Ok, this is to good to be true...

[edacsac]

Hi all,

I'm a new user to GB PVR, and just installed it last night. I have previously tried myth and media portal, spending 25-40 hours on each before I gave up on them out of frustration.

Last night I installed and configured GB PVR in less than an hour - including setting up the channel guide. I'm able to watch TV, record TV, and watch movies from my video library (except .avi's) - everything I really wanted out of a PVR, and, I have much less than ideal hardware.

I don't know what my limitations will be with my hardware. I have a PVR150 as a tuner card, and I haven't tried watching and recording at the same time or anything, but with where I'm at now and the little time invested, I'd have to say GB PVR is the best from the PVR's I've tried. The only thing that doesn't work are: watching .avi's from media library, and controling volume using my haugepauge remote, but those are both small issues that I can deal with over time, compared to working with myth or mediaportal and just trying to get live tv to work.

It is really great to find a PVR software that does the basics well, without major headaches. I will be donating to GB PVR.

[Fatman_do]

Welcome aboard.

[herbs]

The volume does work it just doesn't show you any visual feedback. There is a plug in if you want a OSD for the remote. On the avi side I believe if memory serves correctly you just need to add the .avi extension, if not there are some good plug ins that will do what you want i.e my videos etc

[tieke]

As far as the .avi files go, you should be able to see them in the VideoLibrary plugin, and as long as you have the correct codecs on your system they should play in GB-PVR. Basically if they play OK in Windows MediaPlayer, they should play fine in GB-PVR.

cheers,

tieke

[fuzzweed]

have you got the divx codec installed? many avi are encoded with this. google and download a program called gspot - this will tell you if you have the correct codecs installed on your machine for any particular media file.

[Mister Slimm]

I had the exact same experience. GB-PVR rules.

[dinki]

Yup, I'll throw my two cents in and say that I ran the KnoppMyth distro of MythTV for about 2 years. I spent more time reconfiguring it every time I tried to upgrade or if I added new hardware. After an upgrade gone wrong earlier this year I tried GBPvr and now I can actually USE my PVR instead of always working on it. My upgrade to the latest version took no more than 10 minutes! Truely impressive. Thanks again Sub!

[stangdaman]

I'm sure I already posted on this as well but you're right this is the best setup process of any pvr software even better then the ones like Sage and Beyond TV in my opinion.

I tried media portal before I came to this as well and while it's a little flashier they seem to have missed the point that the first thing people want is to be able to record and watch tv. That was the one thing in their config that took the longest time. I had GBPVR up in running in like 15 minutes as opposed to a week or so of messing with Mediaportal. That fact that GBPVR used my systems default codecs was a big plus too because I really don't know too much about that so I don't want to have to go searching for a million different codecs to get it working right which is another problem with Media Portal. Media Portal is ok too not to be bashing them because it is nice and their forums are helpful but as far as the initial set up goes GBPVR has them beat hand down.

The nice thing about the config for GBPVR in my opinion is it's pretty intuitive but it still leaves enough that you can customize it and fit it to your needs. I think that's what I liked over Beyond TV and Sage. They had simpiler initial setups but if something was wrong it was harder to fix it because there really was no availability to go in and change much. The fact that Zap2it was part of the initial install was a big plus too.

Anyway that's my two cents on that I'm just rambling now so I'll stop.