lightenment » dvrs

TiVo Premiere Elite

lightenment — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:26:21 +0000

The TiVo Premiere Elite features 4 tuners, 2TB HDD, and THX Certified.

Monsoon Multimedia Vulkano Deluxe

lightenment — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:34:52 +0000

The Monsoon Multimedia Vulkano Deluxe is a high end DVR with place shifting features, analog input, and stereo input.

Eminent HD EM7195

lightenment — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:55:24 +0000

The Eminent HD EM7195 is a twin digital tuner with USB 3.0, network connectivity via Ethernet, HDMI, and memory card reader.

Marusys MS630S

lightenment — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:09:44 +0000

The Marusys MS630S features composite, component, and HDMI video outputs with the ability to send recorded video to an iPhone via WiFi.

TiVo Premiere

lightenment — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:40:30 +0000

The TiVo Premiere is their Series 4 box which allows streaming from Blockbuster, Netflix and Amazon. Storage is available in 320GB and 1TB.

Elgato EyeTV Hybrid

lightenment — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:00:29 +0000

I had been interested in the El Gato EyeTV Hybrid for a long time. I like that it had tuners for digital and analog. No one up to this point had a single solution for the Mac OS X platform and on top of that it comes as a relatively small USB dongle that can be used with a laptop when on the go. The El Gato EyeTV Hybrid has the ability to watch analog and digital television programming, record that programming, and later edit the video. The unit also has the ability to rewind, fast forward and pause live TV. Getting two tuners in one for about $150 to me is a bargain.

The system requirements aren’t too steep if you aren’t looking to record HD programs. It needs a G4, G5 or Intel processor with 256MB of RAM, a USB 2.0 port and Mac OS X 10.4. If you are looking to record in HD it’s recommended to have a G5 or Intel processor. I’m running the system on a 24″ iMac with an Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM and I haven’t come across any slow downs and I wasn’t expecting any either.

The El Gato EyeTV Hybrid comes with a small dongle to connect S-Video and composite, but no input for component video. For the price of the unit, one can’t expect to have component input or output and I don’t think I’ve seen a product that offers that yet. In any case, The EyeTV Hybrid offers analog connectivity through an external video source.

The TitanTV features are really nice and it gives it the ability to show program listings as well as schedule recordings. Another nice feature of TitanTV is that its configured through a web browser and the user has the ability to schedule recordings remotely through the web interface. I was primarily looking at the unit for viewing purposes, but the recording options are a nice feature.

The EyeTV Hybrid is also compatible with the Apple Remote and offers a similar interface to Apple’s Front Row for viewing television in full-screen mode. You have to hold down the Menu button to activate the feature and the controls take a little getting used to. I would often launch Front Row by accident, but after using the remote for a while it’s not too much of an issue.

The El Gato EyeTV Hybrid comes with the popular EyeTV software which makes it really easy to watch TV on your Mac. Playback is fairly smooth and I didn’t really have any issues with the software. My HD over-the-air reception is pretty good in my area, but without an adequate antenna it’s hard to pick up any reception. I had thought the unit was packaged with a small antenna, but I was wrong. This is something separate that needs to be purchased in order to pull over-the-air stations. I was okay with this because I had intended to use my cable provider to television reception as my primary provider.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the purchase. It’s very reasonably priced and does everything that it says it will do. I’ll have to use it more as a DVR and see how that goes. While I still enjoy watching TV on my living room TV, it?s a nice feature to have a TV tuner on my computer when I’m in the office. I would recommend it for those looking into adding a tuner to their Mac. If you have any questions are comments, as always feel free to post them.

Motorola DCT6208

lightenment — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 07:00:00 +0000

My local cable provider is Comcast and I opted to order the HDTV and DVR options in my setup. I had used a Tivo previously and was quite happy with that but I was looking for something that was capable of recording HDTV. Comcast uses the Motorola DCT6208 for its HDTV and DVR package. As with any DVR, the DCT6208 lets you pause and rewind live TV. There is a dramatic change between HDTV reception over standard digital cable as well as analog cable. The set top box has the ability to send signals in widescreen format at 480i, 480p, 720i, 720p, and 1080i. I have it connected to a Samsung HL-R4667W and have it set at 720p, which is the highest resolution the TV can accommodate. The unit has component video output as well as DVI, but I am using the HDMI connection on my TV for my Mac Mini and do not have a receiver cable of switching HDMI connections. It also has the standard S-Video and RCA outputs, but if you are looking for the best HDTV quality using the DVI or component connections are your best bets. It also has built in Ethernet, USB, and Firewire but I have yet to find any uses for those. The unit has coaxial and optical digital output for audio and I use the coaxial to connect to my Sony receiver.

I don’t know how large the hard drive in the unit is, but I have yet to fill it to capacity. I have to say the user interface on a Tivo unit is much easier to use than that of the Motorola DCT6208. It seems more institutive but after you get used to the DCT6208 interface it works pretty well. At certain times the unit tends to slow down however, but I think it just takes time to delete from the hard drive. I found with quite a few digital cable providers that there is sometimes a delay between the cable company and reception to the box. I’m not sure if the cable company is to blame or the set top box itself. For the most part I have been able to get used to how the DVR functions.

Picture quality and sound on HDTV programs is excellent. I can see a huge difference in sports programming as well as movies. For my area HDTV programming is pretty good, but I could always use a few more channels if not all my channels. It will be nice when everything is switched over in 2009. If you are considering the upgrade to HDTV and/or a DVR unit and your cable company offers the Motorola DCT6208 I would say its worth the extra few bucks a month. I don’t watch TV all that often so anytime I get a chance to I appreciate it a lot more especially HDTV.

ReplayTV 5500

Dustin — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 07:00:46 +0000

Several months ago we got a ReplayTV to take care of all our DVR needs. Based upon the suggestions from several ReplayTV users it seems like a good way to go, so we picked up one of the newer 5500 series replays. Upon receiving the box, it was ordered online, there seemed to be a loose part rattling around inside. Heeding past experiences with warranty’s and so forth I made a call to ReplayTV asking them if I should immediately send it back for a replacement before I opened the factory seal. They recommended that I just open it up and try it and if something was wrong it could still be sent back for no cost and replaced. If at any point I still didn’t feel ok with it I could return anyway. That was nice to hear in an era where re-stocking fees of 15% and up are common at many stores. As it turns out everything was fine and we proceeded to set it up.

Set up took a while as it is tough entering longer pieces of information such as your activation code or local cable provider with a remote control. I found myself wishing there was some sort of web interface you could easily access after plugging the set into the network. After some tedious data entry we got the ReplayTV up and running, using an IR blaster to hook up to the Motorola/Comcast cable box. After establishing its connection to the internet the replay box downloaded all the local cable station information and authorized itself through replay’s network (you get several days of free programming before the box disables itself until activated, a la Windows and its activation key). One of the first short comings of the ReplayTV was that had a very noticeable delay when switching stations. I don’t know if that is to import data correctly or what, but there was about a 2-3 second delay. Based upon this we decided to keep using the cable box directly and by-pass the ReplayTV when view live TV.

Everything seemed to go smoothly as we set up several shows to record. It wasn’t until later in the week I noticed my biggest grip with the machine. So when I attempted to and watch a show I noticed it recorded something but not the show I had expected. This continued to happen several times in what seemed a random, intermittent pattern. Basically you’d have it all set up to record, let’s say, CSI on channel 34 at 8pm, but it would record say, the OC on channel 7 at 8pm instead, quite annoying. For several weeks we were quite complexed, trying anything we could think of including: re-importing the local cable stations, manually choosing our cable box, selecting different variations of related cable box settings, and so on. It finally occurred to me that the replay box had thought the cable box was already set to the correct channel. Basically because we were going back and forth between using the ReplayTV for recording/replaying shows and by-passing it for live viewing, the replay box would mistakenly think the cable box was still set to a particular channel and therefor making it unnecessary to send the IR channel change command. With this in mind we are now mindful to set the cable box channel to some obscure station using the ReplayTV prior to turning the replay off and using the cable box only. Our shows now seem to record properly and on the correct channel. I don’t know what it would entail on ReplayTV’s side, but a firmware upgrade where the replay will always send the IR channel command to the cable box would be very nice fix.

Aside from the channel problem the ReplayTV service is fairly powerful. It is possible to log in to ReplayTV’s customer service and set up particular recordings remotely, say from work or any other place with an internet connection. Another fairly useful 3rd party piece of software is from www.dvarchive.org. Once install on a computer with network access to the ReplayTV box it is possible to set up recording schedules and even pull recorded TV shows to that computer for local viewing. This is nice especially considering ReplayTV disabled the box to box sharing over the internet. If you have two or more replay boxes on the same local network you can still share shows between the two, but you can no longer do the same with your friends ReplayTV box down the street. Not to say you couldn’t set up a VPN connection and create a virtual LAN with them, it is just not part of the built in functionality as it was in prior replayTV series’.

With that said ReplayTV has just made news again with new that they are going to be going towards producing software for PC based TV recording boxes. Meaning they would be pulling out of the hardware end of sales and push their software only. This would be supported by their current availability of ReplayTV boxes from their online store: only a refurbished 5516 model box. I would predict big things from ReplayTV as they shy away from a market that will most likely be soon dominated by rental DVR boxes from cable companies such as Comcast. Hopefully they will be able to release some fully functional software for PC boxes, but it could be tough considering all the DRM restrictions currently out there.