1.5.36 beta available (24th December)

[stustunz]

Finally Loaded Npvr
havent looked at since probably one of the first releases

Really like it lots of little things i wanted in gbpvr that i thought you were ignoring me on
ie The whats new now shows in progress recording, resume in tvguide

Thanks Sub didnt think i would like it this quickly

[time_lord]

Not officially, but only because I havnt got around to removing the word 'beta'. The reality is that the last couple of NPVR releases have been every bit as good as any previous GBPVR release, so doesnt really need the 'beta' tag more.

Sub, this sounds awesome - I've been waiting for npvr to be released from 'beta' so I can update my stable 'production' gbpvr system :-)
So where are we at with this release plus the need for patches? I.e I noticed a few posts back the advice to also apply patch xyz. Are all current known patches (eg those patches 1-24 in the 1.5.36 getting started thread) going to be rolled into the 'next' npvr, or will npvr always be 'most things for most people', and depending on individual setup, specific patches may need to be applied on top?
(If the latter, maybe I'll jump in after the next version is released?)

[johnsonx42]

I.e I noticed a few posts back the advice to also apply patch xyz. Are all current known patches (eg those patches 1-24 in the 1.5.36 getting started thread) going to be rolled into the 'next' npvr, or will npvr always be 'most things for most people', and depending on individual setup, specific patches may need to be applied on top?

I'm going to do that thing I do sometimes and answer for sub... I suppose as long as I'm right, he won't mind. There is only one build of NPVR. Except for the rare case of a special patch for testing purposes, all 'patches' released by sub are simply the current version of the code as it exists on his dev machine. Therefore anything changed by a patch in one version will be included in the next version as well, along with other improvements that aren't released as patches. Therefore again, everyone should install all the patches I post into the NPVR sticky - I never put in any patch that sub posts solely to test something for one user. That doesn't mean a patch couldn't break something that was working, but if it does it needs to be resolved - just going back to the release version simply means the same bug will be encountered with the next release (and this has happened).

As to whether NPVR is still 'Beta' or not, it's hard to say. For me it works better than GB-PVR ever did, but also still has more little bugs and incomplete features than GB-PVR. The shear number of patches for each release tells you that there are still a large number of loose ends. If you want to jump in, I'd say jump now - each new release seems to have it's share of initial problems, which get taken care of by patches so things are pretty stable until the next release. I think we're in that stable period now. About the only thing that would make me hesitate is if I were still running XP - it seems everyone with odd problems this release is running XP.

[time_lord]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply...

About the only thing that would make me hesitate is if I were still running XP - it seems everyone with odd problems this release is running XP.

Well that seals it for me then! Yes still on XP! I find it just so simple and easy to use as a home PC and PVR work horse, and don't see any benefit of Win7 over the extra resources it requires.
(And having had my share of customer troubles with vista [and thankfully a little less with win7], I still haven't got over that pain... I have become a Luddite ;-) )

[johnsonx42]

actually I find Win7 is faster than xp on reasonable hardware. Yes, it needs a bit more ram, but uses it much better than xp. When it comes to media, 7 is better than xp at just about everything. I wouldn't even consider running on xp anymore.

[NewUserIdAgain]

I'm a converted Luddite.

Tried to stick with XP for a long time. Worked well as long as I only was recording in mpeg2. Getting npvr to run on XP combined with H.264 and HE-AAC was a nightmare (at least for me). Moving over to Windows 7 made things much easier. Currently I use Microsoft decoders for everything except HE-AAC sound and it works really well. I'm no fan of Microsoft products but this upgrade to Windows 7 was money well spent.

[mian]

I think we're in that stable period now. About the only thing that would make me hesitate is if I were still running XP - it seems everyone with odd problems this release is running XP.

I've missed 6 months of apparently very active development. I just read through the changelogs of npvr (after scratching my head and asking myself, "what the heck is npvr?"). I hate to abuse your kindness to avoid reading through I don't know how many posts in their entirety, but how odd are the XP problems? I'll install npvr later on to test it out with some non-primetime recordings, but that seemed worth asking about.

I still have an old trusty plextor convertx (which records straight to divx) in my tuner rotation. No x64 drivers now or ever I imagine. Win7 has a free environment you can run xp32 in, and maybe I could still set up this one tuner there, but that would mean leaving psuedo-XP running always. It's such a great tuner, I hate to leave it behind, but I doubt I'd do myself any favors using 32 bit win7.

[sub]

I still have an old trusty plextor convertx (which records straight to divx) in my tuner rotation. No x64 drivers now or ever I imagine. Win7 has a free environment you can run xp32 in, and maybe I could still set up this one tuner there, but that would mean leaving psuedo-XP running always. It's such a great tuner, I hate to leave it behind, but I doubt I'd do myself any favors using 32 bit win7.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no support for the GO7007SB devices (Plextor Convertx) in NPVR.

[johnsonx42]

The Win7 virtual XP environment doesn't allow direct hardware access anyway, and the network access is virtualized in an odd way too which is incompatible with many apps. So just cross that idea off the list...

As to the odd xp problems, I'm not saying every xp user is having trouble. But it just seems there's a decent handful of users running XP where things were working ok in previous releases, and now suddenly in 1.5.36 they're havind odd problems no one running Win7 is having. At least one or two users have given in and upgraded, and reported much happiness.

[mian]

Thank you both. Better to know now than half-way through an overhaul though I anticipated the death of convertx support, I think you've even intimated its arrival before sub.

I guess that's one more reason, aside time, $ and energy, not to upgrade to 7 right now. I do love the option to record straight to divx, I wonder how much longer my tv402u (circa 2003) hardware will survive? For that matter, I wonder how much longer I'll be able to get analog cable.

I'll probably still toy around with nPVR some, cause I gotta have something to tinker with on the weekends.