Music & Video Server Suggestions

[Billy Welsh]

What are you guys using for DVR functionality on a PC?

My Tivo is really long in the tooth, and while I love that functionality I do not like the annual service fee to basically get a program guide.  And I have no interest at all in renting one from the cable company.

[Jeff Golas]

I think I use 196K...again not the greatest...but good enough.

Jeff

(I have Itunes rip as MP3, not as AAC. I'm half deaf so its fine by me)

I use iTunes to rip to mp3's also.   The quality is good as long as you use a high enough bit rate.   Far too many people use 128bps and that has given mp3's a bad rap.  A few years ago a computer magazine gave a blind test to a number of musicians and audio experts.   They could not tell the difference using high end studio equipment from original recordings, FLAC lossless rips and mp3's of 256 vbps.

[Mark]

What are you guys using for DVR functionality on a PC?

My Tivo is really long in the tooth, and while I love that functionality I do not like the annual service fee to basically get a program guide.  And I have no interest at all in renting one from the cable company.

Not sure what's around today, but when I wanted to do this years ago, I was looking at MythTV.

[Gene Foraker]

What are you guys using for DVR functionality on a PC?

My Tivo is really long in the tooth, and while I love that functionality I do not like the annual service fee to basically get a program guide.  And I have no interest at all in renting one from the cable company.

Like Mark, I looked into it earlier, but haven't jumped yet. 

Lots of considerations and complexity exist there.   DRM (Digital Rights Management) or copy protection has really mucked things up.  Lots of products are only compatible with Windows XP or at most Windows 7 because of increased DRM in Win 8.  Some also recommend Microsoft Windows Home Server.  How do you receive your TV shows?    Do you get and want to record any premium scrambled channels? There are plenty of cards which will record unscrambled QAM signals (over the air) or in the clear channels form your cable service.  To get premium or even most HD channels which are scrambled from your cable provider will require either a device which uses a cable card decoder from your cable company or uses an IR blaster to change channels on your cable box and go through it.  Because of DRM, these recorded shows can not be burned to a disk or copied, just played on your TV like with a regular DVR.   If you want to record an HD signal and avoid copy protection, you would need to use component cables and not HDMI sources.  These cards exist and are completely separate from tuner cards and component is limited to 1080i and not 1080p.

The two biggest manufacturers I know of today are   http://www.hauppauge.com/ and http://cetoncorp.com/.  There are lots of good reviews of their products on Amazon with tips on using them which are not as clear on the company web sites. 

[Jeff Zylstra]

Wow.  A lot of response for what appears to be a "hot" topic.  I'm getting a good education.  Anyone have any experience or recommendations between Slingbox, ROKU or others for streaming content?  It would be nice to have one device to stream both music and DVDs, but not if there's a good reason to do separate devices.

[Jeff Golas]

Back when I watched TV...I used Snapstream/Beyond TV.

For those who were asking about what to use for a STB...there's tons of great and cheap options, but if you like to tinker or do it DIY, an install of XBMC on a Raspberry Pi ROCKS and it works GREAT.

Loop up "OpenElec" for a SD card image  you can just download to an sd card, pop it into a $35 raspberry PI, plug it in, and boom you're on. If your TV has a "maintenance" usb port, you may even be able to use that to power the Pi.

And one really cool feature of it is that it supports CEC - or basically the sending of remote control signals via HDMI, so you can just plug it in and use your TV remote to operate it.

Jeff

What are you guys using for DVR functionality on a PC?

My Tivo is really long in the tooth, and while I love that functionality I do not like the annual service fee to basically get a program guide.  And I have no interest at all in renting one from the cable company.

[Joshua Conner]

I tried mythtv 4 years ago never could get it to work just right. 

[Jeff Golas]

I meant to mention, that although you'd have to get creative with a USB hard drive...I *was* able to plug in a USB tuner into the Raspberry PI running Openelec, and with a few clicks, was able to tune in HDTV. It..just...worked. Very impressed.

[Mark]

I tried mythtv 4 years ago never could get it to work just right.

Never tried it, just always wanted to.  Liked that you could get a guide subscription or whatever you want to call it.

Forgot about XBMC, too.