A Non-Techie's Adventures with Computer-Based PVRs
Published May 08, 2006
My Choice: Beyond TV
I tested Beyond TV for its 30-day free trial, and it was love at 30-days' sight. It's generally intuitive both to set up and use, though there are quirks and the help files are a bit spotty. Still, with some determined fiddling, I managed to discover how to watch a show without it being squished into a tiny, distorted rectangle in the centre of the screen.
The SnapStream guide allows you to view the programming grid and select shows to record at the click of a button - either single episodes, all episodes, or just new episodes. The padding can be adjusted, so the system will record however many minutes you specify before and after the scheduled start and end times of the show, but you're at the mercy of the programming grid. I attempted to record the Oscars (I know, but I'm an awards show junkie), and completely forgot that everyone but TV listings compilers know the show always goes long. I hear Crash might have won, though.
The ability to set priorities means if there's ever a scheduling conflict, you have already decided which show is recorded over another (you can set up it up to record two or more shows at a time, but you need additional tuner cards). You can search for programs by title or keyword, and set up recordings remotely through an Internet-based login.
With my tuner card, I can only record in MPEG-2 format, but there is a setting (ShowSqueeze) that will automatically convert recordings to AVI or Windows Media format and either save or delete the original, saving space on the hard drive. Another optional setting (SmartSkip) inserts chapter breaks that allow you to skip easily (though not always perfectly) over commercial breaks.
Another Choice: Sage TV
Sage TV ($80) has a 14-day trial period as opposed to Beyond TV's 30-day trial, but I didn't need the whole two weeks to make the decision in favour of Beyond TV. They both have much the same capabilities, though Sage actually has the edge with additional features - but they are features I didn't want. The extra $10 for Sage TV isn't hugely significant, but it didn't add any value for me.
The biggest issue - and I recognize it's not that big — was that when the Sage viewer is not full screen, I couldn't read the menu text. Instead of distinct icons, all I saw were a series of identical bars. There are probably keyboard shortcuts I could learn, but Beyond TV had made it too easy for me with clear onscreen menu options, and I didn't want to struggle with something less user-friendly and more expensive, whose added functionality I didn't want.
Diane is a publications manager who's addicted to television, movies, and books and justifies her pop culture obsessions by writing about them for Blogcritics. She also runs the TV, Eh? website, a compilation of news and information about Canadian television series.
- A Non-Techie's Adventures with Computer-Based PVRs
- Published: May 08, 2006
- Type: Review
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Computers, Sci/Tech: Software, Video: Television
- Writer: Diane Kristine
- Diane Kristine's BC Writer page
- Diane Kristine's personal site
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Great little article; I am a techie, but I must confess I'm not much of a videophile. I've been using BeyondTV for over a year now, and I love it. In fact, I love it so much that I bought a DVD player with network capabilities (Avel LinkPlayer2) in order to stream my recorded tv shows to my real tv.
It would have probably been easier to just buy a Tivo, but the nice thing is I can watch my recorded TV shows in my office, on my TV, or even over the Internet (using ORB). I'm currently in Canada, watching a show I recorded last night off my home PC (located in Atlanta, GA, USA).
Biffle, I'm not sure if it was courage or obliviousness, but it was more intimidating to think about setting up than to actually set it up. There were some challenges but it wasn't all that difficult once I decided to avoid the open source/free versions that didn't have dummy-proof documentation.
Stu, I didn't know such a thing existed (DVD with network capabilities). I don't need one, though. I don't. Really. Hmm, let me go Google them ...
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Personally I use SageTV and it's by far the best PVR/Media Center software out there. It's the only one with Placeshifting that lets you access your content from anywhere you want. I also love the media extenders, they're a nice low-cost way to get my SageTV on the 3 different TVs in my house. I tried SnapStream, but it was too unstable and they also heavily censor their forums which made me uncomfortable with them as a company. And SageTV also supports Linux. :)
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I must say that I admire your courage for diving into this stuff. I've worked with computers for many years, many decades, and I've been active in multimedia, audio and video, even earning money at it, and I'm still intimidated by some of the hardware/software frailties. Although I have 2 computers setup for my experiments in multimedia, for everyday TV (HDTV) watching I use Set Top Boxes (STBs) instead of PCs. Even my PVR is a STB (LG 3410A) which works flawlessly and uses the free TV Guide on the PBS OTA signal.