If you had to chose which PVR software

[Dominick]

Between Beyond TV or Microsoft media center what would you get?

[Neuromancer]

Vista Media Center

I played around with a few (no PVR YET... another week or two) but for all around media center duties, Vista's Media center can't be beat for functinoality and performance IMHO.

I liked media portal, but once you start adding files to the database.. waiting 3-5 minutes for the app to be functional was too much for me.

[Dominick]

I used mediaportal but OMG I could not get 5.1 for TV channels then I dont know what I did but I lost voices for DVDs all I could hear was all the background sounds.

Not sure if it is because I am using the on board sound card or what but I had the on board sound set to 7.1 because I have a 7.1 receiver.

Now when I hooked my gaming PC (vista 64) with a AuzenTech Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 DVDs where great in Vista Media Center.

Now one other question do they have windows media center for XP pro?

[LandShark]

I would vote for BTV! been a user for 5 yrs now, and still loving it! auto commerical skip, ability to burn recorded shows on DVD (w/in the user interface!), support for HD-PVR, clear QAM (and DD 5.1), ability to re-encode to another format (included iPhone, and iTune library support!), ability to watch recorded shows over the web away from home, etc.

another good one will be SageTV! I would say they both are the best PVR software! VMC is nice & cool looking, BUT they have way too much limitation to me! no HD-PVR/H.264 support is one big turn off (to me) already (of course, if you don't mind to stay in the SD age!). DRM is another thing (yeah, I know you could get around it in some way, but why would I do that when I could do all w/out it within other PVR software's user interface! don't even need to go back to desktop for encode/burn/etc.)

[Dominick]

Well I'm also thinking my motherboards sound card isn't that great no matter what I use :(

[LandShark]

Well I'm also thinking my motherboards sound card isn't that great no matter what I use :(

why?? if your motherboard has SPDIF output, you are all good to go. all it does is to bitstream the DD signal to your AVR for decoding. there's nothing to do w/ the sound card as it's just passing thur the signal.

[Dominick]

why?? if your motherboard has SPDIF output, you are all good to go. all it does is to bitstream the DD signal to your AVR for decoding. there's nothing to do w/ the sound card as it's just passing thur the signal.

yeah this is the mobo

http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/motherboards/abit/aa8_duramax/index.htm

So yeah has SPDIF maybe the decoders where not setup right.

[Dominick]

Ok I downloaded beyond TV trial just to see how it is and well is there no DVD
playback?

[LandShark]

Ok I downloaded beyond TV trial just to see how it is and well is there no DVD
playback?

BeyondTV is only a PVR software! no media center function at all! (e.g. play your video/music/pic files, play DVDs, etc.) and this is the only shortfall 'bout it imho! on the other hand, SageTV is a full media center solution especially w/ it's plug in.

however, there's many front end solution out there tho. Meedio, MediaPortal, even VMC. (I saw there's a guy over at snapstream's forum wrote a plug in so you can lauch BTV from w/in VMC's interface!)