HD PVR alternative?

[wayner]

The USB-UIRT is a great product but if you are using the HD-PVR with a device that has a firewire port then that is a better option IMHO - as long as your PC has firewre.

[pawn]

Originally Posted by Brent

Have the proper equipment...Extenders and/or dual-core PCs...

This is the only point I will argue. I have a shuttle PC, P4 3.0 (single core) with an AGP graphics card (Asus Radeon 3650 Silent) working as a client using the Arcsoft decoder. I play back smooth 720p on it and the CPU never goes above 15%. I use Sages "Great" quality setting - "Best" or higher custom bitrates give the odd video skip on panning (read: sports) content. Fine by me, since the quality difference isn't enough to justify the capture file sizes for me.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Brent

Believe me, when Windows 7 comes out we'll see tons more Hauppauge HD-PVRs sold to Media Center users even though they have access to CableCard.

Perhaps we have a different idea of what constitutes "tons", but I doubt that's the case. I think digital cable, and more specifically HDTV, is really the end to any hope of significant (using that term very loosely) adoption of PC-based DVRs. I helped several friends create small SageTV setups over the years and none of them use SageTV anymore because they moved (sometimes forced) to digital cable or satellite, and they didn't want to mess with a set top box and IR blaster hooked up to Sage. I think PC-based DVR usage will drop quite a bit as analog cable goes away.

I think there will be a convergence between TVs and PCs, but that will probably happen with IPTV.

That's not to say Hauppauge won't sell quite a few more HD-PVRs when Windows 7 comes out with H.264 support. But, I think Leadtek clearly sees it as a very small market. They could have released their card with mpeg2 support and it would work with everything out there. And, based on the price in Japan, it wouldn't be that much more than the HD-PVR. The fact that they didn't tells me we're looking at a very small market here.

Or, maybe Leadtek was just threatened by the MPAA, etc. I'm not sure. It seems like Hauppauge is relatively small company, and if someone wanted they could have sued them into the ground. Yet, it doesn't sound like Hauppauge got into any kind of trouble.

[Brent]

Yeah, when I said tons I would compare it to tons more then they have sold thus far - not on the broader comparison of DVRs to Hauppauge HD-PVRs for instance.

Yes, the HTPC market is a very tiny sliver of a niche. It could have grown more, but has been fought every step of the way. I'm pretty happy with the progress thats been made for SageTV and Hauppauge, but its nowhere near the general consumer radar. It would take a plug-it-in and play Tivo-like device to do that and even still.......

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Brent

Yes, the HTPC market is a very tiny sliver of a niche. It could have grown more, but has been fought every step of the way. I'm pretty happy with the progress thats been made for SageTV and Hauppauge, but its nowhere near the general consumer radar. It would take a plug-it-in and play Tivo-like device to do that and even still.......

I would never dream of general consumers using a PC-based DVRs. I'm thinking mainly about computer geeks. I work with a bunch of computer geeks and things like Sage and even Windows MCE just aren't on their radars at all.

My main concern is that its going to get harder and harder to get hardware and supporting software to make PC-based DVRs. But, I suspect we'll have Hauppauge products helping us out for as long as is technically possible. I just don't see how they could transition to a more profitable business sector other than what they're doing now.

[aaronb]

Originally Posted by Brent

Yes, the HTPC market is a very tiny sliver of a niche. It could have grown more, but has been fought every step of the way.

The funniest part of it is that despite their efforts you can still get full resolution commercial-free HD copies of pretty much every popular TV show within an hour of two of it airing (not to mention full resolution copies of HDDVD and Bluray movies as well) so all they've done is make it painfully difficult for paying customers to use the product, while having pretty much no effect on piracy.

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by aaronb

The funniest part of it is that despite their efforts you can still get full resolution commercial-free HD copies of pretty much every popular TV show within an hour of two of it airing (not to mention full resolution copies of HDDVD and Bluray movies as well) so all they've done is make it painfully difficult for paying customers to use the product, while having pretty much no effect on piracy.

This is the result of all DRM models. It keeps the honest customers honest and doesn't deter pirates at all.

[stanger89]

Don't forget about the honest people it makes dishonest, and the "grey market" industry it creates around circumvention.