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!)