PVR Update

My GBPVR box is still working well.

A couple of months ago, I picked up an Adaptec AVC-3160 dual TV tuner for under $100 on eBay. This has a USB interface, which worked well for me because my PVR box is a low-profile and only has one half-height PCI-E interface.

I ran into some issues when Tribune Media discontinued free access to their Zap2IT service last month which was providing Electronic Program Guide (EPG) information to my GBPVR. GBPVR forums have been active with discussions about possible replacements, but the easiest was to get a data subscription from Schedules Direct. What a bummer!

I've enjoyed being a PVR hobbyist, but when I add up all of the money I have spent on getting a PVR working, I definitely could have gotten a Tivo. It's also becoming pretty clear that the days of unencumbered analog cable tv are numbered.

In a related note, AT&T is gearing up to launch IP-based television in my area (Indianapolis market) and for the sake of simplicity, I'm probably going to go with TV, land-line phone and Internet from a single provider over a single pipe when that becomes a reality.

PVR exploits over Christmas

I fiddled with my PVR setup over Christmas and made some discoveries:

1. As much as I really, really want to use one of the Linux distros (KnopMyth, MythDora or from scratch) this is still more work than I wanted to put into it. I spent a couple of hours on the first two distros and installation wasn’t as trivial as I would have liked.
I should caveat that I’m using a small form dell box and I have a USB based Hauppage mpeg2 capture card.

2. I’ve used SnapStream in the past as a Windows PVR, and it is really great for what it does… but I have the following (minor) dissatisfactions with it and wanted to try something else:

• SnapStream costs money and I didn't want to pay for the version upgrade.
• SnapStream has limited functionality outside of PVR. (No weather, games, web browsing)

3. I'm a card carrying member of the evil empire. As much as I'd like to be a cool kid and and use the GNUest stuff, having a life outside of my nerd projects requires me to go with what I know. In this case, that's Windows.

4. Major contenders for the Windows PVR options were:

GBPVR http://www.gbpvr.com
MediaPortal http://www.team-mediaportal.com

I was initially leaning toward MediaPortal because it is open source (GBPVR=closed source) and appears to have an active developer community.

Unfortunately after about an hour with MediaPortal, I experienced some cludginess:

• When connecting to my set-top box with VNC, I couldn't see the MediaPortal application.
• Application would periodically and randomly lock up on me.
• Importing tv guide listings (via XMLTV) was non-trivial.

I went back to GBPVR and was able to get the basics of PVR functionality working in about 30 minutes.

GBPVR doesn't have the sexy skins and all the plugins that MediaPortal does, but so far it works as advertised and was easy to set up. I've also tinkered with some of the plug-ins and other utilities available on the WIKI section of their web site.

From here, future direction is:

• Rip DVDs into the Video library.
• Remote access to streaming video (a la SlingBox)
• MediaMVP clients for other locations in the house
• Emulators to play games without exiting the interface
• Set up my music collection

Some of the key components to making this all work were:

• Low profile video card to fit my Dell Optiplex GX520 mini desktop. I went with a Jaton card with an nVidia chipset. This one fits the PCI slot and has svideo and RCA output.
• Wireless keyboard/mouse - I did this rather than mess with the media center remote controls. The one I bought was pretty cheap but is working well so far. I got it from NewEgg.
• For capturing video, I'm using the Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-USB2. I had to go USB because I've already filled the single PCI slot in my GX520. So far it's working well versus the PCI cards. Hauppauge cards are a must (IMHO) because you need to do MPEG2 encoding at a hardware level, rather than forcing all that work onto the PC. The end result is recordings that are high quality and aren't jumpy.