Creative Labs Digital VCR is a hardware / software solution for TiVo (without TV listings). It has 1 tuner and can save MPG files to your harddrive... It allows for pause, rewind and all these types of commands. It also has hardware mpg compression for slower computers.
When I first thought it would be nice to have TiVo support on my computer I looked around at the different hardware. I read a review that praised the Digital VCR. I was hooked... but they where discontinued... what to do?
Well ebay was my answer. They where going for about 50 - 75 bucks on ebay. I waited for a few weeks and finally got one for 35 I believe. I thought it was a great deal... at the time.
I got it, installed it... And my system died.. chunked a long. Tried this... Tried that... Reinstalled the OS... Tried XP and it worked... But I had to download the drivers from the website to get XP to run... So I tried 98 with the new drivers and....well.... everything worked GREAT!
YOU HAVE TO USE THE DOWNLOADED DRIVER to get it to not lock up your computer and change channels. This is pretty amazing that something went out the door that didn't even basically work... Usually it fixes weird problems... But not instant obvious problems..
Now the real review can start.
The software was ok. You couldn't change the size but the given 4 resolutions. But I was ok with that. You did have full screen.
The picture was OK at best. I was going through a standard cable and the picture was a little more distorted then with a real TV. But it was watchable.
The recording was easy... but it didn't save in a standard MPG format. I had troubles getting most programs to read the file. I ended up using PowerDVD. The output was exactly as you see the normal tv.
I was also amazed at how little CPU time it was taking. With the hardware MPG converted your main CPU seemed to only be spending time displaying the image. This is probably why they have non-standard mpg and non-resizeable windows. Its too bad.
I then went out of my way to find a way to convert the save files to VCD (why I originally bought it..),... I read around and found that the only way to do it was to basically jump through hoops... TMPGEnc was really needed and saving to a specific format... But I gave up WAY before getting anything acceptable...
Then I started looking at better software.... And found NONE of them will use the Digital VCR because of the non-standard mpg compression chip.
Conclusion.. It was probably GREAT at the time it came out. When the average computer couldnt' handle MPG encoding and decoding without help. And before others started using TiVo as a normal day to day just for rewinds. But if you want to create a rewind / pause only with some limited saving on some old equipment you have laying around... This might be what your looking for.
Pros:
- Great on slow computers
- Hardware MPG
- FF / Rewind / Pause
- Not horrid software
Cons:
- Not even vagually usable without upgrading drivers ?? (scary)
- Not compatible with other software
- Save files not compatible
There are better solutions out there these days...
Posted by Anonymous on Jan 20, 2005 - 12:45 PM Your rating: I really need to rewrite my entire review... Why?
SageTV! (version 2.5 I believe.. 3 isn't out at the time I'm writing this)
Yes it supports it! Yes is works great!
It doesn't fully support it.. I haven't figured out whats missing at this point, but it seem that you only need to set the media format to overlay in one of the advanced menus (sorry at work). I believe this removes transparencies... but I don't have anything to compare it to.
but.. 10 minutes after installing the demo... I was off in the running. I had all my channels setup.. I was able to do all the PVR goodness all through this super old but still great video recorder.
NOTE:
1) I only have the demo and haven't decided if I want to spend 80 bucks or buy a card that works with public domain software. But the demo works great.
2) I haven't tried the remote control yet.
Anyway... If you have this card.. you should DEFINATELY download the demo for SageTV. The software is SO MUCH better then what creative supplies.
Posted by Anonymous on Jan 10, 2004 - 09:26 AM Your rating: One thing to add... MyHTPC seems to support it... I haven't confirmed it yet... but there is an addon that allows the remote to work with it... And I dont' see why they would add the remote support without support for the card itself.
Drake Woodring ... aka..Lilwolf...
Posted by Anonymous on Jan 09, 2004 - 01:51 PM Your rating: What you didn't find is that the creative software comes with a utility to make industry standard .mpg files from its save files. Also it is the only TV Card you can buy that has an integrated IR Blaster to change channels on your Satellite or Digital Cable box.
