Newbie: BeyondTV comparison?

[edsutton]

I recently got a PVR-150 and am evaluating the 21-day BeyondTV4 trial. The next piece of hardware I plan on is a MediaMVP to deliver my recordings to my TV. After which I had planned on purchasing BeyondTV4 with the free FireFly remote. Then I stumbled upon gbpvr while reading MediaMVP reviews on Amazon and I must reevaluate. How does BeyondTV compare to gpvr?

Does it mark captured video for commercial skip?
Is there an easy way to burn to DVD and does it make the commercials a separate chapter so they may be skipped?
Is the free TV guide accurate (USA)?

I am an experienced C#/C++ software developer. I saw that the install requirements included .NET2.0. The possibility of contributing or tinkering with gpvr is appealing.

Thanks in advance,
-Ed

[Spartan]

As a longtime user (with MVP), let me say that...

Does it mark captured video for commercial skip?

Yes, comskip works quite well out of the box.

Is there an easy way to burn to DVD and does it make the commercials a separate chapter so they may be skipped?

There is a plug-in for this, but I have not used it.

Is the free TV guide accurate (USA)?

zap2it does a good job, but I have seen a couple of inaccuracies over the last 2 years or so.

I am an experienced C#/C++ software developer. I saw that the install requirements included .NET2.0. The possibility of contributing or tinkering with gpvr is appealing.

I am a developer too (I wrote the SportsScores plugin)!

Thanks in advance,
-Ed

No Problem

[edsutton]

Thanks for your reply.

Do you think I should uninstall BeyondTV4 before evaluating gbpvr?

( Your SportsScores plugin looks like a very nice feature. )

-Ed

[carpeVideo]

I did the BeyondTV eval as well, the key for me was no firewire support and since I can get firewire out of my cable box with HD I wanted it. Oddly enough GBPVR doesn't support it either, so I learned enough c# to code a plug-in that does. (I am a masochist apparently)

For me no real issues with the guide - I use epgextra to get more info than GBPVR grabs normally.

I use to plugins 'SearchWiz' and 'TV listings' instead of the build in GBPVR stuff for guide stuff, both are a bit more robust.

I haven't had great luck myself with comskip but others seem to. I typically just fast forward at this point.

I can say It don't think BeyondTV is worth $80 more than GBPVR, plug-in variety and support are much better here.

CV

[User]

GBPVR price is right, I have not had any urge to stray from it and have not tried any other PVR software. I use SearchWhiz and Comskip and EWA. Two MVP's.

[madcat]

I also wondered around with other PVRs, some Linux too.
GB-PVR was the first one that worked (at the time at least).
Later I also learned to appreciate the community - both Sub (the GB-PVR developer) and developers of other plugins are so responsive that I haven't seen anywhere else.

I use SearchWiz. I run GB-PVR directly from a laptop with no problems (although since the move to HD output, this hardware is stretching it). Comskip works for me, most of the time (once in a while the commercials are in offset, I'm sure I could debug it if I put myself into it).

I'm also a developer, I started an initiative to have some kind of remote-control to GB-PVR over TCP. I think someone took it over at some point (to run it of a PDA or something).

Welcome, believe me - I don't like paying for software (coming from a country that it's almost a crime to pay for it ) but GB-PVR was the single time I ever donated money for a software.

[pBS]

yep, Showburner does take the comskip data and make it into chapters on dvd..
plus it makes menus and thumbnails and puts descriptions on the videos..

check the gbpvr wiki for all the plugins..
http://www.gbpvr.com/pmwiki

[erik]

Comskip can also output the chapter markers for the scene changes so you can get real chapter information instead of only the commercial chapters.
Look at the videoredo output from comskip