Hi I'm looking into some PVR software for my computer. I have an ATI TV Wonder (PCI) and the software from ATI is nice for "watching" TV but not actually recording it. I would like to view the recorded shows on my computer but also have the ability to archive to CD/DVD. Several programs I have looked at have these abilities, but lack one feature or another I would like to have. Integration with an online guide and ability to have a "season pass" for a show are really high on my list of wants. Any ideas?
Ok. Since no one could help me, I took the liberty of trying out different software titles and posting this review of what I have found. First choice: [bold]SnapStream's Personal Video Station 3[/bold]: $49 (on sale); $99 regular. What I like: Probably closest to "tivo" like functionality. Integrates with an online TV schedule which is awesome for telling your software to record something while away from home (updates every 15 minutes from website). I can also tell it to record "all" episodes or "first run" episodes of shows I like. I haven't seen this in other software I reviewed. Recording is native MPEG2 with various quality settings. Viewing is cool because it includes nice shortcuts for skipping 30 seconds at time (ie, skip commercials) and it does include "pause live tv" ability which is a bit problematic. Stuff I didn't like: I don't like the web-style interface, although it is functional. Also, it seems a bit buggy when it comes to playback (at least on my system). Recording is fine, although I don't recommend recording in "fair" MPEG quality. Also, depending on quality settings, the pause live TV feature is problematic and generally isn't worth it (this has been a general observation of all software PVRs I have seen). Other cool stuff: I can 'stream' recorded videos or live TV to other computers on my network (I'm still playing with that feature). For my purpose of recording shows I wanted on DVD, this fit the bill the best. Other Software: [bold]WinPVR[/bold], this is probably my next of choice, but lacked the "record all episodes" feature I really wanted. Basically, it has a nicer interface and does integrate with an online schedule. There are other PVR software packages out there that include other encoding options like MPEG4 or DivX, but I wasn't familar with the company, or it just didn't support the other options I really wanted. I guess I can always re-sample my MPEG movies into another format if I really want to do that. Things to note: Not all PVR software will work on your system. I noticed one of my top choices would not work with the ATI TV-Wonder (at least it wasn't listed as supported). Even so, I still have issues getting stuff setup correctly. My experiences with converting the MPEG stream to DVD has been seen with issues as well, which I am still looking into. The software I reviewed assumed that you already had a TV tuner card or video capture card with a link to TV tuner or cable box of some sort. However, some companies are offering nice builtin PVR software bundled with a TV/capture card/USB device. Many of the websites I went to included such bundles with their recommended card or device. I hope this is helpful. I'll report on my DVD experiences as I have time.
Update on DVD aspect of the PVR experiment: Things I've learned. 1. It is a good thing to switch to Nero, Easy CD Creator, even with latest patches (version 5.3.x) is flakey at best on Windows 2000 with the Sony 500AX (at least on my system). 2. Using SnapStreams recordings in MPEG2 "good" quality or better works well. 3. I'm using TMPGEnc Author to write the VOB and etc from the MPEG2 files. 4. Some programs want to re-encode/reprocess the files which sometimes makes them huge and takes up unnessary time. I'm sticking with TMPGEnc for now. Once I convert the MPEG2 to VOBs and other files, I burn the entire directory structure AUDIO_TS VIDEO_TS XYZ.VOB...(more files) Using nero, I setup a Video DVD project and copy all the files from the VIDEO_TS directory to Nero's VIDEO_TS directory and burn away! Notes: I just ordered Pinnacle's Studio 8 to help with removing commercials and setting up chapters, I'll report later on how that goes. Enjoy.
Hi awesomejt, glad to see your postings; I've just this month installed a Hauppauge tv-dolby card and Snapstream 3, and a DVD/CD burner. I was hoping to be able to save movies to my hard drive and then burn them, as you seem to be having some success with... more than I am certainly. Can you tell me exactly how you use TMPGEnc to create a VCD, SVCD or DVD set of files (the VOB?) which can then be burned directly to a CD or DVD without having to use a special burning tool that encodes? I've had serious problems trying to get the MPEGs snapstream creates to burn properly or at all using NeroVison Express with the MP2 plugin for SVCD/DVD. When I can get a burn, the audio comes out too short (plays way ahead of the video, which looks great but So What?). The problem seems to be with the Nero transcoding. I'm new to this and getting kinda frustrated. Hope you can shed some light. Thanks, char
Actually, I've had luck with two approaches. TMPGEnc and Studio 8. With TMPGEnc, it is easy to import the MPEG file and proceed directly to creating the DVD file set. I attempted to set chapters or breakup the MPEG file into sections to remove commercials, but I got the audio out of sync. So far, I use TMPGEnc for going directly to DVD. If I want to edit the video, I start a Studio 8 project -- I usually don't have audio sync issues but it requires Studio to re-encode the entire file -- which takes 16+ hours for a 2 hour movie (on my system). Next I'll try a menu-less, unedited DVD project in Studio and see if it has to re-encode anything. It would mean 15 minutes vs 15 hours. I do burn in Nero, but don't need any plugins because it is basically a standard UDF DVD with a specific directory and file set. After using TMPGEnc, you should see a directory structure: (dvd-root) .AUDIO_TS (which is empty) .VIDEO_TS ...*.VOB ...*.BUP (etc) Just put these files and directories on the DVD. I've had good luck with Nero's wizard -- DVD Project -- Other DVD formats -- Video DVD Nero will setup the directories for you so all you have to do is drag and drop all the DVD files into the VIDEO_TS folder. I'm not spending much time creating a menu or anthing, just straight to video is fine. I have more fun when I work with Studio, but like I said it take MUCH longer to generate the DVD fileset. I'm playing with different settings in SS PVS3. Also monitor SS's discussion forums too. I gleam a little info from other folks on that forum.
I too could not find good information for copying movies from VHS to DVD. I looked a numerous guides and forum threads, but nothing seemed to match what I was looking for. I have an Aver TV card that seems to work decent (the software that came with it wasn’t much) and only about 50mb of free storage to work with. I finally settled on two approaches depending on the quality of the recording I wanted and the time I have to mess with the process.. If I want something fast then I use WinDVD Recorder and set the quality for ½ DVD. This creates an MPEG-2 file that I can author with TMPgenc DVD Author and burn with Nero. A process that takes about 4 hours to copy a 2 hour VHS tape from start to finish. If I want more quality I use Virtual VCR with the Morgan MJPEG codec to create 720X480 capture in AVI format that can be encoded with TMPgenc Plus, authored with TMPgenc DVD Author and burned with Nero. This process takes about 24 hours (2 recording, 18-20 encoding, .25 authoring, 1 burning) I’ve tried WinDVD Creator, MY Sonic, Spruce Up, and several others. Most took 10s of hours to produce mediocre results. You system may do better. Mine is not able to capture MPEG-2 with full DVD quality without dropping frames.
