RSSFinally, Nero will let you make your PC into a real TiVo
By Tim Conneally | Published September 29, 2008, 10:53 AM
The final step in making your PC into a TiVo is about to be bridged. Today, Nero AG -- makers of the famous desktop CD and DVD authoring software -- announced its LiquidTV TiVo-for-PC package.
The package includes a Hauppauge USB ATSC TV tuner and USB IR transceiver with paired remote control. LiquidTV offers most of the features of a standard TiVo DVR: online scheduling with the integrated Electronic Programming Guide, recording of up to two shows simultaneously to the hard drive, HD and standard image quality, and support for as many as four tuners.
![Nero "IR Blaster" (aka remote control)](http://images.betanews.com/media/2037.jpg "Nero "IR Blaster" (aka remote control)")
Unlike the standard DVR, however, content navigation is not limited to remote control, and unique mouse and keyboard commands have been added. Also, the software has the ability to export recorded media to portable devices supporting .tivo, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (H.263 + H.264), AVI, and WMV files, or burn-to-DVD.
Initial availability will be limited to North America (US, Mexico, Canada) and will be available in Best Buy, Fry's, Circuit City and Office Depot in the US Purchase of the product includes a one year subscription to TiVo and will retail for $199.99 USD/CAN. A software-only version will be available for $99.99. The software will support both laptop and home theater PC setups.
Many enthusiasts may be wondering, can I take my old PC and retrofit it into a TiVo? It's certainly possible, but if your old CPU is single-core, the requirements will actually be a little steep: For HD signals, 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP 3200+ for analog channels and digital HD channels, or 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP 2000+ for digital SD channels. So a dual-core CPU is certainly preferable at any clock speed.
Storage requirements are: a minimum of 40 GB available space for HD recordings (roughly 5 hours of content), minimum of 20 GB available hard drive space on a separate partition for TV recordings, EPG data storage, and temporary DVD files (amounts to about 10 hours of recorded content).
I love that F-connector input limited to 480 interlaced lines of resolution. Junk.
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|Academy Award winning Actor Louis Gossett Jr.and his "Eracism" foundation gives a tribute to Barack Obama and introduces the Singing Duo "UMAD"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIkMi9LcTds
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|Who cares...Feed your political views to someone else. I think your comment is a little bit off-topic, ass-hole!!
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|wiil this be available for mac OS X ?
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|Why anyone with a HTPC or aspirations of building one would buy Tivo's package is totally boggling my mind. You can get ATSC and NTSC hardware tuners and use SageTV, BeyondTV, Mediaportal, GBpvr, Yahoo's tv software (used to be Meedio), or any other package out there, and save themselves money. Tivo still is charging outlandish prices for the boxes and then raping you for a monthly fee for data that really should be FREE because it's already paid for by advertisers (whose commercials you watch).
SageTV, BeyondTV both have basically a one-time payment for lifetime guide updates. In order for Tivo to even begin to compete they're going to have to match that. Until then, I would tell anyone with aspirations of building an HTPC to steer very clear of Tivo.
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|TIVO does sell lifetime subscriptions. When I purchased mine, 8 years ago. it was only $300.
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|One can download all they want with no commercials if you have a little knowledge of usenet and premium newsgroups access.
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|Suppose after a certain time they send round there hit man so be very care full?
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|Yes, one can break the law pretty much any way they want...for those of us looking to a *legal* solution, your solution falls a bit short...
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|Without a CableCard (currently only available in a few expensive OEM machines), you'll never get the stations encrypted by Comcast or Verizon. Channels encrypted included many mid-tier broadcasts, such as TCM and even National Geographic, and not just premium stations like HBO.
Sighberia
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|Why pay monthly when you can get the same for free with SageTV? /boggle
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|Windows Media Center will give you an excellent DVR at no monthly subscription fees.
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|Problem will be like me I have Verizon FIOS and don't get me wrong, I LOVE IT, but Verizon TOTALLY encrypts their Cable Signal.
When I used Comcast, I have a Hauppage card and used GBPVR and it worked FLAWLESSLY, Comcast only encrupts the Pay / Subscription channels. Now I cannot even use it for the lower (Non-Subscription / Pay) channels.
It was nice using my PC as my TIVO / PVR as I have over a TB of Space, but now I am in a loss. Anyone suggest a Digital Tuner that works with FIOS Cable for TV???
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|It won't work with Uverse either. Since the programs are streamed you can't view Uverse though a regular tuner their just streamed to the modem box then to the cable box, then to the set. I can record the channel I'm watching or record from my cable box to my computer but I can't record 2-4 things at once to my computer.
I would think you'd have the same issue since FIOS also streams doesn't it? When I say streams I mean like watching a youtube video in a way instead of having a tuner which has all the channels set up on the tuner, Uvers and I think FIOS streams all the channels at once and you just pick the one(s) you want to watch and record.
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|I don't quite get your problem slinkys can't you just hook the output from your cable providers box to the tuner and then use an IRblaster or other such device to make the remote and such work correctly. I'm I wrong here.
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|With Comcast, yes... They did not encrypt the lower tier channels, but Verizon encrypts them all!
With my PVR I was not looking to record HD or Pay Channels, just be able to do the lower ones for general watching when I could not be there.
Even the FIOS guys when they were out said it would not work unless I got a Digital Tuner within my PC which my Generation Hauppage card is not. I have no issue spending a few buck for one that works, but I need to know it works first.
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