Just asking is it worth the bucks?

[UnDeRDoGlive]

So is it worth it, money/time?

Thanks

[capone]

A Tivo is simple. This is an enthusists hobby. The control and vareity are worth it, but if you just want to record TV, buy a Tivo.

For the occasional hassle, I love it. It reminds me what used to excite me about computers and building something.

[sub]

Are you asking about GB-PVR in general or the MVP?

[Gameross]

Of course it's worth it! Tivo you have to pay a monthly charge and that alone makes it worth it. Who wants to pay for something forever. As a FYI, their onetime "lifetime" charge for TV listings is only for the lifetime of the machine. So, if the Tivo dies, you'll have to not only buy a new Tivo, but a new "lifetime".

I work overnights doing security where I'm allowed to bring my laptop. I record everything I end up sleeping through, copy it to my laptop and watch it at work. Lets see Tivo do it.

Also, I currently can record 2 programs at a time and with the addition of my new Hauppauge 500MCE, I'll be able to record 4 shows at once. Lets see TIVO be easily expanded like that.

My roomates and I can access the recording scheduler from our computers using the built in web interface and can schedule whatever we wish to watch as well as watch whatever has been recorded on our PCs. Lets see Tivo do that.

And this is only a couple of the things it's able to do. I'm not even using the Media MVP abilities, Weather, Radio, etc plugins.

Also, the computer that's do all this can still be used for browsing the web, playing games, etc while making/showing your recordings, etc. It's not some single function box like a Tivo.

[King Mob]

I have a TiVo, which I'm about to sell, now that I have GBPVR up and running. And while TiVo can now do some of the things the Gameross mentioned (downloading shows to your PC, scheduling from the web) GBPVR still blows it away, eveo if all you do with it is record TV.

It's much cheaper that TiVO. For less than the cost of an refurbished 80hr box and 1 years subscription (approx $255) You can set up GBPVR on two TVs in your home (appzox $70 for the 150MCE card and $160 for two MediaMVPs) And the two TVs are independant of each other, you can watch two different shows on each. You would need another TiVO box, and another subscription for that. All told, to set up TiVo on 2 TVs for a year would run you about $400, vs. $230 for GBPVR.

And an "80 hour" TiVO box will only hold 80hrs of programming if you record it at its lowest quality setting, which is horrible. For decent quality you have to use the Medium setting, which reduces the capacity of the box to about 58hrs. If you use the Best setting, which is Live TV quality, that goes down to 24 HOURS. GBPVR uses roughly 1GB for an hour of Live TV quality recording, so if you have 24GB free on your hard drive, you can match the capacity of an "80 hour" TiVo box right there.

Which brings me to the main reason I got GBPVR, the ability to archive movies and shows. TiVos fill up very fast when you're taping movies and sporting events, like I was, and once its full, it'll start erasing old shows. I would set it to tape movies I hadn't seen, but they'd get erased before I could get around to watching them. With GBPVR and a 250 GB HD (available for about $100 at newegg, refurbished) you can hold 100 hours of tv quality programming, plus a movie library of 100 movies in divx format.

Total cost for a 2 TV TiVo system for 2 years(maximum of 160 hrs max at poorest quality,48hrs at Live TV quality) = $640

Total cost for a 2 TV GBPVR system for the rest of your life(250 hrs of programming at LiveTV quality) = $320

Plus, like capone said, its just fun! It's not really that hard to set up, if all you want to do is record TV.