DVRs
posted by Dan @ 11:17 PM
3 comments
Okay, I could probably just send out an email to Dave and Joe, but I decided to post again. If anyone out there has or is thinking about a DVR keep reading.
First let me say I love my ReplayTV. It has served me for over three years now, but lately I've been getting annoyed a few things and have been considering getting a new TiVO system.
1. It only has one tuner. This has seemed to be more annoying lately. There is often at least two things I want to tape at the same time.
2. I would love to be able to watch Divx and AVIs and what ever else I downloaded with out connecting my laptop.
3. I don't have an HD TV yet, but I figure in the next few years I will end up getting one. So it would make sense to get a DVR that does HD, or will be able to do HD with some sort of upgrade.
4. Even in standard def, I would like to record in higher quality (this means more storage space).
5. Commercial Advance. I've grown way to use to that to give it up.
6. Not paying a monthly service fee would be nice too.
Now given that, here are my options:
1. Get another ReplayTV off of Ebay for around $100. This would be trivial to install and could stream to my Replay with out any setup. Plus I could record in High Quality with the extra storage room. Also I just found out that the monthly service fee for your second ReplayTV is half off, about $7 a month. Cons, no HD, no streaming random file from my computer.
2. Charter's DVR service. This does not excite me at all, but it might not be a terrible option.
3. Windows Media Center. Joe - is this any good? Anyone else doing this? Does this have Comercial Advance? HD? How much is this anyways? Is there a monthly fee? I should do more research on this.
4. MythTV. Now I've tried Linux a few times before with very little success. Now I'm a nerd, but this OS is just a pain in the ass. But still I like the idea of having a server somewhere with 3 TV Tuners streaming to my TV via something like this MediaMVP. It is supposed to be super hackable with MythTV front ends already out there. However, I'm not sure about this either - I have fears that I'll buy a ton of hardware and never get it working right. But I like the idea of open source meaning no one is taking my commercial advance away and all the little things that could be very useful.
Well that's it. I'll probably just get really lazy and not do anything or just get another Replay for now. But if anyone has any recommendations let me know.
Hmm, After looking this over I'm pretty sure this post belongs on Dave's blog.
Labels: scooters
3 Comments:
I swear by my Media Center now as Dave can attest. Not paying a monthly fee is what ultimately got me to do it, and now I can never justify paying a fee to use a DVR. You can do as many tuners as you want, I went with 1 HD and 1 standard so I can record 2 things at once but only 1 HD at a time which usually works out ok. I got both tuners for roughly $100. You can build a pretty good Media Center for $800. Sounds pricy but if it lasts 3 years and no service fee it's comparable to the HD Tivo (w/o monthly fees). Plus with a full Media Center you can play any file imaginable, do games on it, even browse the web. Plus when you want to upgrade it's way cheaper since you don't have to replace the entire box, just add more memory, bigger hard drive, more tuners, whatever you need. The down side is that it only works with standard over the air and basic cable tuners right now. So if you have premium channels that require a cable box you wouldn't be able to record them. Vista Media Center apparently has CableCard support which would solve this problem but I haven't heard of any companies making PC CableCard tuners yet. I tried MythTV a couple years ago and it was terrible at the time. I think it's gotten much better but MCE is really easy and you have much broader hardware support to buy remotes, wireless keyboards, tuners and any peripherals you want to add on.
Where is your computer actually located? Is is loud? That is one thing I worry about with MythTV (fixed by a front end) and MCE. Does MCE have a front end type idea?
I think you're going to have a hard time finding commercial advance on anything other than perhaps a PC - TiVO doesn't have it and neither do the cable DVRs. Building your own would definitely be the nicest for all the reasons Joe listed above. Also, if you have MCE and a 360 you can wirelessly stream content to your 360. That way you can have your computer anywhere you want (it sounds like you may not want it in your living room).
My Comcast DVR is pretty decent, but only because it's cheap (like $10/month with no equipment to buy). I don't know what Charter's looks like, but mine is a dual HD tuner with a pretty big amount of storage space. When it's working it's fine. (I've spent around $200 on that thus far.)
If you've got the time and the money you should build your own. Also, you should post all the specs of what you buy so I can live vicariously through you / learn from what you do.
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