pvr / dvr advice?

[chelton85]

Hello all,
I was hoping someone could offer some advice as to some good pvr/dvr setup.

What I need is something that can catch and record over the air television much like a DVR.
Not sure what features are available or even what products to look at. Any advice would be amazing.

Thanks in advance

 

[bradly1101]

I use a dual tuner DVR built around Windows 7's Media Center for that as my main TV. The files it produces can be converted for a phone or whatever. But you kind of need a dedicated PC for it.

 

[chelton85]

I use a dual tuner DVR built around Windows 7's Media Center for that as my main TV. The files it produces can be converted for a phone or whatever. But you kind of need a dedicated PC for it.

Do you mind if I ask a model number? I'm really looking for a starting point. I have an i5 w/ 8gb ram, all I do is watch tv and play some gaming. Just want to take it to the next level.

 

[chelton85]

play some gaming.

Ha ha I said play gaming

 

[kalrith]

I've been using the HVR-2250 for years, and I've been really pleased with it. A lot of people like the HDHomeRun as well. I went with the Hauppauge, because I record all my shows on one computer and didn't want to stream them across the network for that. IMO, the HDHomeRun is a good choice if you want to use it on multiple computers.

 

[XavierMace]

I'll second the Hauppauge suggestion. Love mine, only reason it's being replaces is it can't do premium channels.

 

[bradly1101]

Do you mind if I ask a model number? I'm really looking for a starting point. I have an i5 w/ 8gb ram, all I do is watch tv and play some gaming. Just want to take it to the next level.

That is more PC than you need for this. I run mine on an old single core Pentium 4 with 4GB. I use Hauppauge tuners and a Dolby Digital Live sound card to a home theater receiver.

The only problem is that if you scheduled a TV recording while your gaming MAY cause a slow down. But your hardware might handle it just fine.

 

[Cerb]

For Windows, at least one Hauppauge card. NPVR and MediaPortal are both good DVR applications, but setup can be somewhat annoying.

Hauppauge cards have a habit of just working, and they stand by their products (the one time I had problems, I got daily custom driver builds directly from the devs, until it was fixed). Features, and analog quality, will vary, so you need to make the specific choice based on wants and budget (if any--it reads like you may have been expecting to pay a lot more than it will cost you).

 

[bradly1101]

If you go to Newegg and look for Media Center remotes, you'll see that you can add that functionality with a USB IR receiver.