Looking for 3rd party (HD)TV software that doesn't take over the desktop

[tluxon]

I recently installed a Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1600 and it seems to be working well, but I find the bundled software to be very inadequate. I'm looking into 3rd party software solutions, but haven't found any that don't have a front end that takes over the desktop.

Can anyone provide suggestions?

Thanks!

Tim

[edDV]

What are you trying to do? The Hauppauge software is needed to capture. Alternate PVR software exists (e.g. BeyondTV, SageTV) that can work in background. I'm not sure if they support this new card yet.

[tluxon]

I'd like to be able to have a small window in the corner of my display while performing other tasks on the PC. I often like to timeshift what I'm watching so I don't miss anything when I have to step away for a few minutes. Also, I want to capture in HDTV so I can share the best stuff with the family or watch from the couch on our nearby Mitsubishi LT-46131 LCD TV (1080p).

BeyondTV and SageTV support the HVR-1600, but they each have desktop frontends. I'd prefer a simple shortcut or two on my desktop instead.

Above all, I'd like a scheduling app that provides access to the Save/Cancel buttons when adding or editing a scheduled recording.

Thanks!

[edDV]

You are watching only DTV source (off air ASTC)? Hauppage is what you have for realtime preview. It is pulling an MPeg2_TS stream off air, monitoring it (audio and video) and saving to hard disk.

Once saved to disk you can view the MPeg2_TS file with other viewers like VLC or PowerDVD. Otherwise you are into coding, piping the stream to a realtime viewer and ATSC audio decoder.

Much the same issues apply to that card for analog capture. It hardware encodes to MPeg2.

PS: to do what you want now, an external ATSC tuner would provide real time monitoring off a S-Video downscale to a conventional tuner card but then you wouldn't be recording the stream. Catch 22?

[Baldrick]

Tried WatchHDTV ? it supports the hvr-1600.

[edDV]

That might work if it can view and record at the same time. Now I'm wondering if two programs can access the atsc tuner during recording.

[tluxon]

Tried WatchHDTV ? it supports the hvr-1600.

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to look into it further and maybe try it out. It apparently records but it looks like it uses the dvr-ms format, while I want to stick with the original .ts and .tp format.

[Soopafresh]

http://www.tv-plugin.com/index.php?id=22,0,0,1,0,0


Maybe... Try it out.

[tluxon]

I didn't see anything about HD support on that last one.

Being a ReplayTV user for the last 5 or 6 years, of course I've heard about their new product ReplayTV PC Edition. It doesn't currently support HD, but they say it will soon. I might have to give that a look too once it does.