Best Solution To Record TV Programs On Hard Drive
 

I am wondering if anyone knows the pros and cons of different approaches to recording tv programs on a computer. What are the pros and cons of say for instance Tivo, vs. either a pci or usb tv tuner board inside my pc. It is essential that the solution have a pc interface. It would be nice to program it remotely as well. Also does one approach produce clearer sound and video than another?

at one point I was thinking the same thing you are -- it would be cool to be able to have a tv card in my computer, and be able to transfer video files back and forth, etc.

but I ended up getting Tivo and have never looked back. The professional user interface and remote control are key. It's so much nicer than a hokey setup using my own computer.

I got my tivo for about $125 at walmart when they were going out of style on the old version/low capacity kind. But I hacked it using the easy tools and friendly help at tivocommunity.com, and it works great!

look on ebay for hacked units, or get a small capacity model and do it yourself. If you just want to use it like a super vcr, you don't have to pay subscription fees (I don't). Or you can get the full subscription and have tivo start guessing what you like. I hear it's spooky. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

I have a settop box from my cable company that costs $15/month and has two digital tuners so I can watch one program and record another at the same time. It has some advantages IF you have digital cable already.

You might want to try ReplayTV. It records shows to its own hard drive just like a Tivo, but it has built in Ethernet networking.

There is an open source program called dvArchive that lets you move files from the ReplayTV to your computer. From there you can watch them on your computer or burn them to DVD.

This assumes you have, or can set up, a home network, and it works best with broadband.

A few important caveats:

1. It takes a while to move a show over to your computer, probably longer than the show itself (ie 2 hours to copy a 1 hour show). You can schedule this to run on its own though.

2. The MPEG files are not standard ones like you might download off the internet. You might need a special video viewer to watch them on your computer. There are free viewers that work with these files.

3. You cannot upload your own MPEG's to the ReplayTV.

Does anyone know if there would be differences in video quality when using either Tivo/Replay TV as opposed to using a pci tuner board inside the pc. I would just assume use a computer (rather than another proprietary device) unless there are compelling reasons to get either Tivo/Replay TV. The main application would be to record shows and to be able to play them on either desktop or laptop computer, and to burn to cd or dvd.

I would get a cheapo TV tuner card for the PC and combine it with SnapStream (http://wwww.snapstream.com) which offers many of the benefits, as well as ease-of-use, as TiVo and ReplayTV but without the high cost of buying a device).

Alternatively, a number of PC manufacturers are making devices specifically supporting Microsoft's Windows XP Home Media Center edition. It's an elegant solution out of the box and the new version of the OS has, I hear, ironed out many of the earlier glitches. From memory, Sony is among the OEMs producing laptops supporting XP HMC.

I'm biased as I got one for free... The newer Windows Media Center PC's are not bad... not perfect either... but not bad.

The other item I'm still waiting for and backordered on http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/mad.gif is the Pioneer Tivo DVD-Recorder. A high disk capacity Tivo that can then burn the content to a DVD recorder built into the unit.

NickP, do you have a regular Tivo? I'm curious how you find the Media Center PC compared to Tivo (setting aside the free aspect, which is hard to beat). I have a Tivo but am looking to get a new PC, so thinking about MCE.

Also, my understanding is that MCE is based on XP Pro. Does it also have the remote desktop functionality in Pro?

Windows Media Center is like STANDARD Windows XP. When the Media Center shell is on it's like a Tivo type device. (large UI, all functions on a remote, NO keyboard mouse, used). When in PC mode it's just like standard Windows XP.

If you don't need to save it as full quality, I've found "EyeTV" from http://www.elgato.com to be very easy to use.

It saves the shows directly to MPEG files which you can burn to VCDs. The quality is like that of a VCR though.

I've been using the dvArchive for about a week now. Love it. In terms of speed - on my switched 10/100 network (I have gig but it's not applicable since the ReplayTV is only at 10/100) I can roughly 45 mins for every one hour of show at "high quality" in terms of transfer rates. I have been very successful in speeding up the default transfer rate in moderation, to get lower transfer times than 45 mins - but only during the middle of the night when the TV isn't doing anything and the server is done with it's backups.

While you cannot upload your own MP3's to the box, you can transfer and stream back into the box those that you created earlier - essentially allowing you to create a massive archive where your only limiter is disk space http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

You can use DVTools to create ReplayTV "compliant" video which you can then stream from PC to ReplayTV. I find that using a delay of 0 with DVarchive and a 5040 with a 200GB HDD, I get an average dl speed of 1.45MB/sec, around 25 mins to dl an hour of high quality. At one stage it was running at closer to 1.8MB/sec, can't replicate it. Of course this is with the RTV off and not recording. And I find PowerDVD and WMP both playback ReplayTV high quality with no problems. Using the MPEG2s in an editing program is another matter, all the ones I have puke on it.