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05-30-2003 04:33 PM ET (US)
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Edited by author 05-30-2003 08:27 PM
I've researched these PC based, DIY (do it yourself), PVR's. None of them work as seamlessly as a Replay TV or Tivo, and to get the same level of features you'll spend a lot more money.
Even the fastest processors can't really perform the trick of capturing and playing back high quality video at the same time without assistance. That assistance is typically a hardware based Mpeg encoder/decoder. It's not that mpeg encoder chips are all that expensive, Replay and Tivo have them included in their reasonably priced boxes. It's just that the PC video cards with hardware encoding are pretty rare, and most of these cards cost more than a Replay or Tivo.
And then there's the little issue of software interfaces. Replay and Tivo have interfaces designed for use by remote control. All the "roll-your-own" solutions I've investigated have very crappy front ends which heavily lean on keyboard and mouse use. Who wants to watch TV on the couch with a keyboard and mouse in their lap?
Those that have used PVR's quickly realize the heart and soul of the device is the channel guide. And this is where the DIY PVR's really drop the ball. Most of them use a web-based channel guide. Which means having to log into some web-site and pick and chose your channels on that site. Your PVR doesn't have a constant internet connection? The channel guide web site is down? Don't have a keyboard and mouse handy? You're out of luck, you have no channel guide.
Theoretically the DIY PVR's should give you some options not possible with Replay or Tivo. Like easy archiving of shows to DVD-R or VCD. But any newer Replay (and some Tivo's) will let you copy shows to your computer (DVarchive) , a few utilities like Womble will allow you to edit out commercials (without even having to re-encode the mpeg stream) and you're ready to burn.
One day the computers will beat these dedicated boxes in both features, usability and price, but that day is not yet here. Bottom line, when a Replay TV can be had for $250 that does everything these very expensive, crappy interfaced, awful channel-guided PVR computers try to do, why bother with the computers?
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