WMC vs Other DVRs

Chat with other TGB members about whatever is on your mind.
slowbiscuit

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#61

Post by slowbiscuit » Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:26 pm

DLNA for anything is half-baked, Prime just being another victim of lackluster CE implementation.

kingwr

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#62

Post by kingwr » Tue Apr 01, 2014 6:31 pm

barnabas1969 wrote:Ummm... Media Center has wayyy more apps than my cable company has, and they're better than the cable co's apps too. A wash? I don't think so. On Demand doesn't matter. Do you enjoy paying your cable/sat provider $4.99 to watch a show "on-demand" that will cost you ONE DOLLAR to rent at the Red Box at your local Wal-Mart or Walgreens?
What are we talking about here: Dish's apps compared to those on Media Center or those of your cable co.? From a DirecTV standpoint, I have better apps on the device and better helper apps on phone/tablets than WMC has ever had. As far as DirecTV VOD, it's just a matter of habit: Will someone pay $5.99 to watch a 1080P movie on-demand from any receiver in the house instead of driving to the closest Red Box to pickup movies that may be in stock? By the looks of my DirecTV bill, yes.
barnabas1969 wrote:Sling? Not sure about that. People who don't have to deal with copy-protection... Others can use an extender plus an HD-PVR (using the analog hole) to remove the copy protection.
Well yeah. For those people who have cablecard with no copy protection, or have purchased an HD-PVR and hooked it to an extender that has a component out and can run the software to transcode it from the recording to the unecrypted file..., yeah that works. But there is something to be said for selecting from your playlist and - bang - it's on your iPad for the kids to watch on the plane to grandmas. With DirecTV Nomad, I don't have to think about analog holes or transcoding or purchasing separate extenders, HD-PVRs, software, etc.
barnabas1969 wrote:Reliability goes to Dish? Did you not read my post? I live in a place where it is not unusual for rain to come down in literal sheets of water...
OK! WE GET IT. But that is in your isolated area. Here in Atlanta it rains aplenty, but I miss maybe 10-12 seconds of TV watching two to three times a year, if that. On the flip side, if we get ice, the cable goes out and is out for days. No thank you.
barnabas1969 wrote:My PQ on cable is equal to OTA...
Great! My PQ with DirecTV far exceeds that of cable and OTA.

I think ultimately it comes down to no one solution is the best for everybody. But for someone considering options in their area, DirecTV is available everywhere, has the best technology, IMO, great PQ, great mobile apps, good phone support, and great deals -- for the first two years, of course. Then you have to suffer through a month of cable before they will let you back in with a new deal.

dellybelly

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#63

Post by dellybelly » Fri Apr 11, 2014 1:07 pm

Ive now been with WMC for maybe 3 months and I'm not going back to my Verizon box anytime soon. I think I'm enjoying the challenge of tweaking everything to make it as user friendly (for the wife) as possible and it's been a huge success.

Still having the live TV stream on the Verizon app helps too since it adds another layer of connectability even without a box; but I can say the biggest feature that my wife has told everyone about is ComSkip; she finds it absolutely amazing; heck I do too; it's spectacular.

Now as long as I don't have to tinker forever (even us tinkerers want to get to a point of stability) i'm good with keeping this until the wheels fall off and looking at my cable bill at $100 bucks vrs $160 is looking nicer every month.

I would probably go to TIVO eventually if the lifetime fees weren't so expensive for their minis; but at least we do have options that will allow us to not have monthly fees if we don't want to. I think at the heart of my entire push into this was just annoyance at the fees and the fact you can't just easily buy a box from the cable company instead of "renting" it.

captain_video

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#64

Post by captain_video » Fri Apr 11, 2014 2:31 pm

First, let me say that time-shifting TV changed my life. I got hooked with my first VHS VCR almost 35 years ago. I had Comcast back in the day before I moved to my current address in 1986. I had to suffer with OTA as my only TV source for the first couple of years because it was a new development and cable wouldn't be available until the development was completed and the builder complied with all local regulations. Eventually I was back on Comcast and started building up banks of VCRs in VHS, Beta, and eventually S-VHS formats. At some point I switched over to DirecTV and had a slew of satellite receivers to complement my VCRs. I picked up a Hughes DirecTV receiver that worked in conjunction with a digital VCR, essentially making it the precursor to the first DirecTV all digital DVR. It recorded the original digital data stream from the satellite directly to the VCR and used the receiver to decode it for playback.

When Tivo was introduced I jumped on that bandwagon and used it for OTA recording. That was eventually replaced with a couple of ReplayTV DVRs. When DirecTV offered their original dual tuner DVR, I snatched one up as quick as I could. Eventually all of my VCRs were replaced with Tivos. With the advent of HDTV, I eventually bit the bullet and bought a 60" Hitachi LCD RPTV. I also bought several of the HR10-250 HDTivos so I could record HD content from DirecTV. There were ridiculously expensive at the time (retail was $999) so I had to search for the best deals I could find. The price eventually dropped to where they were more affordable so I ended up with several to use for recording. I used at least one of them for OTA recording because DirecTV didn't carry all locals in my market and they'd only allow me access to a single market rather than the two I could receive via antenna (I'm between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.). This is one of my biggest pet peeves with DirecTV to this day.

The thought of paying extra for a HDTivo just to record free TV bugged me so I looked into using a tuner in my PC for that task. I got a great deal on a copy of BeyondTV so I installed it on an XP machine and tried that for a while before deciding to retire one of the HDTivos. It was a nice DVR app and it worked great for my needs. I used it for about a year or so before DirecTV introduced their new HD DVR and announced they would no longer be supporting Tivos. The launch of new satellites and the conversion to mpeg4 for HD content would eventually render my HD Tivos obsolete for anything but OTA recording. The 2-year extension I was locked into for my last HD Tivo purchase was about to expire so I had to make a decision. Did I want to risk going with a new DVR that was reporting a lot of problems or switch back to Comcast so I could use the new Series 3 HD Tivo? The decision was made for me when I found a flier on my front porch announcing that FIOS was coming to my neighborhood. I signed up immediately after it became available and said adios to both DirecTV and Comcast for good (I was paying through the nose for Comcast's wideband internet).

I used series 3 Tivos on FIOS for a good while, still supplemented by my HTPC for OTA recording. When I heard about the new Ceton cablecard tuner I got on their mailing list to be notified when it was going to be released. After a while, an e-mail showed up in my inbox announcing that they had a vendor that would be taking pre-orders for the InfiniTV 4. I literally placed my order within 30 seconds after closing the e-mail.

Five months later, Ceton announced they were shipping the InfiniTV 4 from the first production run so I kept my fingers crossed that I'd be among the first lucky ones to get one. My prayers were answered and I received my shipping notification with my invoice for about $415. I am rarely an early adopter for any type of new technology so this was completely out of the norm for me. I have to say, I was never so happy to spend $400 in my life. I had already pre-ordered a copy of Windows 7 Pro so I was ready to switch from XP to Win 7 and Media Center as soon as I received the tuner.

I used the HTPC and my Tivos concurrently for several months before feeling confident that Windows Media Center was up to the task. I kept one Tivo to use as a TV tuner for the family room TV, but the other one went up on ebay in short order. I eventually expanded my HTPC with four ATSC tuners, two InfiniTV 4's, and a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime and a Dual. My current setup consists of six ATSC internal tuners (3 Hauppauge 2250's), a Ceton InfiniTV 6, and the HDHR tuners. I have two Intel NUCs as satellite HTPCs for the family room TV and one in the spare bedroom. I also have a server with over 30TB of storage and counting. I ripped over 900 Blu-Rays and DVDs to mkv format and use XBMC for playback on each HTPC.

The rumors of Windows Media Center's demise is greatly exaggerated. It may still have a few bugs here and there, but it does what I want. As long as guide data is available, I'll continue to use it indefinitely. If Microsoft stops supplying it, I'll probably resort to one of the 3rd party guide services. I don't care about streaming services or On-Demand content. If I ever do want it, I can use it via the Windows desktop rather than the WMC UI. I have more movies on my server than time to watch them as well as numerous TV series culled from torrents or archived from recordings. Since I'm on FIOS, any recordings made on the primary HTPC can be shared and viewed on any other TV. I tried using extenders and was part of the Echo beta trial, but never cared much for them. I'd always get a nagging network error message when using them and could never find any problems with my network.

I'm with WMC for the long haul. However, that doesn't preclude the possibility of trying one of the other front ends like XBMC, Media Portal, or SageTV that now support cablecard tuners as long as the content is copy freely. I don't subscribe to any premium packages so all of my content is copy freely, allowing me other choices.

One thing I should mention is that in all the years I've had TV service providers, FIOS is the only one that has never suffered an outage due to bad weather. In fact, I can't recall FIOS ever going out for any reason, and I've had it for over six years now. Comcast used to disappear every time it rained and any type of heavy storm would block the DirecTV signal for hours on end. I did have Dish for a short while back in the pre-HD days, but the hardware configurations you had to use were so confusing I never knew what was compatible with what. You had to use all sorts of splitters and switches and I never knew which dish would work with their programming packages (I did all of my own dish installs so this was critical info for me).

I like the idea of not paying for any STBs or other equipment other than the cablecards (I have three). I use a Samsung SMART Media Player (GX-SM530CF) in the master bedroom that used a cablecard and is basically a STB combined with a media player. I also like the fact that I now have a single box solution for all of my Home Theater viewing choices. Aside from some early growing pains and occasional glitches that are easily remedied in most cases, my HTPCs have been relatively trouble-free. I honestly can't see myself going back to any other method of watching or recording TV unless something drastically changes in the way TV is provided. I don't use any small screen devices like iPads or smart phones for watching TV. Heck, I won't even watch the inflight movies when I'm on a plane because the screens are too small and usually way out of calibration.

christoph86

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#65

Post by christoph86 » Sat Apr 12, 2014 5:51 am

Nice history lesson captain, thoroughly enjoyed it. I remember in the mid 80s getting one of the big satellite dishes. You'd put in a certain satellite position for certain channels, then if you needed a different position for other channels it would have to move. I was around 6 or so and my dad made a side business installing those big things all around the area, was nice additional income for him as we lived out in the middle of the country and it was the only way for people to get any channels other than local antenna channels. I remember helping him when I was around 8 helping him haul the materials and running trenches for the wires. Then along came decoders a few years later that you had to add in order to get the good channels. Fraggle Rock on HBO was my first major show I couldn't wait to watch. We also had a boatload of VCR tapes. I think we hung on to the big dish until I was about done with high school before moving on to the smaller DISH models. Unfortunately I have been a late adopter of WMC, but really like it. I had Uverse up until last fall and prices were getting out of control and they charged for HDTV access. I started looking elsewhere and a way to get more tvs with access without having to spend a boatload and thus I switched to Charter, added WMC. I now have 4 tvs connected instead of two, HDTV instead of standard, HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime instead of just showtime, over 30 Mbs internet instead of 3 mbs, all for $40 less per month. And it's been a lot of fun for me learning and tinkering.

I'm still amazed at how many tuners some of you folks have, truly astonishing :)

captain_video

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#66

Post by captain_video » Sat Apr 12, 2014 12:52 pm

christoph86 wrote:I'm still amazed at how many tuners some of you folks have, truly astonishing :)
We have them because we can. My HDHR tuners are shared with all PCs on my home network. The ones I have installed in my primary HTPC are used solely by that PC. I have both OTA and FIOS so I have six tuners for each type of signal. I pad my recordings by 10 minutes before and after so there tends to be a lot of overlap in my recording schedule with each recording requiring a dedicated tuner. There are some nights where I may be recording as many as 9 or 10 shows. If I look at the recorded TV list between 10 minutes of or 10 minutes past the hour during prime time, there may be 6 or 7 shows being recorded simultaneously.

Back home we used to call BUDs (Big Ugly Dishes) the West Virginia State Flower. If you drove through any rural area you'd see a trailer parked out in a field with a Cadillac or a pickup truck and a BUD right next to it. Most residential areas forbid them due to community rules and regulations. It wasn't until DirecTV and Dish came along that they relaxed the rules and allowed people to install small dishes on their properties.

adam1991

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#67

Post by adam1991 » Sat Apr 12, 2014 8:58 pm

captain_video wrote:Back home we used to call BUDs (Big Ugly Dishes) the West Virginia State Flower. If you drove through any rural area you'd see a trailer parked out in a field with a Cadillac or a pickup truck and a BUD right next to it. Most residential areas forbid them due to community rules and regulations. It wasn't until DirecTV and Dish came along that they relaxed the rules and allowed people to install small dishes on their properties.
Actually, the FCC put small dishes on a legal par with any other OTA antenna--which means that federal law trumps HOA or condo association wishes, and owners are free to put up the small dishes to their heart's content.

Any "relaxing" of the rules was involuntary. And to this day, you'll find associations trying their damndest to ignore federal regs on this issue and try to slam owners who dare to ugly up the Nazi HOA president's little world.

captain_video

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#68

Post by captain_video » Sun Apr 13, 2014 12:26 pm

adam1991 wrote:
captain_video wrote:Back home we used to call BUDs (Big Ugly Dishes) the West Virginia State Flower. If you drove through any rural area you'd see a trailer parked out in a field with a Cadillac or a pickup truck and a BUD right next to it. Most residential areas forbid them due to community rules and regulations. It wasn't until DirecTV and Dish came along that they relaxed the rules and allowed people to install small dishes on their properties.
Actually, the FCC put small dishes on a legal par with any other OTA antenna--which means that federal law trumps HOA or condo association wishes, and owners are free to put up the small dishes to their heart's content.

Any "relaxing" of the rules was involuntary. And to this day, you'll find associations trying their damndest to ignore federal regs on this issue and try to slam owners who dare to ugly up the Nazi HOA president's little world.
Absolutely true. I live near Columbia, MD, which has some of the strictest homeowner policies I've ever seen. The Columbia Association that governs the community must have been taking gas when they were overruled and people starting installing DBS dishes all over the place. A lot of them were still SOL because the neighborhoods have lots of tall trees, making it near impossible for most homes to have satellite.

I live in a small community (about 55 homes) and we also have certain guidelines, one of which was that we couldn't put up outside antennas when the development first opened back in the mid eighties. There were a few people on the board that were a bit anal about it so I initially installed a UHF/VHF antenna in my attic to pick up a few of the locals I watched. Once the FCC said it was OK to put them up, I signed up with DirecTV. My neighbor across the street, who is on the Design and Use Committee, also put one up so I knew I wasn't going to catch any flak about it.

kingwr

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#69

Post by kingwr » Sun Apr 13, 2014 1:55 pm

captain_video wrote:
adam1991 wrote:...owners are free to put up the small dishes to their heart's content.
Absolutely true.
Actually, not exactly true. Adam1991's clear biases aside, HOAs are allowed to have rules governing antennas and satellite dishes. They just can't have rules that would 1) completely prevent a dish from being installed (e.g., "dish CANNOT be visible from front of the house" may prevent installation of dishes on Southern facing homes) or 2) cause excessive delay in their installation (e.g. an "approval" process that never results in timely approvals). HOAs can have rules and guidelines that, in light of the restrictions, provide direction to where and how dishes and antennas can be installed.

Also, as far as HOAs being Nazis, remember that you weren't required by anyone to buy a house there, right? Although in Adam's case, he's probably still living with his parents :)

adam1991

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#70

Post by adam1991 » Sun Apr 13, 2014 3:06 pm

Aha, kingwr is the president of an HOA, and loves to throw his weight around on unsuspecting or gullible residents.

Got it.

The fact remains, HOAs cannot say that the resident cannot put up an antenna--and yet many do, to this day, and many even get away with enforcing such rules, because residents are gullible sheeple who don't dare challenge the "authority" of the petty HOA board members who are as ignorant as anyone on federal regulations.

And I daresay there are plenty of homeowners who simply kick back and say "That's the only place I can get reception"--at which point nothing the HOA may try to enforce has any standing whatsoever.

Those HOA rules, plus petty HOA board members, are the butt of jokes for a good reason. And yes, the residents willingly buy in those areas--because they think, up front, that it will prevent things THEY don't want. What they don't get is that HOAs will also prevent things they DO want. Their efforts to control their environment almost always backfire on them, and their only choice is to move.

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