Posted by Ken Moiarty on 03/02/06 03:55

> [...]
>
> If you already have a TV Tuner card in your PC (or can borrow one from
> someone), why not try the BeyondTV demo?
>

Actually I do have a TV tuner/PVR card in my PC. It's by Creative and it's
called Videoblaster Digital VCR. I did download the BeyondTV demo with the
intention of trying it with my Videoblaster card. But BeyondTV wouldn't
recognize it.

As a matter of fact, though, I have actually changed my mind about buying
the BeyondTV bundle: Tomorrow I'm going to drive into downtown Vancouver to
pick up the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 MCE Dual-Tuner which a vendor there has
in stock. (I've realized that any savings by obtaining this card in the
BeyondTV bundle will be more than offset by shipping costs, considering
border customs *broker fees* are disproportionately high for small purchase
items such as this.) After installing it inside my system, I'll fire up the
BeyondTV demo. (Still, success of my investment in the Hauppauge card is
kind of dependent on BeyondTV since BeyondTV is the only game in Canada that
I know of as far as providing an integrated EPG for a PC PVR setup. Without
this, I'll then merely gain another great PVR card which I can still only
use as a digital VCR. But this way, if it turns out not to be satisfactory,
I can decide not to part with the cost for the BeyondTV software: still not
ahead, but at least not quite as much of a loss.)


> I tried it awhile back and seriously considered purchasing the software. I
> have an ATI All-in-Wonder 850XT and an ATI TV Wonder VE in my PC, and the
> software worked as advertised. Note that I did not try recording anything
> in HD (and I'm not sure if BeyondTV has that capability).
>

No, I'm going to use my PC for recording standard definition. That way I
can reserve the limited hard drive space on my Motorola DCT6412 unit just
for recording HD programs.


> Since I already have two RePlayTV units with enough capacity to suit my
> needs, and my PC storage capacity would have to be increased to make this
> worthwhile, I decided not to get BeyondTV.

Well it seems to me that increasing one's PC storage space is such a
temptingly easy and relatively inexpensive option these days. If you know
where to buy, that is, several-hundred-GB hard drives are tantalizingly
cheap now a days. For example, at the store I'm going to tomorrow
(www.atic.ca), I want to also pick up a 300 GB hard drive (Maxtor ATA133,
7200 RPM, 16GB cache) which is marked at a mere $130 CAD. Now that's video
storage space!

Ken

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