How do you watch BeyondTV?

[GuardianZX9]

I am a current XP Media Center user and a previous BeyondTV user, I have also used SageTV and GBPVR.

I am currently on the latest build of MediaCenter 2005 with the latest XBox Media Extenders. The XBox works pretty well and MCE is pretty stable, but it is a pain to add more than 2 tuners.

How do you watch BeyondTV? I used the Hauppauge MediaMVP previously and
found the whole experience painful, the MVP built in software is poor and slow and the BeyondTV plugins were not much better.

I like BeyondTV and its features, but I don't(can't) build a PC for every TV in the house and I have not seen any advances in hardware extenders for BTV lately, I would love to see BTV create an XBox client that works as fast as the Media Extender works with XPMCE2005. I want a good reason to go back to BeyondTV.


Just curious what everyone else is doing and what BTV plans for the future?

Thanks
G

[StevePupel]

What is Picture Quality like using the MVP? What's wrong with the MVP?

I've been considering adding the MVP to my system to get around some of my limitations. But for now, here's what I do:

I split the audio coming out of the sound card. One of the splits get sent to my surround sound amp.
I split the S-Video out of my ATI 9250 (pci card) and feed it to two different TV's. One is upstairs, one is downstairs.

My amp has speaker sets A and B. A is in same room as upstairs TV. B is same room as downstairs TV. I have to control this manually before I go down to basement (amp is upstairs).

I didn't know I would be doing this kind of stuff when I bought my PC a year ago. At that time I bought the cheapest PC I could find - e Machines, Intel Celeron D, no AGP slot. Since I don't have an AGP (or PCIe) slot, I can't really get a high end card. I've often wondered if a high end card would really produce better s-video out than my ATI 9250.

Pros:
* Scheduling recording features works great
* I can record two shows at the same time (two tuners).
* I have a 200 gig hard drive, so capicity is pretty good compared to Tivo units.
* Can watch TV from 3 different locations (computer, 2 different TV's)
* Ability to import content from anywhere into my recordings folder and watch through BTV. I download videos from the internet and put them into my BTV recording folder. Then through the web admin I can change the Series and episode title that appears in the BTV interface.

Limitations:
* Playback always occupies my PC
* Although I can watch from 3 different locations, can't watch two different shows at the same time.
* Picture quality is good enough to enjoy watching, but barely. Picture is soft, colors/contrast lacks punch.

[tscales]

I disagree with the theory you can't have a PC on every TV. I've setup old computers (read: Cheap) and use BTV Link on them. I picked up a couple older Dell Pentium 4 machines (1.8 Ghz) for under $175 shipped. Total cost even with BTV Link is under $200. Heck, an extender is in that range and not nearly as flexible.

Tom

[StevePupel]

Tom, some questions for you"

Does the old PC then render the image? If so, don't you need a pretty good video card to produce a good picture? When you buy these cheap PC's do you have to upgrade the video card or is the card in them usually good enough?

[btvfreak]

If you have regular SDTV's, then getting an old PC as Tom mentioned remains cheap since, at most, you'll only need to get a $40 nvidia 5200 card. HDTV clients typically need beefier cards like a nvidia 6600, but still under $175 shipped is awsome! Where'd you get that deal?

[tscales]

It depends on what you're doing. My 62" Mitsubishi SDTV is being driven by an nVidia MX420. Pretty old, but works very well. Wouldn't try that for HDTV though (although one of my BTV servers has the same card and plays back HD OK, but not great).

as for where, ebay of course. Patience, patience, patience.

Tom