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[talyn21]

I have been using MC18 for a whole house audio system for a bit now and it has been working great.  As I browse the forums I have been looking at MC's video abilities and am wanting to know if MC18 could be used to replace my Tivo?  Will all the capabilities still be there?  How would I get guide information for my local stations?  How many tuners can be used?  (I would probably only need 3 max) and how many TV's could video be played back simultaneously? 

Thanks
 

[JimH]

In theory, MC's video works pretty much the same as audio.  In practice, there will be a few limitations.  You would need to try it to be sure.

I don't know of any limit on tuners.  I think that it would be limited by CPU and Disk first.

You could read more on the TV board here.

[glynor]

Yes.

I don't use MC as my background recording engine for a few reasons, so I can't comment on the specifics there.  But it certainly has a guide, can be used with multiple tuners, and can play to essentially any number of external systems (either additional HTPCs or via DLNA directly to the device at the endpoint).  I use MC for all of my video playback and TV watching.

The only thing I'm not doing is using MC for TV recording and Live TV watching (which essentially never happens).  It works for this, and I'd probably have switched to using it for a background recording service already if I wasn't so lazy.  I had some issues getting this set up the way I wanted the last time I tried, but that was ages ago, before we even had a grid-guide and a number of other enhancements.  It has come a long way, and one of these days when I'm less lazy, I'm planning to switch (SageTV pisses me off every time I need to open it, but I don't need to open it very often, so it is easy to ignore).  The main remaining thing I'm not sure about is using multiple IR-blasted-style tuners (to control multiple cable boxes with devices like the HD-PVR).  It certainly handles multiple tuners, though, and now even handles the Ceton CableCard devices (which are typically 4-tuner).

For multiple device playback and multiple tuner use, you are simply going to be limited by network performance and disk throughput.  I have a high-performance RAID-5 media drive and a Gigabit network.  I've played HD video to 4 systems (the server plus three clients) simultaneously before without issue.

[talyn21]

Thanks for the info.  Where does MC get the guide information?  Is that a paid service or can it be acquired for free?

[JimH]

Various Internet sources.

[astromo]

Yes.

I don't use MC as my background recording engine for a few reasons, so I can't comment on the specifics there.  But it certainly has a guide, can be used with multiple tuners, and can play to essentially any number of external systems (either additional HTPCs or via DLNA directly to the device at the endpoint).  I use MC for all of my video playback and TV watching.

The only thing I'm not doing is using MC for TV recording and Live TV watching (which essentially never happens).  It works for this, and I'd probably have switched to using it for a background recording service already if I wasn't so lazy.  I had some issues getting this set up the way I wanted the last time I tried, but that was ages ago, before we even had a grid-guide and a number of other enhancements.  It has come a long way, and one of these days when I'm less lazy, I'm planning to switch (SageTV pisses me off every time I need to open it, but I don't need to open it very often, so it is easy to ignore).  The main remaining thing I'm not sure about is using multiple IR-blasted-style tuners (to control multiple cable boxes with devices like the HD-PVR).  It certainly handles multiple tuners, though, and now even handles the Ceton CableCard devices (which are typically 4-tuner).

For multiple device playback and multiple tuner use, you are simply going to be limited by network performance and disk throughput.  I have a high-performance RAID-5 media drive and a Gigabit network.  I've played HD video to 4 systems (the server plus three clients) simultaneously before without issue.

And I'm the opposite. I bought MC for its audio horsepower on a Windows platform and didn't realise the depth of its capability for video and TV. After the ongoing annoyances and shortcomings of Microsoft MCE that needed to be supported by other video playing software, MC was staring me in the face and virtually begging to be used.

The TV at home rarely gets used as a TV direct because the preferred mode for viewing is TV via MC. That then provides the Windows desktop for net surfing on the side, as required. 2 x HDHomeRun dual DVB-T tuners provides 4 TV feeds for direct viewing &/or recording. Works fine for me.

Being a user from Oz, the EPG was the trickiest part to sort out. Consult the TV relevant wiki for background that then kicks you on to various forum posts with relevant detail. If all else becomes difficult then consult Yaobing - he turns up on the forum when needed. I've opted for the free EPG route. Paid services are available in Australia but the free stuff has worked fine for the most part.

If you search the forum pages you'll find that there are some builds where certain TV functions "break". Recent case in point was that for a couple of builds, TV channel scanning wasn't functional. I didn't notice the problem until I had cause to rescan my channels. It was no big drama, build 180 fixed the scanning problem and until that was sorted I just rolled back a few builds to the stable release. So "broken" generally isn't "broken" for long. The development team have demonstrated to me that they are committed to getting users back to using with minimal delay. Again, Yaobing the TV guru on the development team is very supportive, informative and generally pretty quick to respond.

There are some clued up users like glynor who also provide really useful advice. So, you've got a solid resource base.

Not being a Tivo user, I can't offer comment to compare. You'll have to research the support info from the forum and the wiki for details. Unfortunately, the font of all internet knowledge - Wikipedia doesn't have an up to date MC entry in the video department to help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_PVR_software_packages

Given that you've got an MC18 licence, grab a cheap tuner, get the TV function cranking and do your own evaluation.

[Samson]

Like yourself and Astromo I came to MC for its audio capabilities. I got hooked on the idea of a 'one stop shopping' media center that could do it all...and on one TV input and all using one remote control, totally spouse and family friendly. While we haven't quite got there yet I do use MC now for music (over TV speakers for family or via external DAC to HiFi), movies/video, TV live and PVR and beginning to explore the image/photo viewing functionality. The only area outside MC the family now prefers is with the Roku box for streaming internet TV.

The most challenging area of 'conversion' was using MC for TV/PVR but so many of the shortcomings have now been rectified. As PVR  is specifically what you are asking about let me reproduce a feature list I acquired (and modified) some time ago when looking at PVR functionality/ease of use and see how MC fares. Others may perhaps add to the list or answer what is left unknown in the list.

Does MC TV/PVR have ? :

Live TV

   •  A button on the remote for direct Live TV access (not indirect menu access) - YES, can be configured
   •  A menu list of local stations in theatre view ( a simple list of whats on now) - YES, can be created
   • Time Shift and Instant Replay of Live TV - Yes. some say that this can cause other problems but hasn't for me. It can be disabled.
   • IR Blaster support for remote power on/off TV - YES
   
Recorded TV

   •  A List of upcoming TV recordings - YES, in standard view and recently added to theatre view.
   • marks upcoming shows to be recorded on EPG - YES
   • TV shows arranged by Series, genre, recently recorded - YES
   • TV shows separately listed by whole series/seasons (box sets) - YES, can be configured
   • TV metadata retrieved with episode info - YES if season and episode number known or from guide data.
   • Books recordings direct from the EPG - YES
   • Books Series recordings from EPG - YES
   • Books recordings by time - YES, but I believe only for series recordings
   • Shows recorded program by name (not time)- YES
   • flexible recording start/stop (buffer) times - YES
   •  Web based interface for operating/programming - Don’t know
   
Playback TV
   
   •  Playback with easy navigation backwards and forwards - YES
   •  Slow-motion - NO
   • program the remote to jump forwards or backwards in user defined intervals - YES
   • Ad skipping - Yes, with jumping forwards with remote FF or in user defined blocks.
      ○ Auto detect ads and remove whole ad-break - Apparently with third party app but havent tried yet.
   • Dig out for AVR - I believe bitstreaming capable but dont use it.
      ○ ( Other I/O dependent on soundcard)

Cover Art

        • Series - YES
        • Season -YES
        • Episode - I think so,but havent cchecked it out


Video Quality

   •  Hi Res recording - YES, (others will need to add detail)
   • 3D recording - Don't know
   • "Red October" - YES
   • ROHQ MadVR support - YES
   • Hardware accelerate capable - YES
   • VideoClock Smoothing -YES
   • Auto display change FPS capable - YES
   • A/V synching - YES
   • Aspect Ratio correction - YES
   
   
 EPG

   • Over The Air - YES, but not all countries catered for
   • XMLTV - YES
   • Mc2xml - YES if available in your country
      
      
 TV tuners and Playback Devices

   • Analog TV Tuner and video capture:
      ○ All WDM devices are supported.  Some may work better than others.

   • Digital TV:
      ○ ATSC - YES
      ○ Clear QAM -YES
      ○ DVB-T - YES
      ○ DVB-T2, DVB-S/S2, DVB-C/C2 (no encrypted channels yet) - YES

   • Supports multiple Tuners - YES, at least 4, more ? limited by CPU and disk
   • Support multiple IR-blasted-style tuners (to control multiple cable boxes with devices like the HD-PVR) - Not Known
   • Supports Ceton CableCard devices - YES
   • Plays to multiple HTPC or DLNA networked devices - Glynor says YES , limited by netwrok performance and disk throughput
   • PIP - Don't Know

[astromo]

Samson - great checklist.

Really sets things out ... man, there's a fair amount of stuff there that I'll need to find out more about.

Nice work. Cheers..   

[Samson]

Thanks Astromo

[JimH]

Samson - great checklist.

Yes.  Thank you.

[pahunt]

I feel I have to chime to mention a gap in functionality compared to TiVo (and WMC) that for me is stopping me switching over currently. As far as I understand there is no way to set up a "wishlist" for a particular word or phrase and for Media Center to automatically record any show that has that word or phrase in the title and/or synopsis.

[talyn21]

Thank you all for the info.  If I may be a pain in the behind - where exactly does one get the free EPG info?  It would seem my search skills could be better.  I find all sorts of info saying one can, just not where.

[Samson]

Does MC TV/PVR have ? :

continued here http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=80602.0

[Samson]

where exactly does one get the free EPG info? 

Standard view in left pane > Drives and Devices > TV Options > Load program guide > Download EPG automatically

Its a complicated area so if still issues maybe see my post here to get more sorted hopefully

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=80602.0