BeyondTV to SageTV to GB-PVR

[MediaMVP]

Hello all. I am new to this group and have some questions regarding GB-PVR. My basic setup includes a Video Server in my office that has about 300 gigabytes of harddrive space dedicated to video recording, a Hauppauge PVR-250 Card (Comcast Cable - Analog Channels), AMD Athlon 1500+, 256 Megabytes PC-2100 DDR ram, Windows XP Professional, and currently using SageTV as my PVR App.

Out on my home entertainment center which includes a Mitsubishi 55" Diamond Series Hi-Def capable television, Hauppauge MediaMVP device, RJ-Tech DIVX capable DVD player, VCR, Comcast Digital Cable, etc.

When I first got started looking at PVR applications, I was taken by Snapstreams BeyondTV 3. I purchased the software and realized it wasn't what I was looking for (anyone want to buy a copy of BeyonTV 3 cheap?). The fact that it could not stream MPEG2 or DIVX across the network (only WMV) was a downer. ANd I had problems with recording...it just seemed to not record the programming that I asked it to record. So then I started looking at SageTV. I liked SageTV very much. The fact that it could stream MPEG2 video across the network to it's client on any PC was an excellent feaure. And from what I can tell, if you have the approproate codecs installed, you can literally stream just about anything.

Enter the Hauppauge MediaMVP device. I love this device...no noisy computer in the entertainment center. The only pitfalls with it is it currently cannot decode anything but MPEG-2 Video. If Hauppauge can write their code to transcode the video on the fly from the video server and play it through the MediaMVP, I think they'd have a winning device. I would have bought the Pinnacle Showcenter at three times the price of the MediaMVP, but not after reading the Pinnacle chat groups and all the problems people have been having with the Showcenter.

Ok, so I guess I should get to my questions. I have not settled on a PVR app yet (haven't purchased SageTV yet). I'm considering going with GB-PVR solely based on the fact that it supports the MediaMVP as a client. I would absolutely be willing to support the author of GB-PVR in any way I can if development for the MediaMVP continues. For those of you that have been using GB-PVR with the MediaMVP device as a client, how has it worked for you? Even more importantly, how does GB-PVR currently compare to other PVR apps such as SageTV? Does GB-PVR support features such as network streaming of video and intelligent recording? And finally, is it the author's intention to ultimately make this a commercially available product that will be available for purchase?

Appreciate the information and thanks for taking the time to read all of this.

Best Regards,
Chris Thompson
"MediaMVP"

[sub]

Comparisons with SageTV and BeyondTV are difficult. I probably dont compare well with either of those products - yet. GB-PVR was only started about 16 weeks ago, and very much as a part time project. These companies have a good year and half or more of a lead over GB-PVR.

I've not really got much in the way of intelligent recording, but these features will be added over time. I do allow you schedule season recordings, manual recordings, reoccuring weekly/daily/weekdays etc. I also recognize the MVP as an great piece of hardware, and I'll be adding lots new features in this area over the next few releases. Infact the release in the next few will add much better MVP support - you'll have to check it out to see.

Will this product eventually be a commercial product? I cant say it'll never be commercial, but at this stage its not my intention. I'm thinking about accepting donations, but if no one ever donates I may look at other options. I am putting a lot of effort into this project.

If you're looking for a flawless commercial quality application, you're probably better off with Sage or BeyondTV at this stage. GB-PVR is very much a work in progress, but has hopefully already shown some potential.

[MediaMVP]

Thanks for the reply. I'll have to just put myself into a wait and see mode. I'm really on the fence between your offering and Sage. I'd like to see a solution that better supports the MediaMVP and you're at least headed in that direction. Question, in your opinion, might GB-PVR and Sage TV co-exist on the same machine? I would probably be willing to go woth SageTV as my general purpose PVR app and support GB-PVR with a donation as a way to playback my SageTV material via the MediaMVP device with the enhanced interface. Note: I haven't had an opportunity yet to use GB-PVR or even see how it works with the MediaMVP, so I might be getting a little ahead of myself, but I've been quite pleased with what I've read thus far.

[sub]

The only problem with having both SageTV and GB-PVR installed, is if both try to use the capture device at the same time. There is no mechanism to ensure they dont try and record at the same time. If you only want to use GB-PVR to playback via the MVP, then there'll be no problem doing this while SageTV is running.

The current release was really the first to support the MVP. The next one has got a lot of improvements.

[box177]

I'll donate...
GB-PVR is the only to propose OSD through PVR-350 TV-Out and as a developper myself, I must congratulate you for this high-quality job in only 10-16 weeks.

[Guest]

As I have requested before, the only thing that keeps me from going to GB-PVR from beyond3 is the ability to control my direct tv rca receiver via the wired "dss serial tuner" capability. This means the ability to control the directv receiver via the com port wired to the "low data port". Beyond and sage currently have this feature and makes recording scheduling a breeze with this setup. I'm not talking about using IR devices. I hope this feature will be added soon.

[sub]

The next release can send channel change events to girder which could be setup to control you tuner. This is a best I could do with all the other things on the go.

I may end up implementing direct control in a later release, but more likely it'll be implemented by someone else when I make the SDK stuff available. Its almost impossible for me to implement without access to one of these machines. With no way to test it, it almost certainly wouldn't work.