Best PC DVR Software, For Any Platform? 536
jshamacher writes "I've used MythTV for several years (first on Slackware, now via Mythbuntu) and it's good. But not great — I have a list of annoyances as long as my arm. For example, even 0.22 still has problems playing many DVDs and I frequently have to fall back on Xine. Since upgrading to new hardware, I've had issues with sound dropping out; these problems only occur for Myth, not for anything else. So now I'm trying out alternatives. Freevo seemed promising when I tried it a few months ago but it had its own issues. I'm also increasingly getting pressure from my family to get things like NetFlix streaming working on this machine. This seems to imply migrating to a Windows-based solution. I threw XP on it and tried MediaPortal but could never get that to control my Motorola cable box via the IR blaster. So my questions to you: What DVR software do you use? Are you happy with it? What don't you like? Are there any packages out there that 'just work' as media hubs and for time-shifting cable TV?"
I'm curious myself. (Score:3, Interesting)
I like the freedom of MythTV, I've been running it for about 4 years now, but it can often be tricky to get working if there is a problem. Particularly if there is a MySQL problem when I don't have a great deal of expertize in database administration. I'd like to take advantage of the new cable-card hardware coming out for high definition too.
Right now it pretty much seems either windows media center or giving in and getting a TiVO, but I'm curious about some of the other things out there like Sage TV. Sadly, not everything is available online right now without having to go to bit-torrent, especially high-def content.
It's flexible and that's a problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
The nice thing about a completely open and flexible system is that you can route around it's quirks with other tools. The fact that you can just drop in xine or mplayer is one of the key strengths of MythTV and would likely be necessary in any replacement. I've never gotten this fixation and insistence on using only MythTV for anything myth related. It doesn't have to be that way and that's kind of the point.
Play with MCE and Front Row and see for yourself. The grass may not necessarily be greener.
Re:Linux MCE (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux MCE is an integrated bundle of software.
The PVR part is MythTV, so may be be what the OP is looking for
I personally love Myth, and wouldn't change it for anything
but saying that, I use it as a media front-end only (no broadcast TV)
GBPVR on XP (Score:1, Interesting)
Awesome free PVR software. Supports lots of hardware tuner cards & remotes. Streams over LAN & Internet. Web interface for streaming & managing recordings. XMLTV listings. Excellent support forum. High WAF. Plugins (Game Emulators, Weather, Movie Listings, etc). Comskip, Comclean, Transcode, ISO playback, features go on and on.
Highly recommended by an HTPC enthusiast.
Re:Linux MCE (Score:5, Interesting)
This doesn't solve the Netflix issue. Netflix is in bed with Microsoft and delivers using Silverlight 2.
It doesn't make any kind of sense that a business would deploy any solution using Silverlight, but whatever. I've whined about this before and obviously Netflix doesn't care.
Recording HD? (Score:3, Interesting)
While we're on the topic - is there a good solution for recording HD from cable? I'm currently using analog cable with a Hauppauge card to record programs in standard definition. Potential solutions:
1) DVR from cable company. Problems: I've gotten anecdotal information that these DVR's have poorly designed UI's and tend to be somewhat flaky (worse than Windows). Also, they are a closed system, I can't move the recording to a mobile device for portable viewing.
2) PC + HD ATSC / Clear-QAM tuner card - this gives me the ability to record over the air broadcasts and cable channels that support Clear-QAM (which is a fairly small subset of cable channels).
3) PC + HD Tuner Card + Cable Card - does anyone make one of these? Anyone have any experience with this?
Re:Windows Media Center (Score:4, Interesting)
I've got Windows 7 Media center running with a Linksys Media Center Extender.
On the positive side, It Just Works. Having a paperback sized MCE (cheap on Ebay, BTW) next to the big-screen rather than a PC is very nice.
On the negative side, Microsoft keeps trying so hard to prevent users from doing what they'd like. .wtv file format late in the Vista cycle, which broke things like dvrmstoolbox that was used for commercial skipping, and had no desire to help fix it. That's fixed by the community now, of course.
For example, they changed to the
They also broke ripped DVD playback on the extender. For the Vista media center, it was found that by creating a hard link to the DVD files (and giving the hard link a ".mp4" (IIRC) extension), DVD's would play fine on the extender. With Windows 7, sorry, but that workaround has been disabled.
Re:Linux MCE (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Windows Media Center (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, MCE is pretty good as a out-of-the-box DVR. However, it can suck if you regularly download video to watch. It can neither play much of it (out-of-the-box) nor does it organize it very well. Be pepared to tweak.
I also find it to be a bit piggish on resources. The interface is slower than I'm used to. It is often useless if accessing shared files over a wireless connection as it spends too much time & bandwidth indexing generating thumbnail previews to playback video properly. (on a 150Mbps (maybe 30-50 actual) N connection) Again, be prepared to tweak.
I find it to be absolutely horrible if you have a very large (thousands of files) and dynamic collection of multimedia files. (I'm looking at about 250GB of music and a TB of video) My stuff is organized well enough in the file system and I'd prefer my media center not index it but just use the existing directory structure.
MCE is pretty and works OK if you have a small/stable multimedia collection and also use it in the fairly limited way that Microsoft wants/expects you to but I prefer Media Portal. (http://www.team-mediaportal.com/) It also requires tweaking but is far, FAR more flexible, and the end result works better for me.
Finally, MCE on 7 is an improvement over MCE on Vista, but hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Re:Linux MCE (Score:3, Interesting)
Not once they go to silverlight 3.That adds lots of "features" that only work on windows.
Re:TiVo for the win? (Score:4, Interesting)
Last time I tried pyTiVo with my TiVO HD, the results were far from stellar. I do store many of my DVD's as 1Mb/s 264 + AC3 AVI files and it just didn't seem to like it. It down-res'ed them horribly and the resulting video was poor. Plus, I believe it trashes the AC3, resulting in just stereo (yuck) sound.
Now, it has been at least a year since I messed with it (and gave up on it). If you think it has improved, I will give it another shot.
Not having decent local streaming of video files has been my #2 complaint with TiVo (#1 being that we can't easily backup the damn settings to a USB key or something so if the unit dies we can recover many hours of work done with preferences, season passes, stations, etc). Otherwise, the TiVo HD is *extremely* impressive and I highly recommend it... it runs circles around any cable provider's DVR or "software" solution I have seen.
Nero LiquidTV (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had TiVos for years and years and years. I have a Series 3 now. I love it.
But if you want a truly PC based solution, how about Nero LiquidTV [tivo.com]? It is basically the official PC version of the TiVo software. It still needs a TiVo subscription, but it has all the features and the same fantastic interface.
WHS + MEDIA CENTER + XBOX 360 = Done (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Consoles (Score:3, Interesting)
Under the main television that we watch is a PS3, which sees the backend as a UPnP media server without any fuss. All recorded programs show up under the "video" menu. Any machine in the house can also be used as a frontend, if Mythfrontend is installed. Mythweb can be used to configure it remotely (even off-site if I'm feeling brave enough to let incoming conections to it from the outside world) so you can log in and set something to record if you are out and about.
I'm really happy with the system and not got any particular moans, other than the fact that tuners don't just work out of the box and forums have to be read ...
Re:MythTV automatic commercial skipping (Score:1, Interesting)
Killer feature #2, Playback speed change. By skipping commercials and speeding up the playback speed, I can easily watch two hours of shows in forty minutes. That is awesome!
Interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.playon.tv/playon/how-it-works [playon.tv]
A tidy, secure-ish and affordable (if you use XP) solution might be to install it on a Windows VM running on your Linux server...one box still does all the serving and if the Windows VM gets pwned, you just bring it back from a backup in minutes. The VM will have a separate IP via its virtual network adapter so it shouldn't conflict with the host box. DRM might be an issue too but this could be a workable solution if you really want NetFlix in a non-Windows environment...