BTV Still isn't dead

[tim_d_wagner]

Hard to say if TV as we know it will be dead. I would argue TV as I have known it is finaly alive for all. Most of the local cable cos have PVR systems with access to all content from anywhere, what took so long?

I'm in the same space as ZetaVu, I can get the content online easily, but prefer the quality and conveniance. I think more is likely to change, but for now my BTV is not going anywhere.

[TVsteve]

BTV has been dead in my household for over a year... ever since a lighting strike fried my BTV server. I've been so busy that I couldn't find time to rebuild the system, so we only watched live TV, and during that time we got an HD satellite box. I was thinking of getting BTV going again, but it looks like there is no support being added for any kind of HD capture card that will take the HDMI or component output from the sat tuner. So, it looks like BTV is dead to me :-(
We had a good run on SD though.
Steve.

[HomeyFour]

Originally Posted by TVsteve

I was thinking of getting BTV going again, but it looks like there is no support being added for any kind of HD capture card that will take the HDMI or component output from the sat tuner.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

HD PVR is the world’s first High Definition video recorder for making real-time H.264 compressed recordings at resolutions up to 1080i. HD-PVR records component video (YCrCb) from video game consoles and cable TV and satellite set top boxes, with a built-in IR blaster to automatically change TV channels for scheduled recordings. Audio is recorded using two channel stereo or optical audio with five channel Dolby Digital.

[Terminal]

Originally Posted by TVsteve

BTV has been dead in my household for over a year... ever since a lighting strike fried my BTV server. I've been so busy that I couldn't find time to rebuild the system, so we only watched live TV, and during that time we got an HD satellite box. I was thinking of getting BTV going again, but it looks like there is no support being added for any kind of HD capture card that will take the HDMI or component output from the sat tuner. So, it looks like BTV is dead to me :-(
We had a good run on SD though.
Steve.

As HomeyFour posted the HDPVR works pretty well. My early version HDPVR was a little flaky but still pretty reliable. It died after about 4 years and I just got a new one, it is much more stable. I have had it about 4 months now and it hasn't locked up yet.

[TVsteve]

I came across the HD PVR in my search the other day but at first glance I thought it was some kind of standalone PVR. Thanks guys I'll check this out some more.

BTW: I forget the options in BTV setup... I guess BTV allows a generic source input over USB?

Steve.

edit: just found the big thread about HD PVR beta support in BTV. Not sure I like what I'm reading from 2008, but maybe it gets better ;-)

[cosiz]

Regarding bandwidth, I agree, and its going to get worse and more expensive before it gets better. I see more movement in 4g phone streaming than home broadband streaming, and worse I expect that you'll have to not only pay a premium for internet connection speed and download size per month, but also subscriptions to services for the channels you want.

Yep, I agree with Zeta's view as well. I think at some point in the future we will all be reminiscing about the good ole days when TV was free. On demand is nice for some types of content like first run movies, but when we get to a total a la carte model it is going to be more expensive. And what happens to channel surfing in that model?!

I guess that's one reason why I'm still recording movies every day with BTV and hoarding them on hard drives. And before anyone says it, I now have around 25TB of movies on 500GB and 1TB drives so I'm not too concerned about the loss of a drive or two along the way.

Yes, BTV lives!

Cheers!
Bryan

[mits]

We love using BTV, and we're still running strong here with four Directv/HD-PVR setups on a server.

However, I wanted to say please take a look at my recent post in the HDPVR section. I may have recently figured out why I've had intermittent lockup problems, etc. Pretty interesting experience with potentially bad capacitors on some wall warts, and wrong amperage wall warts with Rev C units. It turns out I had a combination of potentially, bad batch of wall warts with suspect capacitors, and at least one Rev C4 unit that had been shipped with a 2-Amp wart instead of a 3-Amp wart.

Per Hauppauge engineers, ALL "Rev C" units require a 3-Amp supply. All other Revs will operate on a 2-Amp supply. This means that if you either have a Rev C that was shipped with a 2-Amp wart, or have had to return your Rev (anything) in for repair or swap, and did not send in your wall wart (as places so often tell you not to send in), you may have ended up with a Rev C version that is now only running on a 2-Amp supply. You could also potentially have a wart that could have suspect caps that are degrading over time and failing. Worth looking at your Revs and their respective wall wart specs. I was down recently when all four of my warts died, and had to run with one HD-PVR (Rev C4) on my bench power supply for a couple of weeks until I got new warts. While monitoring the current of the Rev C4 when it went into record mode, it clearly pulls between 2.00 - 2.03 Amps, and once or twice peaked at 2.05 Amp.

So please check you Revs and warts, as I never had any lockup at all with the bench supply, and have also not had any problems since replacing the warts, making sure that the three Rev C4's have 3-Amp warts and the one Rev E1 has a 2-Amp wart.

Long live BTV!