Smart Home Blog

A few years ago I used LinuxMCE and VDR to watch and record Live TV on my Linux-based media center. But later I found the service which streams all Russian channels over Internet in good quality and switched to XBMC + special plugin to watch it. So far it’s ok. But USB DVB-S2 card near the box time to time remind me about Live TV and especially HD channels. So, I started thinking to try XBMC with PVR support. But I was too lazy to replace stable working XBMC Dharma installed from LiveCD by experimental PVR version. It looks like now I don’t have any excuse anymore. Because OpenELEC released a new stable version combining the latest XBMC Eden and PVR. Moreover, that version should support the CEC Adapter which I bought half year ago to control my TV from the XBMC box over HDMI. OpenELEC offers almost any well known PVR systems – TVHeadend, VDR, Njoy N7, MythTV, Mediaportal, HDHomerun and VU+. I think I’ll choose my favorite one – VDR. I’ll try first to install OpenELEC 2.0 on the flash drive to do not break current system because it’ll be many interesting football games this weekend 🙂 Will post my experience with new system next week. So, stay tune!

Looks like Boxee is going to add PVR functionality very soon. It’ll use USB TV tuner to allow Boxee users watch, schedule, pause Live TV as well as navigate via EPG. Social features will be also available for that kind of media content. You’ll be able to share your favorite TV shows with your Boxee or Facebook friends.

XBMC which was and is a base for Boxee still doesn’t have PVR support. There is a way to watch and record live TV using VDR (yaVDR) or MythTV (MythBox). But it’d be nice to have a native PVR functionality. Let’s see how it’ll be implemented in Boxee. The PVR release should be launched soon. But now let’s watch a short demo video of Live TV setup under the Boxee after break.
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One of the easiest way to watch a big number of TV channels is to install satellite dish. Usually consumers just get satellite receiver – plain or with PVR, and that’s it. But some companies offers more. One of them is USDISH.com. Except a wide range of TV channels and unique devices like dual-tuners receivers, it offers additional equipment and services such Slingbox and remote access from PC or smartphone allowed to browse EPG, manage timers or playback recorded TV shows.

Check the Dish Network Equipment page for more info.

UPDATE: After official announcing of Google TV we known that Dish Network was named as an one of the Google TV partners!

If you’d like to have personal video recorder (PVR) but wouldn’t to buy an expensive one or build it by yourself the new Conceptronic Grab’n’GO Multimedia Recorder & Player is probably what do you really need. Thanks to built-in storage and integrated analog TV tuner the device allows to record TV shows, pause LiveTV, create a recording schedule. Additionally, it can record video from DVD player, set-top box or camcorder.

It’s planing that Grab’n’GO Multimedia Recorder & Player will be shipped with HDD in 500Gb which should be enough to store more than 228 hours in high quality video and more than 656 hours in low quality. It also acan be connected to the PC via USB to copy media content (XviD, AVI, MPEG 1/2/4,JPEG, MP3, WAV and VOB are supported) from/to device.

The CM3PVR is now available, with a retail price starting from € 269,- incl. VAT (500GB).

[via eHomeUpgrade]

Recently I wrote about adding X10 automation functionality into MythTV interface. Now I’d like to introduce a way to integrate a modern wireless technology Z-Wave in your MythTV box. It’s called HACKmyth. It isn’t free: the basic unit costs $799 and extended version – $999. But you’ll able to control your lighting system and PVR from one user interface and using only one remote control of course.

I’d like to tell any bad words about HACKmyth. moreover, is good that Linux software is used in production systems. But IMHO it’d be better to buy FiireEngine with configured LinuxMCE which supports Z-Wave, X10, INSTEON (soon), includes MythTV, VDR, Asterisk and covers all areas of home for $799. In that case you’ll able to control almost all devices in your house.