best PC tv software

bluefire7

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 29, 2004
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hey i wasn't sure where to put this post, so i figure this would be a good a place as any. i was wondering which software would be best to display tv on the pc in terms of quality and features. i'm not too crazy about the ati multimedia center...
 
Windows Media Center 2003? or Beyond TV? What operating system? You could go with MythTV too.
 
magnetik said:
You could go with MythTV too.
MythvTV is great once you get it setup. If you're interested in spending the time to do so, check out
this guide. You can also use it with other hardware since it uses linux and you can remove stuff you don't need.
If you don't want to spend the time, MCE 2005 is a good alternative, but it does require a somewhat hefty machine to run on.
 
KnoppMyth is great for beginner Myth users. also, I like sage for a windows app.
 
I have tried both and ultimatley went with the MCE2005 - Beyond TV has a free 21 day trial with full functionality so I would give that a try first.

Beyond TV is awesome and easy to set up - it's the only PVR software that worked with my ATI Remote Wonder out of the box. I used two ATI e-home wonder cards for the TV and a 9600 pro for the video. Since I have an all-in-wonder I could install the ati-dvd decoder as well.

BTV is the most Tivo like - and easy to configure (once you figure out how to get to the web console). The price is a bit steep (70 bucks) considering I can get MCE 2005 for 120 (basically getting BTV plus on OS for 50 bucks more :)). I had some issues with BTV where it would occasionally not record the sound on some channels and there was a tearing issue with playback using the ATI decoder

MCE2005 - it's a commitment since you have to do a new install, but it went fairly smooth for me. Once I had all the drivers and what not installed - I took it upstairs and attached my cable and my TV and boom I was off. (add 40 bucks to the cost of MCE 2005 becuase life is miserable without the remote and it does not work with the ATI Remote Wonder).

I have to say of the picture quality between the two - MCE is better (IMHO). BTV gave a "film like" apperance to all shows - even live video - no matter what config or settings I used. Not so with MCE and the picture is great. As far as options go on quality settings and what not - MCE is far less configurable (at least I have not found a place in it where I can create my own quality settings like BTV). The guide is really nice and will shrink the TV while searching (BTV hides the TV when you bring up the guide). Once nice feature in BTV that is not in MCE is configuring how you change channels. MCE changes channels on up and down and it's still a bit slow - BTV lets you configure it to not change the channel but will bring up a mini description and when you find a channel you want to check out you then can go to it.

what I really like about MCE is that it ties in to all the other MEDIA features (hence the name :) ) you can play internet radio, set up slide shows of your pics, play dvd's (if you have a dvd drive)..both allow you to move recorded tv off to a dvd+-r or portable media...

I have not had a crash with MCE2005 or missed any recordings - the no sound issue has not happened yet either. There are reports of MCE crashing coming out of sleep mode but I leave mine on 24/7. 143GB of disk space nets me about 53 hours of recording at best quality. One really nice feature of the MCE guide is you can display movies that are on now or coming on in the next two weeks (the guide's time span). It shows you the movie's poster in a thumbnail and you can sort them by genere (horror, fantasy, drama) star ratings, year..etc - click the ones you want and schedule them to record. Great for grabbing godzilla movies that air at 3:00 A.M. :) ..

BTV will work with an all in wonder - MCE will not needs a dedicated hardware encoder (or two) - BTV will let you use two encoders for the price of the app - additional are 20.00 extra per hardware (license cost not the cost of the extra hardware :) ). MCE will allow two encoders for analog and one additional HDTV encoder for a total of three.

All in all I really liked both but thought MCE2005 provided a better overall user experience and more out of the box features..with this and my time warner DVR downstairs I will never miss a show again :lol
 
From what little info you posted I'll assume you either have an AIW card or one of their other tuner cards, if so then yeah Dscaler or Beyond TV is probably the best you can do.
 
CrimandEvil said:
From what little info you posted I'll assume you either have an AIW card or one of their other tuner cards, if so then yeah Dscaler or Beyond TV is probably the best you can do.

That's probably the guy you want to listen to...taught me lots.

I still can't recommend Sage because of stability issues...I might give Myth or Beyond a try in a few wweks and tell u how it goes.
 
i still think it is strange that I didn't see any stablility issues with sage. I wonder if it has to do witht he java version on your PC. I am religous about doing updates on mine. I also didn't use sage for much more than recording TV.
 
Sage is really stable now, but it dosen't work with non-hardware decoders. You really need to have a higher end encoder to use it. Lets face it, AIW cards are nice, but they aren't exactly quality when it comes to TV.
 
k1114 said:
Sage is really stable now, but it dosen't work with non-hardware decoders. You really need to have a higher end encoder to use it. Lets face it, AIW cards are nice, but they aren't exactly quality when it comes to TV.

Agreed. That's why I got myself an Hauppauge PVR-250 :D Sage works fine to record, but the live tv function is buggy as hell for me. Guess that's god's way of telling me to buy a damn tv, right?
 
you can get em at newegg for about 50-60 bucks same thing as the haupage pvr-250 but much cheaper - got two for my MCE 2005 box - works great
 
oops! sorry for the lack of info. i've got an ati tv wonder pro, remote edition. i caved in and installed the software after going through several strange installation errors.. however i finally got it to work, but when i use the "best video quality" mode (DRASTICALLY improving quality), the sound lags about a second behind the video. :( now is it me or should my athlon64 3500 (currently running at 2.5 ghz) with 1GB of ram be able to handle non-laggy tv video? is there perhaps some sort of buffer i can enable?

btw, are any of the above mentioned programs free? i guess you can't get much for free these days anymore.. =P
 
media portal is not that user friendly yet. powerful, but take slots of tweaking.
 
IDversusEGO said:
media portal is not that user friendly yet. powerful, but take slots of tweaking.

I don't know about that. I'm a HTPC noob and I had it all set up in less than a hour(including cover art for both DVD and Music). Have you tried the latest versions? I was using the evaluation version af Sage and I found Media Portal to be just as user friendly.
 
I had issues with the tv portion. dvd part was easy. If you got TV working, feel free to educate me. I don't consider myself an HTPC noob, but I am no expert at all.
 
does anyone know any software that would work with a sony gigapocket recording card..my software wont record anymore and sony tech only says format so ive been looking for something that works and have come up empty handed

its a sony RS430G
 
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