What has other PVR software got that GB-PVR hasn't?

[McBainUK]

Title says it all really. I've never played with any of the alternatives. What am I missing out on?

[pastro]

Title says it all really. I've never played with any of the alternatives. What am I missing out on?

Another PVR has a plugin that lets you specify a search criteria for a show and if it ever shows up it will schedule it. That seems useful to me.

[treads6464]

Knoppmyth has the ability to run "front ends" similar to gb-pvr clients. The main difference is that the knoppmyth frontend can run off a memory stick and does not need a harddrive. In theory, any box that can run linux (like an Xbox) could be run as a front end for this type of system. In practice, after months of screwing around with mythtv i happened upon gb-pvr and was able to set up the whole shebang in less then an hour. Add to it that by running gbpvr I had lost none of my windows mainstream functionality and I am one happy camper. i do have an extra gb memory stick though.....oh well.

[K.S.]

Another PVR has a plugin that lets you specify a search criteria for a show and if it ever shows up it will schedule it. That seems useful to me.

there is a GBPVR plugin that does the same XSearch? not sure, do a search on the forum

[McBainUK]

Server also runs apache, phpbb, and a CS:Source server. WOOT!!!

Is it public? I like a bit of CS:Source every now and then

[sub]

Title says it all really. I've never played with any of the alternatives. What am I missing out on?

I dont think I've seen anything listed anywhere that I wished GB-PVR had. I would prefer GB-PVR did some things better though (just got to find the available time though....)

[mruane]

For me, a real biggie, is the ability of one other PVR to record all channels of the same DVB transponder with just one card. That is such a bonus. Other than that though, GBPVR stacks up pretty high on my list of useful kit.

Cheers Mike

[Deusxmachina]

The main thing missing is probably simplicity for "normal folk." I installed the trial of Beyond TV, typed in my zip code, and I was basically done.

Then again, the next time I installed it after a reformat, it, Media Portal, and Sage TV couldn't find my tuner cards. GBPVR did.

A program like BTV is also limited. It can do more than TV with an add-on, but not very well, I don't think it has commercial skip, I don't think it can auto-transcode, don't think you can easily choose what decoders to use even if you want to, lots of programs can't use more than one or two tuners, I think MCE still requires an analog tuner card for setup unless you have Vista, you have to pay extra to hook to more TVs, etc.

Lots of the GBPVR how-to's are written as if everyone reading has at least general knowledge of the subject, and many don't. I think this is the greatest cause of problems. Searching the forums can make the process a lot simpler and easier, but that can also take a lot of searching, too.

I'm curious if any of the other common programs even use VMR. So many problems lately are all linked to moving forward with technology and people having to abandon Overlay. I scratched my head for days trying to get VMR/PVRx2 to do a normal tv-out from the s-video on my video card until finally reading an obscure reference somewhere that said even the newest video cards can't do full-screen video out without Overlay. Something like that isn't GBPVR's "fault," but it sure seems like it at the time.

The software that came with my Twinhan card is great for what it is. I haven't used it all that much, but when I do there is nary a problem. But there's no EPG other than for what the stations broadcast a couple hours ahead of time, no comskip, it's extremely slow at browsing recorded files, etc. It's great at just watching TV, is ok at recording based on time and channel, but that's about all it can do.

If GBPVR seems to have more user problems than other programs, a lot of those user problems are simply because GBPVR can do more and the options need to be setup for their location and specific use. It's not missing much other than maybe ease of setup. On that same note, for all the hype I read about MythTV's ease of use, every single post I've ever read from a non-Linux guru said setting it up was pure hell.

[McBainUK]

I dont think I've seen anything listed anywhere that I wished GB-PVR had. I would prefer GB-PVR did some things better though (just got to find the available time though....)

Care to name a few of these things?

[reven]

mediaportal has some really really nice animations and effects, it also has a really nice client/server setup (can access tuners from multiple servers).

vista has a nice menu overlay mode where the main menu can appear over videos (mediaportal does this aswell i think) - it also has the ability to configure vista completely in the MCE front end and via the remote (add new directories to your library etc, thats really handy).

sage has tipstir