Beyond TV or MCE 2005

[djfourmoney]

I downloaded and used BT4 and it was okay, I had HD issues (not enough room) and I had to delete it. I finally got my ATI MMC working right again and have used it ever since. I'm still bothered by not being able to use my Remote Wonder 2 for anything but changing stuff on MMC, it won't control Direct TV. So Im back to considering an upgrade and stepping away from ATI's MMC all together. But I rather have an intergated solution actually and I recently found out about Akimbo and the new plug-in they have for MCE.

I want to upgrade to either for 2 main reasons -

Non ATI HD Tuner car support

Akimbo for Anime Network mainly

If I got Beyond TV, I would be shelling out $70 for the software which I found ONE unit left with the included Firefly remote at my local Fry's. Then I would need to drop $70 on a White Box version of ADS's Instant HDTV and finally $199 for the RCA Akimbo box.

That's more coin than I wanted to spend!

MCE would set me back $110, in which I can also pick up Akimbo for MCE for the 30 day trial and $9 for basic service and another $9 for upgraded content from Anime Network. I would still buy the ADS Instant HDTV card, but I would save over $200 from the previous setup.

I'm not interested in using the ADS's analog tuner, so I don't think there will be any special use of modified drivers or whatever to get either working with my ATI 9600XT AIW card.

ATI - SDTV via Direct TV
ASD - HDTV

Later I'll pick up a Direct TV HD tuner later as I would like (even if compressed) HDTV playback directly to my LCD as my SD singal is rather medicore compared to TV playback with the ATI card and the last set of WDM drivers.

I post here because is there an option for BTV I don't know about? I know it has a NetFlix plug-in available but im not sure about any other service.

Beyond TV ran stablity on my system so Im not really concerned with that.

[tscales]

OK, I'm a little confused, as I have no idea what Akimbo for Anime Network is.

Is it just a channel on your cable box? If so, then you don't want an HDTV card, as you won't be able to get it in HD from your cable box. Unless it is Over-the-Air, neither MCE nor BTV can do it in HD.

As for MCE vs. BTV, we're clearly BTV users here. In my case, the huge limitations of MCE were a problem (only one guide at a time, only four total tuners (2 SD, 2 HD), weird file format, etc.

Tell us a little more about what exactly this is and we can help more.

[mlomker]

BTV doesn't have integration with any type of Internet video content and I doubt it's even on the to-do list. Snapstream focuses on making the TV part perfect and that's about as far as they've gotten.

I use to run MCE and gave it up because the guide data isn't very good and basic things, like commercial skipping, don't work worth a darn. Sage TV recently came out with support for YouTube, which is kind of cool, but (once again) basic things like getting good picture quality and commercial skipping are a pain to implement.

It sounds to me like you should go with MCE. If I were you I'd wait a little bit and get Vista since its MCE is supposed to be better and should be on the shelves soon.

[htpc_nut]

I wrote a posting here:

Some Thoughts on BeyondTV 4 vs. Vista Media Center

that compares BTV 4.5 and Vista Media Center Edition. Based on what you're saying I would advise the following:

- If Akimbo/Anime is really important to you and needs to be part of the interface, go with MCE2005, and wait until December '07 and upgrade to Vista Ultimate or Home Premium (they've scheduled the first Vista MCE rollup for the end of 2007, and it's too buggy as is, not enough plug-ins, etc). By then either Akimbo will be up to speed or VMCE will be more worth using or both.

- If you don't mind doing the Akimbo/Anime thing in its own context, go with BeyondTV now on XP. It's more stable than any Windows MCE, and doesn't encrypt any recordings (both Windows MCEs encrypt and prevent cutting up, copying, or archiving of specific programming, DRM sucks).

Oh and me personally, I've had better luck with NVIDIA video cards in both MCE and BTV contexts than ATI. That said, Vista comes with plenty of drivers for both right out of the box, so that actually shouldn't be a major concern (give you an example of how plug-n-play vista can be with video drivers: I hooked up an NVIDIA 7600GS to my sony TV via DVI and it auto-set the right resolution and driver...the same process took roughly a weekend in XP, overscan being the mofo that it is).

Good luck!

[djfourmoney]

Thanks for the input -

Tscales: (click the links for more information)

Akimbo has Anime Network (and Anime One), Direct TV doesn't and Im not signing up for Time-Warner again just to get 1 channel! We already have Direct TV here, all I need is my own HD tuner. I just haven't deemed it important enough to do that yet. Football season is just about over and all the playoff and important bowl games will be on OTA anyway. I can also get local Laker and Clipper games on OTA HD, so there's really no hurry for the HD box.

I'm just now finding out about MCE2005's issues with editing the content after capture. I can capture directly to Studio 8 if need be if that's the case. I don't usually keep my content unless its a special event. I just get tired of setting the reminder in Direct TV and I just can't set it like you can a Tivo, its a pain in the butt.

Beyond will control Direct TV, but I'll have to use the RCA Akimbo box. I'm not sure you can plug your Akimbo box into a capture card without some type of copy protection. Akimbo announced a download to burn applet but there's no time table on release.

For what I want, it just seems using MCE to get Akimbo would be the best and affordable choice to make. If I want any of the things I see on Akimbo to keep, then I can buy or rent it from Netflix, until the burn to DVD option is available.

The upgrade to Vista is great and MCE will come with a coupon for a free upgrade to Vista, so again, that seems well worth it.

The HD card is mainly to get FUNmation's anime channel only available as a subchannel locally. The football games, NASCAR on Fox anything else in HD is gravy.

[djfourmoney]

Originally Posted by htpc_nut

I wrote a posting here:

Some Thoughts on BeyondTV 4 vs. Vista Media Center

that compares BTV 4.5 and Vista Media Center Edition. Based on what you're saying I would advise the following:

- If Akimbo/Anime is really important to you and needs to be part of the interface, go with MCE2005, and wait until December '07 and upgrade to Vista Ultimate or Home Premium (they've scheduled the first Vista MCE rollup for the end of 2007, and it's too buggy as is, not enough plug-ins, etc). By then either Akimbo will be up to speed or VMCE will be more worth using or both.

- If you don't mind doing the Akimbo/Anime thing in its own context, go with BeyondTV now on XP. It's more stable than any Windows MCE, and doesn't encrypt any recordings (both Windows MCEs encrypt and prevent cutting up, copying, or archiving of specific programming, DRM sucks).

Oh and me personally, I've had better luck with NVIDIA video cards in both MCE and BTV contexts than ATI. That said, Vista comes with plenty of drivers for both right out of the box, so that actually shouldn't be a major concern (give you an example of how plug-n-play vista can be with video drivers: I hooked up an NVIDIA 7600GS to my sony TV via DVI and it auto-set the right resolution and driver...the same process took roughly a weekend in XP, overscan being the mofo that it is).

Good luck!

My card ran with Beyond TV just fine, I just didn't have a USB-IR Blaster to be able to control Direct TV, so I never tried to record anything. But the TV viewer worked fine.