OT: Alternatives to Tivo?

[Kurt Granroth]

This is a very informative post, but I'd like to stress a few points.

Most discussions about switching from TiVO HD/3 to MythTV assume that
you care only about Over The Air (OTA - Antenna) channels and *basic*
cable channels.  Typically, the only HD channels considered basic are
network channels like ABC, NBC, and the like.

If you have Cox and like all of the new HD channels that have been
added, then MythTV *cannot* be used to make direct recordings of those
channels.  That's because any 3rd-party (non-cable box) tuner needs both
Cable Card support *and* support for the external SDV tuner.  The only
choice for this is the TiVO.

Brian mentioned a workaround if you are willing to work with some
limitations.  The Hauppage HD PVR by-passes all of the tuning issues and
just does an analog capture from the component output of a cable box.
It then re-encodes the analog output into digital form and passes that
along to MythTV or any other PC-based DVR.

There are two downsides to the HD PVR analog capture approach.  First,
it can only record one thing at a time since it's using an IR blaster to
change channels on the cable box (plus, analog capture) .  Second, there
is going to be some degradation of quality in the re-encoding to
digital.  How much is debatable.  AV forums like AVS are full of threads
of people absolutely hating the quality... but they tend to be more
extreme than most.  YMMV.

There's also a cost issue.  The HD PVR is $200.  Tack on the cost of
building a Myth box and you're pretty close to the cost of a TiVO +
Lifetime service.  MythTV is infinitely more flexible, of course, so it
might be worth it.

On 08/25/2010 06:48 PM, Brian Cluff wrote:
> Go for a MythTV system.  You can base it off of any old Pentium 4 class
> machine or better that you might have lying around already, and you can
> slave your main system to other system that you can put in other rooms,
> as well as watch shows on your other computers.
> 
> The one major piece of advice that I can give is to go with the most
> compatible, easy to setup, capture devices that you can get.   If you do
> that, you can just pop in a Mythbuntu CD and have a working MythTV
> system withing 20 minutes with no special setup what-so-ever.
> 
> You will need to purchase guide service, but it's only $20 a year, and
> worth every cent... They do give you a free week of service to get
> everything going and make sure that you will want to continue to use the
> service.  After that you just give them $20 once a year (they only allow
> 1 year max)
> 
> If you are only worried about capturing over the air high definition
> and/or basic cable service, I would recommend the Silicon Stardust
> HDhomerun device.  It's about the easiest device to setup in mythTV and
> will allow you to capture 2 channels at once in hi-def.  Otherwise most
> cards made by hauppage, that are compatible, are plug and play these
> days, but make sure it is one of the compatible ones first.
> 
> If you want to capture high definition through a cable or satellite box
> so that you can still get to your premium channels, you will need the
> HDPVR by hauppage, it pretty much the only thing I have seem that can
> capture a hi-def signal that doesn't come over the air.  You might need
> an hdmi to componet converter depending on your cable/satellite box's
> output.  You might also want to go that direction anyway since the MPAA
> is trying to get them to turn on selective output, so the component
> outputs wouldn't work for you all the time.
> 
> My system has 1-HDhomerun device for local, over the air, channels and
> 3-hauppage PVR-150s for satellite channels.  This allows me to grab up
> to 5 channels at once.  I then have a small computer in every room that
> I want to watch TV.  It's been purring along like that since about
> 2005ish.  I just throw new hard drives in the system every couple of
> years to both increase space and make sure they don't get too old and
> tired so that they fail taking all my shows with them.
> 
> Brian Cluff
> 
> On 08/25/2010 02:54 PM, joe at actionline.com wrote:
>>
>> Our Tivo box seems to have an intermittent problem, so I'm thinking of
>> making a change (also to get rid of the annoying monthly fee).
>>
>> One promising option might be moxi (moxi.com) although it is expensive
>> ($599) but does the same HD recording (and more than Tivo) with no
>> monthly
>> fee.
>>
>> Any other suggestions?  I don't think I have the saavy to set up (nor
>> woulc my wife use) a computer with an HD TV card.
>>
>> I'm surprised that there don't seem to be more competitors for this
>> business yet.
>>
>>
>>
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