http://www.byopvr.com/ Build Your Own PVR en-us http://www.byopvr.com/images/logo.gif http://www.byopvr.com/ rampy@byopvr.com http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=686 From the SnapStream blog The Hauppauge HD PVR “in the lab” at SnapStream Since there’s been some excitement about the upcoming Hauppauge HD PVR product, I thought I’d share some photographs of Hauppauge’s new product “in the lab” here at SnapStream: see pretty pics of the prototype hauppauge HD PVR unit http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=685 Wow... just wow! http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/hd_pvr.html Finally an easy way to record HD program on to your PC using your satellite set top box or digital cable STB. HD PVR is the world’s first High-Definition video recorder for making real-time H.264 compressed recordings at resolutions up to 1080i. HD-PVR records component video (YCrCb) from cable TV and satellite set top boxes, with a built-in IR blaster to automatically change TV channels for scheduled recordings. Audio is recorded using AAC or Dolby Digital. more delicious product shots over at SHSpvr's hauppauge forum also see engadget coverage of the HD PVR Thanks to miller for the heads up! http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=684 SnapStream is looking for people to beta test ipod/iphone integration with BeyondTV from the blog entry: "You may have read recently that iTunes is not going to have NBC programming starting with the fall season. This would be a disaster for all of us iPod/iPhone users if it weren’t for the Beyond TV 4.7 Beta that has the capacity to automatically transfer shows into iTunes compatible formats. 4.7 has a plugin that allows recompression to the h.264 format and an rss feed (aka podcast) that makes getting shows into iTunes automatic (which then can automatically sync recordings to your iPod video, iPhone or Apple TV). Available today, we have a public beta of the upcoming 4.7 release that includes many other sweet new features as well. To download this release, you can join the beta program by signing up at http://beta.snapstream.com" http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=683 Via Slashdot: Linux.com compares 3 MythTV centric linux distributions (KnoppMyth, Mythdora, & MythBuntu ) "The piece looks at Mythdora, Mythbuntu, and KnoppMyth, with an eye towards ease of installation and the actual utility of the install. From the article: 'For regular system maintenance, KnoppMyth simply isn't in the same ballpark as MythBuntu and MythDora. The live CD heritage of Knoppix means you cannot update individual packages, which is fine if you like that, but for an always-on system like a MythTV back end, I'd prefer flexibility and configurability of a mainline distro. When all is said and done, if I were building my TiVo replacement today, I would do it with MythDora. " http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=682 Vista View has announced that they will be releasing the Saber DA-1N1-e PCIe dual tuner card this week. The Saber DA-1N1-e is a combination ATSC (digital/HDTV) tuner and ViXs chip hardware encoded analog tuner. From the press release: Vista View introduces the Saber DA-1N1-Etm PCIe Combo tuner card. This tuner combines the best Analog tuner technology with the best Digital tuner technology. This PCIe tuner card is the almost twin sister of the Saber DA-1N1-I, introduced in mid July. Both cards give you 2 tuners, 1 Digital and 1 Analog, on one card. On both cards the Analog portion has a high quality ViXS hardware encoder and both are Vista certified. The main difference is that the Saber DA-1N1-E has a PCIe interface and is ATX height. With this addition to the Saber line customers can choose PCIe or PCI and still have the same great quality combo tuner choices." Read the rest of the VistaView Saber Press Release... http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=681 via engadget: "DVR" added to Merriam-Webster dictionary "These are just a few of the 100 words adopted by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for its Eleventh Edition. The publisher's announcement Wednesday also included long-time tech jargon DVR (digital video recorder)... http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=680 PCalchemy is giving away an Apple iPhone! From PCAlchemy's newly launched newsletter "From time to time we will be announcing some great giveaways. We figured we would start things off with a bang and announce a drawing of a brand-new unopened 8GB iPhone. To qualify you simply need to make a purchase from pcalchemy.com between the dates of 7/1/2007 and 7/15/2007. The iPhone will be shipped UPS Next Day Air on Monday 7/18/2007, so some lucky person will be receiving a free 8GB iPhone on the 19th." So if you were planning on picking up a few odds and ends for your pvr, this might be a good week to do it. :D http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=679 Saw the bad news on Zap2It Labs via Slashdot: Zap2It Labs Discontinuing Free TV Guide Service For several years we have offered a free TV listings service to hobbyists for their own personal, noncommercial use. In October of 2004 we posted here an open letter saying the future of Zap2it Labs was at risk because of certain growing misuses of the Zap2it Labs data. Unfortunately this misuse has continued and grown. These misuses, combined with other business factors have led to the decision to discontinue Zap2it Labs effective September 1, 2007. We thank those users who have honored the terms of the agreement, and we suggest you consider the many TV listings options offered by the commercial licensees of TMS TV listings data. discuss the Zap2it Labs free tv guide data closing in our forum. It'll be interesting to see what comes to replace this market need for guide data for Mythtv and other free PVR/HTPC software. UPDATE: Discussion of what this means for GBPVR in the GBPVR forum. There's a lot of smart people in the byopvr/HTPC community, I'm sure we can figure out *something* to keep the free PVR software train rolling. http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=678 ATI is shipping Radeon HD 2400 & HD 2600 with HDMI/HDCP Goodness "Both cards will also include the company's Unified Video Decoder (UVD), are based around a 65-nanometer chip, and will support HDMI and HDCP." http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=677 BeyondTV gets a mention in the grey lady! "Q: Q. Is it possible to plug in a TV cable to my computer and use it like a VCR to record programs? A: A. In most cases, you just need a TV tuner card for the computer and a program to do the recording... ...Some cards include their own recording software, but programs like SnapStream’s Beyond TV (www.snapstream.com) give TiVo-like powers to your Windows PC. You can also buy the Beyond TV software bundled with a compatible TV tuner card if you haven’t made the hardware purchase yet." NY Times Technology Q & A section (silly mandatory registration required: use bugmenot.com to bypass) http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=676 "There comes a time in a homeowners life that he realizes the importance of being able to play full high-definition content from his neighbor's house 5 doors down… wirelessly. Never mind the fact that getting the needed 20mbit sustained wireless connection for HD inside of a single house is difficult. The prospect of playing Music, DVDs and even full resolution HDTV between houses is just too tempting. " You can read the rest of the story on how they did it over at the SnapStream Blog article Watch HDTV anywhere in the neighborhood (AKA: House to House wireless network for HDTV) It's about two guys here at SnapStream and their adventures setting up cross-neighborhood wireless network so they could watch DVDs and HDTV (recorded with Beyond TV, natch) from each others houses. http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=675 SnapStream releases BeyondTV version 4.6.1, now with unencrypted QAM goodness! Some exciting improvements (release notes): - Library monitoring and performance improved. - HDHomeRun (ATSC and QAM support) now supported. - Serial tuning for DirecTV D11 Model 500 now supported. Don't know what the heck "unencrypted QAM" is good for? Ask about it in our HDTV DVR topic forum :) http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=674 W00t! BeyondTV Release Candidate 4.61 has unencrypted QAM support and they could use your hand testing it. That's awesome! I'm totally getting an HDhomerun now. For those that are saying "Unencrypted QAM, huh? What?!" You cable company often provides local HD channels that aren't "scrambled" and a QAM enable ATSC/HDTV tuner can decode the digital signal and you can record/watch local HDTV channels. This doesn't help with pay HDTV channels like ESPN, HBOHD, HDNET, etc... you'd need a cablecard for that, but it's still handy if you like HD content but are on a budget :) http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=673 The always insightful Cringely speculates on Apple's H.264 encoder/decoder plans " Now comes the rumor I have heard, that I believe to be a fact, that has simply yet to be confirmed. I have heard that Apple plans to add hardware video decoding to ALL of its new computers beginning fairly soon, certainly this year. Why Apple would do this is fairly clear to me, but first let's clarify what I mean by hardware video decoding, because it isn't implicitly the MPEG-2 format used in present-day DVDs. I'm not saying Apple's video-decoder chip won't also decode MPEG-2 (it may or may not -- I simply don't know), but the chip's primary codec is H.264, which is at the heart of both Apple's QuickTime software and its iTunes video downloading service." http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=672 BeyondTV 4.6 released with Vista Compatibility & divx place shifting (release notes linked) Thanks G808 for the heads up I'm in an internet cafe in costa rica so this news story's brief... I'll be back soon! -- rampy http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=671 FAQ: What about Vista support for Beyond TV? Answer: "Beyond TV 4.6, the successor to Beyond TV 4.5, will begin shipping very soon now and, among other things, it will contain a broad set of fixes that make Beyond TV fully compatible with Microsoft Vista. And like other point releases, it will be a free upgrade for existing Beyond TV 4.x users" http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=670 BeyondTV Blog about giving BeyondTV a new look with community designed skins/themes (download them here) "The other day I realized that while we weren’t looking, the community had gone and created a bunch of extremely cool skins for Beyond TV. I think i'm partial to blue-ish hued dolphins theme :) It's always cool to see what the community comes up with and how they share their hard work with others. http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=669 Network HDTV Quality Tested "The State of the Union address last night was a snoozer, but we HDTV gearheads had fun jumping between the networks, checking out which net was able to deliver the best HDTV signal from lens to screen. This was a notable occasion, because all the networks were using precisely the same feed—the same cameras, same everything—where the only difference was between the Capitol pool feed and the viewer. We took an HD gander at NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and HDNet, to see who delivered the crispiest, most colorful and most gorgeous HDTV signal of all." this is another pet peeve of mine (besides DRM, arg!) HDTV content that's handled poorly or compressed down somewhere along the chain... (either that or my TV is a PoS!) http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=668 Malbec in our forum pointed out a very interested sagetv forum thread about a CES announcement by SageTV It looks like a pretty cool HDTV full sagetv network client is on it's way Think of it as being like a HiDef MediaMVP with full sagetv menus. http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=667 VidaBox announced HD Vista media center systems with CableCARD are slated to ship March 2007. Continuing to be at the forefront of crystal clear and life-like video/audio playback, VidaBox CableCARD systems are engineered to allow a user to record two HD shows while playing back a third pre-recorded show, Blu-ray, HD DVD, high fidelity music, upscaled DVD, or digital picture slideshows. High definition content recorded from CableCARD can also be streamed and played back on connected XBox 360 systems. Hat tip to Steven C and PVRwire Gizmodo and Miller started a conversation on this in our forum regarding vidabox and cablecard PVRs in the future Full press release continued after the fold http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=666 HowTO:Recording Cable HDTV on a Mac via FIREWIRE "After a little research, I found that any Firewire-equipped Mac can be made into an HD-PVR for unencrypted content at the expense of an appropriate firewire cable. Apple even provides the necessary capture software that you need, provided that you know where to look." irecord gui for Mac/OSX firewire digital cable recording Hat tip PVRwire http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=665 TVease outlines the differences between MythTV and Windows MCE2005 side by side... of course they offer prebuilt MythTV systems so take it with a grain of salt, BUT it's a nifty/helpful little set of comparison screenshots Below is a side by side comparison of similar screen shots from MythTV and Windows Media Center. I choose the MythTV skin that most closely resembles Windows Media Center, though I personally like the Project Grayhem skin the best. Hopefully this will help you decide which one you want to use. MythTV is free open source software that runs on the free Linux operating system. Using MythTv will considerably reduce your build cost because you won't need to pay for a Windows Media Center license. Also, Linux offers outstanding performance. You can use an older CPU and less memory, further cutting costs. http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=664 With all these HDTV and movie download services we'll need more hard drive space Hitachi Introduces 1-Terabyte Hard Drive Monster of monster cable fame getting into HTPC media center market PVRwire roundup of CNET PVR related CES videos Sirius to add satellite video to services Questions and answer about AppleTV the artist formerly known as iTV AMD has this whole new AMDlive media/streaming initiative thingie, which if you understand what it is, let me know... probably as useful a marketing term as "centrino" and "viiv" Xbox 360 IPTV hands-on: engadget gizmodo xbox360 IPTV handson Sony Vaio TP1 roomba looking media server http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=663 You can get your digital HDTV cake but NOT eat it... Windows Vista Media Center CableCARD DRM & Vista unable to stream, convert CableCARD media "users who prefer to roll their own Media Center box (like yours truly) will be left out of the option entirely -- support will only be available for CableLabs certified boxen, which home-rolled are, of course, not. Now we come to find out some even worse news about CableCARD and Vista: not only will you not be able to re-stream your high def media to other Windows machines (sorry, Vista capable Media Center Extenders only, i.e. the Xbox 360, and not much else), you won't even be able to transcode and sync to your PMC or other devices" Engadget also has a look at the ATI's TV Wonder Digital Cable (CableCARD) Tuner hands-on http://www.byopvr.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=662 ATI announces two CableCard tuners "ATI's new TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner is an OCUR (Open Cable Unidirectional Receiver) tuner, meaning it can accept CableCard signals and send them to your computer. Like the CableCard slots in the TiVo Series3, OCUR devices can accept digital cable signals, but cannot send, meaning you can't get advanced features like video on demand. But you can record (HDTV) shows in Vista Media Center without a cable box and IR blaster."