GBPVR - Why You Did It - Wired News ?s

[Lucas_24]

I bought my first home about 3 years ago. Before we moved in, I bought 3 RIO recievers off eBAY. These are networked music players that play music files from a server. At this time, I had been using a satellite companie's PVR solution. 2 things started to happen, the hard drive on the satellite PVR was dying, so I could no longer depend on it, and I was also thinking of a way to distribute recorded media throughout the home like I was doing with my music. I was planning on taking a project like this on myself, but nowhere near the scale sub has taken it. I did not even know MVP boxes existed at the time. One day I say a post on /. about pvr's, I kept following the links and eventually found GBPVR. It did everything I was looking for and more. The only time I use the GBPVE from the PC is for testing, so for me, I chose this option because it allows a distributed system, I can watch half a show in the living room, and watch the rest in bed.

[jbyram2]

I like the feeling of accomplishment I get from doing it myself.

I can make it do whatever I want or need it to do, and can upgrade as much as I want (well, at least as much as I can afford ) I know of no prepackaged system anywhere that can control a digital receiver, an analog receiver, and an antenna rotator, like mine can.

The community here reacts immediatly to market needs. Need a web streamer? One was developed very quickly. How long would it take a corporation to do their market analysis, decide to pursue the opportunity, fund the development, plan the project, create the software, roll out the product, and support whatever bug fixes are needed? The speed and responsiveness of development of new plugins is amazing.

I don't have cable or satellite, so many prepackaged DVR systems wouldn't work and are more expensive. And have service fees.

By using MVPs, the visual impact near the TV is very minimal, and all programs are available at each TV. At $40 each, how could I resist?

[onestar]

I have sky+ (UK - pvr) but refuse to pay £10 month to keep it activated. I did start by using my video capture card to record the odd program (at 12G an hour), but then suddenly thought I wonder if there are any PC PVRs. And although I have spent far more in excess of £10 / month, and far more hours, I still think its worth it.

Why? A lot harder to quantify but I know its the right decision.

1. Control, I chose how it works
2. Flexibility of GBPVR
3. Expandability of the program and hardware
4. Video and music library
5. Multiple rooms (mvps)

I know the downsides are
simplicity of a sky+
recording 2 sky channels off one box
preventing channel changes during a recording.

[dazzyb2k3]

I initially started HTPCing around 4 years ago because I was intrigued by the possibilities that a living room PC could offer for the future, and I wanted the challenge and satisfaction of building something that can easily outstrip anything commercially available.

The reason I settled on GBPVR was quite simple - it's the only app which is stable and flexible enough to make extreme configurations usable in a 24/7 system. You only have to check the sigs of people on the forums to get some idea of the amazing hardware configurations that GBPVR can support. No other software can even come close to this level of functionality. This is entirely down to Sub and his superhuman efforts and the community which is second to none.

In addition to this, the wealth of addins, plugins and skins is staggering - it's a tweakers dream

[volksman]

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,7...=rss.index

Good stuff all round! DRM is evil! Fight the power!

[herbs]

Well one thing about living in the UK is that although you can have cable and satellite, we get 30-40 channels over the air (although no HDTV resolution yet) which is enough for me. When it does go HDTV hopefully DRM will not be included but we the USA bullying all other countries in following their lead I doubt we will escape unaffected.

[zen]

I stumbled into it. I picked up a PVR150 to copy a couple of VHS tapes to DVD for my in-laws. Then I started watching live TV on the PC while doing other stuff. Started looking at MythTV, but it would have meant running another PC in the house since a lot of software I run is WIN dependent. Looked around at Sage and Beyond and then was pointed at GBPvr. Installed it. And have been running it ever since (~4 months now).

Down side is that it has been an expensive project as now I'm up to 400Gb of disk, and at the rate I'm going now I'll be buying more in the fall. :-)

Thanks Sub!


Zen.