best TV tuner software?

Dscaler...Pretty much that is the only decent alternative. I hate the Multimedia Center that comes with the ATI cards. The only thing lacking in Dscaler is the recording abilities.
 
I use BeyondTV...that seems to work very well, and also is compatible with most cards.
 
djnes said:
I use BeyondTV...that seems to work very well, and also is compatible with most cards.
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SUCKED! My audio and video were all out of sync. I tried figiting with every option available but to no avail. I hear good things about Chris's tv tuner program. Maybe I will try that next!
 
I have a couple of copies of SAGEtv (1 server and two clients) coming later this week (too bad my HTPC is still in pieces though) take a look at FFDShow too.
 
CrimandEvil said:
I have a couple of copies of SAGEtv (1 server and two clients) coming later this week (too bad my HTPC is still in pieces though) take a look at FFDShow too.
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Cool I'll look into both! Thanks :cool:
 
What card are you using? Link maybe? Is it software based or hardware based?
 
I've used far too many TV apps in the past year or so, mainly to replace my TiVo. Let me run them down and give you an idea of my thoughts on their pros and cons. This may or may not be what you want, since I concentrate mainly on the video recording (PVR) aspects.

BeyondTV (formerly Personal Video Station)
I purchased this one when it was still PVS with my ATI TV tuner (the low-end model). After a week or two, I promptly took advantage of their money-back guarantee. While I liked the interface for the most part, I found it cumbersome to set up recordings (you had to use an outside program/Web site), and the video quality was worse than other programs on the same card. The newer BeyondTV, though, has improved in certain areas, but it still loads and switches screens slower than others. The cost is around $60 - $80, depending on rebates, bundles, and the like.

SageTV
I downloaded the trial a couple of weeks ago, and liked it very much. It's Java-based so not everything is overly speedy, but I found it faster than BeyondTV. Lots of configuration options and easier to make changes than BeyondTV. The quality of the video and audio are excellent. I found it difficult, if not impossible, to exit to the system tray, though, and that was a major stumbling block for me. Also, it's not intutitive on where the "top-level" menu is, or if there even is one. I liked the idea of the SageTV clients, letting you watch recordings on other PCs. The cost ranges from $20 - $80 depending on the version of the software you get, and can be effectively cheaper if you bundle it with hardware.

Hauppauge's bundled software
I now own a Hauppauge PVR-250, and tried out the bundled software (I don't recall the name). The video quality was acceptable, if not on par with SageTV and BeyondTV. The recording options, however, were abysmal. There was no integrated program guide and you must schedule programs by start/end time and give them unique names (thus, Good Eats can't be all unto itself--you must set up individual recordings for 7pm, 9pm, 9:30pm, etc., and give them different names). The cost is free, aside from the cost of the hardware.

Intervideo WinDVR 3
The quality of the video was excellent, perhaps in the top 2 or 3 of all products. Recording was fairly easy, even though you have to go through an outside Web site program guide. It sits unobtrusively in your system tray when you're not using it and records reliably, letting you watch within the software or another media player (e.g., Windows Media Player). Unfortunately, the software was prone to crashing on occasion, and there aren't many options for tweaking the signal. The cost is $80, but may be free if it's bundled with hardware (like mine was, with an Adaptec product).

Freevo
A Linux-based TiVo replacement, Freevo was one that I tried only briefly so I won't comment much on it. I recall it installing fairly easily but I didn't go much into it. I include it here only for completeness. There is no cost.

MythTV
As I type this, my soon-to-be HTPC is compiling and installing MythTV under Gentoo Linux (yes, MythTV is another Linux-only product). MythTV seems to be one of the more mature, feature-complete offerings on the scene right now. It offers PVR capabilities, weather, RSS news feed reading, a MAME frontend, video/audio playback (including DVDs and DivX/XviD/etc. movies), and a handy Web serving component, which allows you to schedule recordings remotely. Since I don't know anything more than that (still compiling!) I also include it here only for completeness. There is no cost.

Conclusion
I think I'm going to like MythTV a lot since it's free and is constantly being updated. The only downsides are the long compile time (at least on a Gentoo system), the fact that it's on Linux (thus isn't as easy to install as Windows products), and the myriad required software packages (Qt, Apache, MySQL, PHP, ivtv, lirc, and many more).

On the Windows side, I really liked SageTV. Second was probably BeyondTV, and then Intervideo WinDVR 3. The Hauppauge software was only useable for occasional TV watching.
 
Sage only works with hardware based cards so if you dont have a pvr250 or better look elsewhere. in its defense going hardware only makes it so quick and relatively light weight on resources too.

and to exit to the systray all you need to to is disable the screensaver in sleep mode.
 
Ryokurin said:
Sage only works with hardware based cards so if you dont have a pvr250 or better look elsewhere. in its defense going hardware only makes it so quick and relatively light weight on resources too.

and to exit to the systray all you need to to is disable the screensaver in sleep mode.
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Mine is hardware based I believe. The ATI Tv Wonder VE. It just wont show up.
 
Hardware encoding (likethe PVR250/350) means that the card has a processor onboard to handle the encoding of the video stream, leaving you CPU free to do other things.

Software encoding - means there is no onboard processor and that the CPU must handle the encoding process along with everything else (Windows, Internet, USB, etc)

Basically software encoding = high cpu usage
hardware encoding = low cpu usage

Regarding MythTV -

I have used mythtv before and I did like the way it looked. That being said there are some flaws that make it almost impossible for a Satellite TV subscriber to use. #1 USB-UIRT is no supported. So while MythTV can receive an IR signal, it currently does not have the capability to transmit it, so how would you change the channels? Also unless you are a linux guru (I consider myself an intermediate user, no where near a guru) you wont know how to tweak certain applications for better viewing.

MythtTv is currently leaps and bounds above other PVR apps, just be prepared to spend lots of time F***ing with it.
 
But you have to use Linux ;)
With a 250 series card you will see something like 2-5% CPU usage, I'd be suprised if you see less then 40% with software encoders.
 
hi! I have an MSI VOX USB 2.0 analog tv tuner which is apparently a software tuner. I was wondering what the best software is to watch tv with. I dont want to use intervideo, and anything else will do as long as it reasonably simple to use. I am running windows Vista and it seems that DScaler doesnt work for me. neither do GotAllMedia or SageTV.

any ideas?
 
Flagg said:
Regarding MythTV -

I have used mythtv before and I did like the way it looked. That being said there are some flaws that make it almost impossible for a Satellite TV subscriber to use. #1 USB-UIRT is no supported. So while MythTV can receive an IR signal, it currently does not have the capability to transmit it, so how would you change the channels? Also unless you are a linux guru (I consider myself an intermediate user, no where near a guru) you wont know how to tweak certain applications for better viewing.

MythtTv is currently leaps and bounds above other PVR apps, just be prepared to spend lots of time F***ing with it.
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My first mythtv setup was using directv (before I moved and could get cable with a firewire out). It is quite possible to setup a myth box to use an IR blaster. In fact, I think that there are some USB IR blasters supported, but at the end of the day, the easiest and most straightforward way to change channels on a directv box is one of two ways:

1. (easiest) If the DirecTV box has a serial port on it, use a null modem cable and point lirc to the tty for the serial port that you're connected to on your mythbox and off you go. I've never used this method, but from what I can tell it is the fastest and most reliable.

2. Use an IR Blaster connected to a serial port. I bought two of them from irblaster.info for ~$12 each, and they served me very well. In fact, they're not in use, so if you want me to send one your way I will. Setting this up was a little bit tricky, and it's been a while since I've messed with it, but on my gentoo box I hand compiled a second instance of lirc and renamed it to ledxmitd instead of lircd. From there, I just made a ledxmitd.conf (same thing as lircd.conf) that contained the IR codes for the Hughes GAEBO satellite reciever that I was using. I'll google around a bit and see if I can dig up the info that I was using. I know that it's also possible to do this with a single instance of lircd also.

Good Luck, and have fun with Mythtv. It is, in my (skewed) opinion, the greatest PVR app ever.

-q
 
I personally found Chris TV to be a good app. I use KMplayer now. It takes a bit of configuring but it works well. KMplayer is my favortie for now. I used ATI's app for a while but they are so buggy and you have to learn trick to get them to install and this app with those driver and this WDM..it's a mess. I was using that so I could play with Picture in Picture.

good luck..
 
i have been using beyondtv and beyondmedia for about a year now... and i really like it.

I have 4 Client (link) machines and 1 server with 3 tuners in it and 1.5TB of space

you no longer have to go to a website to setup recordings... it is done in the program guide or just by hitting the little round red circle on your remote :)

I have found that its conflict management (when there are more TV shows set to record than available tuners) is really good. it searches to see if one of the shows is being aired later and then moves the recording time... really nice.

it also will record into mpeg and then auto convert it to wmv or divx


myth and sage give it a run for its money but i have found it powerful and user friendly. my 50 year old mother can use it... and my 9 year old sister

if you audio and video are out of sync i would be you have an older or cheap card that doesnt do hardware encoding...

you are not going to get good performance with a software card... no matter what software you use.

JMO
 
I like mediaportal. Initially I had problems, but now that I've messed with it and use the SVN builds it's really neat. My friends love the plugins that let you stream movie trailers and music videos from yahoo straight to the TV, its cool as fuck.
 
I have to disagree with the user who said BeyondTV recording setup was cumbersome..... there is a web interface that you can use to setup recordings, but I didn't even discover it until I had been recording through the main interface for a week or so.

Recording the the menu is so easy.... a caveman could do it.

I think BeyondTV is a great app overall, but I will agree, that it is slow to change channels on my DirecTV receiver over serial... but I have a feeling that's more because of the serial connection than anything else.
 
gr0m45 said:
I have to disagree with the user who said BeyondTV recording setup was cumbersome..... there is a web interface that you can use to setup recordings, but I didn't even discover it until I had been recording through the main interface for a week or so.
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i think he was saying to was the only way a couple years ago when he tried it
 
I really like my MythTV... specifically, MythDora on my dedicated PVR box. Just a cheap little Sempron 2800 with a Happauge 150, but it works very well.

I also tried KnoppMyth, but found MythDora much friendlier and more usable (on the 'innards' of the system). KnoppMyth had no web browser built in (well, Lynx, but that doesn't really count these days ;) ). So that made it difficult to manually find and download info/patches. MythDora has Firefox, so browsing is supported right away.

The MPEG2 files that are created transcode and burn easily to DVD.

Admittedly, I probably installed the system 15-20 times before I got things "just right". My biggest issues were an unfamiliarity with Linux, and a xfx 6200 AGP card that simply did not work with the nVidia binary drivers. It got replaced with a 5200 AGP card, and that works perfectly.

I built my own IR receiver to hook in to the RS232 port, and use Lirc and an old universal remote I had laying around. After setting up the Lirc config file, it works great.
 
Also should be noted that SageTV is more extensible than any of the other solutions.
 
Ok, now I have *too much* info and must try all to see which one I like! :D

Which one's are cheap or free?
 
I like Sage TV, but my god it takes forever to change channels. I've been using the PowerCinema 5 trail, and like it except for no EPG for the US. :eek:
 
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