Few questions about GBpvr

[Dahrl]

I tried searching the forums and simply can't find this question being fully answered.

1. How many HD PVR(s) will actually work on a single computer with GBPVR?
and has anyone actually got more then one working with it and can you
provide details?

2. How much is supported using a popcorn hour A110? What works what does not? etc.

My personal goal is to try and build something similar to AT&T's Total Home DVR (a.k.a. U-verse)

And I am very ... very tired of waiting for my provider to actually catch up with technology when the products they offer have been replaced with multi room versions YEARS ago

P.S. I am new here...

D

[sub]

[quote=Dahrl]1. How many HD PVR(s) will actually work on a single computer with GBPVR?
and has anyone actually got more then one working with it and can you
provide details?[/qute]I'm not aware of any limit, but I havnt tested with more than one, so I cant know for sure.

2. How much is supported using a popcorn hour A110? What works what does not? etc.

You get the full user interface. You can schedule and playback recordings etc. Live tv is slow to change channels (10 seconds or so). Some things like comskip and resume etc are not available on the PCH, but pretty much everything else is available.

[Dahrl]

@ Sub

Refering to my previous comment of "My personal goal is to try and build something similar to AT&T's Total Home DVR (a.k.a. U-verse)"

Do you know of any other way to achieve the same thing using GBPVR other then perhaps a PCH as the front end to get better results / control?

Trying to come up with a multi room central HD pvr if possible that can have at least 4 tuners or more without issue. And appropriate clients as well. But without having to have one single machine for each tuner.

D

[sub]

I've no idea what "AT&T's Total Home DVR (a.k.a. U-verse)" is, but as mentioned the PCH is great for recording shows and watching them later. Its not so great with live tv, due to network buffering etc that needs to happen when changing channels - it works but not as fast as I'd like.

Live TV via a PC client is similar, with relatively slow channel change times, but is a bit quicker than the PCH.

[stustunz]

you either have to use client pc's
or popcorn hour's
once you have it set up and running channel surfing doesn't happen as much because you can just ff through the adds rather than having to choose a new station
dont get to hung up about the slow channel change if you have enough tuners then you dont watch live tv anymore because you find it annoying and it takes to long

[wtg]

Trying to come up with a multi room central HD pvr if possible that can have at least 4 tuners or more without issue. And appropriate clients as well. But without having to have one single machine for each tuner.

I'm not sure if you can have more than one HD-PVR on a PC or not, but dealing with channel changes would definitely be a problem. Hauppauge only supports one blaster per PC, which is a problem even if you only have one HD-PVR but other Hauppauge cards. There are other channel change options, but the more devices you have, the more you'll need. I'm using firewire for my HD cable box (attached to the HD-PVR) and the USB-UIRT for my SD cable box myself.

And this leads to the other problem - cable boxes. Each HD-PVR would need it's own cable box. So even if you could have 4 of them hooked to one PC, you'd need them attached to 4 different HD cable boxes. Even though most HD cable boxes have 2 tuners, the one's I've seen only output the currently active tuner to the component outputs so it's only got 1 tuner has far as the HD-PVR is concerned.

Since Hauppauge doesn't support multiple blasters, I doubt they support multiple HD-PVRs on one machine, but maybe. It's still going to be a complicated and expensive proposition to support 4 tuners.

[Dahrl]

I've no idea what "AT&T's Total Home DVR (a.k.a. U-verse)" is, but as mentioned the PCH is great for recording shows and watching them later. Its not so great with live tv, due to network buffering etc that needs to happen when changing channels - it works but not as fast as I'd like.

Live TV via a PC client is similar, with relatively slow channel change times, but is a bit quicker than the PCH.

@ Sub
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-verse (Total home DVR)
That will help you to understand what I hope to build using GBpvr

@ stustunz

I agree I generally prefer just watching the recorded versions or at least watching after the recording is already 15 mins ahead of me

Currently I am living with 3 Scientific Atlanta 8300 pvrs and it is really annoying having a recording on one tv and not able to watch it on another or finish watching it in another room etc.

@ wtg

Supporting 4 tuners I would need at least 3 external blasters I believe because the driver would (in theory) work for multiple HD PVRs but not the built in IR blaster only one would be working from what my research has told me. And I already have to have 4 cable boxes already I just want to put it all in one place and have a simple unit for each to watch either live TV or recorded TV or my DVD's etc. And because it would be expensive I was hoping someone out there already tried this or knows it would work before I give it a shot

D

[TonyXL]

If the STBs have firewire inputs, you may be able to change the channel via firewire. Do a search in these forums, some people have gotten this to work quite well.