GBPVR vs Media Portal vs Mythtv

[daphatty]

On a side topic, I've seen where people have labeled "Open Source" development as a negative attribute. I would place "properly managed" open source development over "one may shows" any day of the week. It's all about being properly managed. For instance, if SUB opened the GBPVR code and became the manager, he could approve all bug fixes and updates to the core along with doing his own work. It's not like we'd have an application where people are dumping in conflicting code without any scrutiny. SUB could be the approver.

In addition, if something happens to SUB (he moves to Egypt to the pharos), the project would not die.

Unfortunately, a "properly managed" open source PVR project doesn't exist. That is why I Open Source as a Con for MediaPortal. I'm not saying that it is easy managing a project the size of MP. It's just that MP doesn't do ANYTHING extremely well. The feature sets are constantly being broken by "updates" and "fixes."

[mobiusnz]

I somehow managed to stumble on GBPVR very quickly - At the time I had a Lifeview TV Walker and with searches I found lots of mention of this device in the forums - got it going in no time. Then I built a purpose built Shuttle with an Hauppauge MCE500 and installed Windows Media Centre - Very quickly switched back to GBPVR - Media Centre is very `PRETTY' - But its interface is too cumbersome for my liking - I want to watch tv not click 3 menus deep to get there and watch nice fade ins and outs with menus. Plus I never got a guide going in MCE - I tried and failed - I'm sure I could have read more guides and got it working but it worked straight away in GBPVR so I went back to this. Its been an absolute rock for me - Personally I think its biggest failure is the fact its free/donation (I donated as soon as I had been using it successfully for a week or two - I couldn't live without it!) - With it being "free" it doesn't come with a codec obviously and this is where most people have problems - I just wish Hauppauge would wake up and give SUB lots of money to OEM his software with their cards - If you had a clean new machine, ran a setup that installed Hauppauge drivers, a nice compatible clean Codec and GBPVR all together and ran a wizard for the Tuning etc the only user fiddle would be the TV Guide. Once its been working on my lounge pc I've had no problems for a LONG LONG time through many versions - the only "bug" I've experienced was the installer issue where on some systems the installed stopped and reversed halfway through and this was fixed with some good user feedback and sub's attention.

The program (as sub has mentioned many times) wraps together a series of functions in the TV Card drivers, Mpeg Codec and Media Centre so when it doesn't work its usually other software getting in the way or configuration problems with codecs etc.

I strongly recommend people have a dedicated pc for recordings or don't expect it to be flawless because:

A) sooner or later you'll install something to playwith that will upset something

or

B) You'll get killed by the wife for failing to record her FAVORITE program because you rebooted your machine partway through it to get a game running.

Why haven't Hauppauge OEM'd this yet sub??? (Although I have to admin I never even tried their software - just seemed the consensus that it isn't anywhere near as good as GBPVR)

I'm lending my old TV Walker to a mate - if he buys it the procedes are comming your way sub - Keep it up!!!!

[dazzle]

"and pretty much managed to bore everybody I know stupid with tales of my "TV Computer".

I like this......Since I got GB-PVR hooked up with my MVP, my family and friends describe the setup as "computerising the tele...".

[chud]

well, it has all been said wrt the quality and functionality of GBPVR and the superhero effort of sub to make it happen, but one of my favourite aspects is the responsiveness to support and feature requests. can you even begin to imagine what kind of effort it takes to move MCE to your liking?!?

[jpete1019]

When I first built my PVR I was going to use Linux and MythTV. I had seen online that there were Linux drivers for all of the PVR cards. What they don't say until you actually go and get the drivers is the PVR-150 support is just getting started, which means young crappy drivers. After a few days I gave up.

Then I went straight to GB-PVR. I love it now, never gonna turn back.

Ditto. Exactly what happened to me.

[tomper]

I tried MediaPortal and really wanted to like it but in the end three things made me pick GBPVR

1. Rewinding and fast forwarding is sooo much better
2. I can close the GUI and use the PC for other things and it still records stuff
3. I don't have to use DVR-MS

[gazoo]

I have to agree, the support here is the best I've ever seen. Even if this wasn't the class A product that it is, the support would keep me coming back bar none.