Wait, so I will still have to pay the monthly fee? AND have the pain of an HTPC to deal with?
No thanks. I mean, I'm an avid HTPC enthusiast, but the appeal to me is that I don't have to pay a monthly fee (bogus) and of course the added functionality. So why would I want TiVo on my PC when MCE, VMW, SageTV all work very well. If I want a TiVo I'll just buy one, although I never would. I could see this as being cheaper in the short term if you already have a spare computer lying around but the hassle of setting it up and maintaining it don't seem to be worth it to me. At least, not until they get CableCard support without the Draconian DRM.
As far as Sage, BeyondTV is so much better, it is not even funny. I was having some problems with BeyondTV recently (BeyondTV is not as compatible with the Plextor DVR as it should), so I switched to Sage for the three weeks trial period, and it so sucks compared to BeyondTV. About a 60% chance of the recording completing successfully, extremely resource intensive interface that takes seconds (sometimes many seconds) just to go between different screens in the menus. I am not running the fastest PC (1.7 GHz P-M, 1.5 GB Ram) but BeyondTV ran beautifully on this computer, and almost never messed up recordings. I have happily returned to BeyondTV and am not looking back.
Anyway I tried BeyondTV but I couldn;t get into it. Also at the time I ahd just purchased the Hauppauge Hd PVR and BeyondTV was still in Beta and didn't support it yet. I find SageTV works much better with the SageMC front end. Looks more like XP MCE. Now if only someone would make a Vista Media Center crossbar-type theme for Sage...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
cpompee @ Sep 29th 2008 8:18AM
Wait, so I will still have to pay the monthly fee? AND have the pain of an HTPC to deal with?
No thanks. I mean, I'm an avid HTPC enthusiast, but the appeal to me is that I don't have to pay a monthly fee (bogus) and of course the added functionality. So why would I want TiVo on my PC when MCE, VMW, SageTV all work very well. If I want a TiVo I'll just buy one, although I never would. I could see this as being cheaper in the short term if you already have a spare computer lying around but the hassle of setting it up and maintaining it don't seem to be worth it to me. At least, not until they get CableCard support without the Draconian DRM.
0megapart!cle @ Sep 29th 2008 8:52AM
What is VMW?
As far as Sage, BeyondTV is so much better, it is not even funny. I was having some problems with BeyondTV recently (BeyondTV is not as compatible with the Plextor DVR as it should), so I switched to Sage for the three weeks trial period, and it so sucks compared to BeyondTV. About a 60% chance of the recording completing successfully, extremely resource intensive interface that takes seconds (sometimes many seconds) just to go between different screens in the menus. I am not running the fastest PC (1.7 GHz P-M, 1.5 GB Ram) but BeyondTV ran beautifully on this computer, and almost never messed up recordings. I have happily returned to BeyondTV and am not looking back.
cpompee @ Sep 29th 2008 8:56AM
Oops,
I meant VMC... Vista Media Center
Anyway I tried BeyondTV but I couldn;t get into it. Also at the time I ahd just purchased the Hauppauge Hd PVR and BeyondTV was still in Beta and didn't support it yet. I find SageTV works much better with the SageMC front end. Looks more like XP MCE. Now if only someone would make a Vista Media Center crossbar-type theme for Sage...