Digital VCR type software, any suggestions?

[MrBond]

Being a poor college student, with access to lots of computer parts, I've been thinking about building my own TiVo type thing. I'd like some suggestions for software that will work similarly to TiVo's, but run in Windows. I know 3dFx is working on something, but I dunno if that will be (or is, if its out already) card proprietary (sp?). Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[(Chanse)]

I just bought an AIW Radeon, and the tivo features work superb. I don't know how good the 3dfx card will be (though the specs sound impressive enough). But the Guide plus for the AIW works fine for me.

 

[Praetor]

There are a few pieces of software out there that will do what you're looking for. I'll leave the hardware debates to others. (I personally own a Hauppauge WinTV+radio)

Cinax has a handy little program called WinVCR that has been out for a while now. Incredibly easy to use, it will capture video as either MPEG-1 or Microsoft's ASF. I've used the demo a few times and like it. I might even buy it at some point in time. Check it out here.

Showshifter also has a product that recently came to my attention that almost mirrors the TiVo perfectly. In function, at least. ShowShifter is currently in beta, but looks rather promising. It uses the free MJPEG codec as its primary compression method. From what I've read however, it will also support any other codec installed on your computer. Including DiVX ;-), thankfully. I haven't tried it yet, as it looks like it is an adware based program. I'll try it out on my Win98 partition and let you know what I think of it. There is a free beta available to download if you want to try it out on your own.

If you end up getting a Hauppauge card, included with the driver software is the program that I prefer, VidCap32. Incredibly small, direct and to the point, it utilizes any video codec installed on your computer. My only complaint is that I haven't figured out how to use other audio codecs in it yet. That could simply be my own problem though. It's free though, so what can you expect?

Enjoy!

 

[Praetor]

All right, then. I've just returned from my brief sojourn into Windows 98SE to play with ShowShifter.

And it works! In my brief trial runs, it lived up to its claims of pausing live TV then playing it back. I didn't bother to try out the standard TV functions or the DVD option. The interface is still a bit jagged, but it is pretty straight forward. My biggest complaint on the GUI is the setup page. The configuration set for normal TV operation and the set for recording is on the same page, but not labeled as such. It would have been better had they mixed them both together.

My second complaint is that it is advertising-based. My lack of an internet connection seemed to stall things a bit. Load-time was increased by about 5 seconds as it attempted to contact a server. I hope that when it comes to releasing the final version that they offer it in two flavors: One ad-supported and one without, for those who purchase it.

Third, the GUI seems to have been designed at a resolution of 640x480, everything was blown up to ridiculous proportions.

All in all, it works. And considering it is a beta, it does the job fantastically.