PVR UK: PVR (Personal Video Recorder) and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) news, reviews and how-tos for the UK (including Sky plus, TiVo, MythTV and Freeview)

The Mother of all PVRs

The Snapstream Blog has detailed it's Godzilla PVR project, which allows them to record 11 shows at once, including 4 HDTV ones. It uses 4 * 250Gb drives configured for RAID 0 (striping) for the video alone. Truly a monster of a system!

Bye bye Tivo :(

Well, I've finally done it. After 3 years of perfect behaviour, my Tivo is on ebay here. I will be sorry to see it go, in fact, if I could get a twin Freeview tuner Tivo today, I would buy it, even if I still had to pay out £10 a month on a subscription. But, time and technology move on, and a single analogue tuner just no longer cuts the mustard in today's multi-channel digital world. I am using my Inverto IDL7000T as my PVR of choice these days, but I do still yearn after the ease-of-use perfecion and "set-it-and-forget-it" nature that Tivo achieved. Season Passes, I will be sad to see you go. Very.

I will be making an update after the weekend on life with the Inverto, but I am also going to build myself my ultimate PVR (or PVR+ as I called it in an earlier article). Maybe the spirit of Tivo will live on...

It's time to make a decision

And I'm not talking about the US elections, you'll be glad to hear.

Ever since TiVo pulled out of the UK market (selling hardware, anyway), I've had my eye out for what will replace it. Technology moves on, and my initial thoughts were I wanted a TiVo with twin-freeview tuners. However, TiVo (or the manufacturers it licenses it's technology to) don't seem likely to launch anything in the UK anytime soon, so I had a good think about what I wanted. Let's call my ideal PVR the PVR+, as I'm not feeling very creative today!

PVR+ Requirements

Software: Now, the whole point of having a PVR is that it makes life easier. I don't want to have to set it for every program every time it's on, like a video. I need "season passes", in TiVo-speak. I want to select a program on-screen via simple, attractive menus, and be able to have PVR+ record it every time it's on. I also want to be able to distinguish between first-showings and repeats. How frustrating is it to sit down to an episode of The Simpsons, only to find it's an episode you've already seen three times? And I love the fact that when this series of Grand Designs ends, my TiVo is sat there, keeping an eye out for when the next one starts - no more missing the first episode and hearing people at the office talking about it.

I also love the ability to set up keywords. I'm a bit of an Architecture and photography buff, and there's no way I can scour the TV listings to see if there's any programmes coming up that I might like. So my TiVo does it for me. Just set up the keywords "Photograph" and "Architect" and let it check the programme titles and descriptions for me. Like a particular actor? Enter their name into your search, and never miss a film or programme with them in again.

The TiVo's ability to learn from my choices by looking at the programmes I record and the ratings I give them is also really cool. Although I probably wouldn't miss it in PVR+, there have been times when I've seen something good I would never have noticed.

Video source: I want digital video, but money's tight, and so I don't want to pay for cable or Sky. That means Freeview, and there's plenty on there to keep me interested. There may be less channels, but most of the good stuff ends up on them. The problem with all Freeview PVRs I have seen so far though is the software: it's all really poor compared with my TiVo. And buggy. The other thing is, I want two Freeview tuners, because in typical fashion, the only "good" programmes seem to be on at the same time. If I can record two programmes and watch a third that's already been recorded at the same time, that would cover my needs.

Recording: I want PVR+ to record to a hard disk for speed and convenience, but it would be great to be able to record to a DVD for stuff I want to keep or share. If I had a DVD drive, I'd be able to scrap my DVD player too...but then I would need Dolby 5.1 sound.

Other Media: Not strictly PVR stuff here (well, to be honest, not PVR stuff at all), but wouldn't it be great if the PVR+ could play back MP3s? Mind you, I don't have a portable MP3 player yet, but when the time comes I'm sure it will be an iPod...so how about support for AAC format too? It would be good if I could either use the PVR+ to rip CDs, or play them from my PC over the network. Hmm...we'll leave that for later.

Photos - I take loads, and if I want to show them to others I'd rather sit in front of the TV with them and navigate photo albums with a remote than pass around prints or set up a projector. It would be great if I could pull them off my PC too. Oops, we're onto that "later" bit again.

Digital video - how about being able to play divx, video cds etc?

Connectivity: Now here's a big one, and something my TiVo (unmodified) can't get close to. I want a network connection so that I can access all those media files on my PC. If I have a net connection, then surely I can get all the EPG data over the net instead of having to dial-up for it ala TiVo? If I'm connected to the internet, couldn't I stream internet radio over it? And how about this...what if PVR+ had a web server built in, allowing me to view program schedules and set them from my PC - or from any web browser connected to the internet? How cool would that be?

Physical considerations: I'm very sensitive to ambient noise, so PVR+ must not annoy me when I'm sat in my living room reading a book. Once I detect the sound of a fan, that's it, I just can't get it out of my head. So, PVR+ must be quiet, which probably means no fan/slow fan and a quiet hard disk (I don't notice the one in my TiVo, but the one in my PC would be noticable). It also would need to "fit in" with the living room, so it needs to look like a consumer product, no ugly PC cases there, thank you very much!

Cost: Here's a difficult one - How much would I be willing to pay for my PVR+? Given that I wouldn't need my TiVo and I could sell it on ebay for around £200, and a year's subscription would cost me £120, how much on top is the extra functionality worth? I would guess around an extra £100 would not hurt my pocket too much. So what can I achieve for £400?

I've been doing some investigating, and I'll let you know later this week. In the meantime...let me know your thoughts! Hit the comments link and add your tuppence-worth.