellent point, that’s one of the things I’m wondering about now. I am not sure how I would get HD content recorded properly…part of my brain is telling me I’d need a HD receiver hooked up to the DVR input card but I need to do more research on this one.
At the very least I’d need to setup the machines with a huge hard drive to capture high def programming. Even a regular hour long show can eat up 2GB. Of course the machine would need a DVD burner and burning software as well. And I also need to come up with a clever way to interface the PC to the main TV, maybe as an added service.
That would be it, actually. MCE has good DVR capabilities built right in. MCE downloads TV listings for free from MS.
I bought one of those dual core MCE machines in February and it has changed my TV-viewing life.
I made two necessary upgrades: I bought a second large HD and I bought a second TV card, both identical to the originals.
The second HD is necessary because once you program in your favorite shows, you will find yourself with a huge backlog of unwatched TV. The second TV card was necessary because a single card doesn’t allow you to change the channel while recording something and you can’t record overlapping shows.
One program recommendation: Video Redo is an essential tool for me; it allows me to easily edit out commercials.
The main thing keeping me from giving in to the TiVo revolution has been that the recording has to be watched on the unit that recorded it – my old-fashioned VCR tapes have it all over TiVo in that regard.