How important would a good TV viewing and DVR module be???

[sharp_1]

Does anyone know if xLobby v3 will be supporting TV viewing and recording?

I would really like to see TV integrated with xLobby...then we would really have it all. For me this is almost a must have in the future, with Vista Media Center Ultimate and Home Premium having a excellent TV module included with most new systems I feel xLobby really needs to add this capability.

I figured I would bring it up...any comments???

[wesblack]

Steven and I have talked about this numerous times but find it difficult to justify the development time and cost. There is already so many companies fighting it out.

1. Microsoft Media Center (Almost Free)
2. Snapstream
3. Sage
4. Media Portal (Free)
5. Got All Media
6. GB-PVR (Free)
7. Freevo (Free)
8. MeediOS (Free)
9. MythTV (Free)

The other major problems are usually that multiple tuner card hardware from different companies is really difficult to support unless you stick with a specific manufacture that you can build a good relationship with and will provide you with the technical information you need, otherwise your constantly re-coding for new hardware and thus creating constant changes in the PVR software that potentially breaks current versions of what you already coded for in the past with legacy tuners. This creates so many problems for users that expect there PVR device to work 99% of the time otherwise no one will use this technology, the wife factor.

In the early days of snapstream this was there major obstacle as they tried to support every card that users wanted to put in ther HTPC systems both hardware and software based tuners, the old ATI software based tuners caused them alot of issues, I remember because I was an early beta tester from almost day one, even up to versions 3 they could never really get it right audio-video sync issues plagued by crapy video quality and the list went on.

The major reason we don't do it is because of HDTV, most Satellite based systems are integrated and almost free now days as well as many cable PVR solutions are now rellay in-expensive. We would need to add Cable Card support and provide a partnership with a company to provide program guide data. I know almost every user wants to move there content around to different devices or view it in different rooms as they want, this is why people look for programs like sage or snapstream in the first place.

We are working on some other ideas for this like a stand alone hardware unit that can provide HDTV recording abilities connected to the component video output of cable boxes and satellite receivers since it's not going to have the issues associated with HDCP like HDMI does. The unit would simply have the ability to connect to a hard drive or be able to connect to NAS or a shared hard drive resource. The device would be able to control your cable box or satellite externally and record HDTV content without the need for a tuner card or cable card. A Straight conversion from HDTV video straight to a MPEG file.

The major problem in the future would be if the new HDMI 1.3 standards take hold and are not as problematic as this technology has been in the past with product compatibility issues and distance problems, then we could possibly see the old analog video ports die off. This is what the content providers want so they can control what we do with content comming into our homes.

I have some pictures of this prototype and will try to post them this week from work. I believe that eventually this market will shift to IP based content and as bandwith increaes most homes will have access to all types of high quality content. Panasonic was showing family time LCD TV products with built-in PVR solutions based on IP and direct video content support with open SDK support.

Let's finish Ver 3 of xLobby and see what happens this year, everyone here as well as the growing xLobby customer base of system integrators will help us make the right decisions on where xLobby goes in the future.

Like you I wish we could do it right now but it's just not on the immediate list.

Thanks for pointing your interest out to us and the forum.

Sorry for the long winded post.





Wes Black \ Calrad

[Jay]

Agreed.
For TV in XL, I have Titan TV in Webrowser. I've configured Titan with my tuner card. When I want to watch or record, I just click on the channel and the show.

[samgreco]

I agree also. I think adding TV to the XLobby core is just asking for trouble. Personally I use SageTV and love it. They do a great job for TV. There are folks doing plugins for Sage and other automation platforms. That's probably the way to go. Plugins could work for many of the TV engines.

In fact there were a couple a while back for free Xlobby.

[wesblack]

Sam,

Off topic post:

I Went to your mediapcforumswebsite.com to see how you were doing over there and I read a thread on the forum, see link below and understand how many people feel about what xLobby will do in the future, all I can say is that the new back end in Ver 3.0 is going to be very powerful as we move forward this year. I hope to post some screen shots soon but Steven has not finished the layout and design are exactly the way he wants it and until it is in a more polished form to release screenshots, beleive me this new version is awesome and yes there will be a few bugs as we leave Ver 2.0. We are really close to a first beta release for xLobby Ver 3.

Steven has had some limited communications with Colby and I beleive he is waiting on the side lines to see what Ver 3 will do and maybe he will come back who knows, we never intended to loose him or badabing during this process of getting xLobby to Ver 3 and yes they were both assets to xLobbys success as the software stands today as well as all the other active members here on the forum. One day I hope to see both of them come back.

Steven and I will always try to make xLobby one of the best pieces of software available and do what we can to add what users want and need to make there media and home automation systems rock !

Thanks for your open ear.............


http://www.mediapcforums.com/forum/inde ... ,16.0.html




Wes Black \ Calrad

[lar282]

using Mediaportal today with plugin. Works great but if an integration would be a fact it would work even better


//Lasse

[Marbles_00]

Steven has had some limited communications with Colby

It's also good to hear that Colby's doing okay. Now, is that Colby's two year old in that google video??? Hmmm....

[S Pittaway]

i fully understand the reasons for not adding a tv module but i think the epg could do with some more work.

options for searching/finding series links etc would be usefull.

also, personally i find the current one to be quite slow and unresponsive...

[sharp_1]

Wes:

Thanks for your response. With all the options out there when it comes to tuner cards I can see how trying to integrate them with xLobby v3 would be a mountain of a task. I just wonder how difficult it would be to have one solid solution using one type of tuner card in v3? This would limit the amount of work needed to implement the TV module and would at least give xLobby a leg to stand on in that arena. xLobby v3 would offer a TV tuner solution but not a DIY option...the tuner card and plugin would be packaged together as an option. I know that's what some of the guys (including me) got turned off with about main lobby but I think it could work.

I guess the only thing I would be looking for is one good solution.

Thanks!!!

[wesblack]

You hit the nail on the head, this would be the only way we could ever do it. A close relationship with a reliable company that would work with us and not change the hardware every 3 months forcing constant re-development.





Wes Black \ Calrad

[lar282]

Isn't BDA drivers ment to take of that problem? Isn't that how MCE work? If u have BDA drivers it will work in MCE? Could work the same way in Xlobby

//Lasse

[sharp_1]

Ahhh, my dreams are coming true!!!

Hope this changes the thought process behind making this a possibility.

[wesblack]

Yes the Broadcast Driver Architecture is a standard but most companies in China and Taiwan do not always follow the complete standard 100%, kind of what we deal with with HDMI and many other problematic technologies and this is where the problems start to occur, with over 25 yrs. of manufacturing products in Asia, the stories I could tell about bogus chips, inferior components and materials, substitute parts and inconsistant product runs. This is why long term partners with a good commuications path for technical resources is a plus.




Wes Black \ Calrad

[lar282]

I belive u and I do understand why the tv module is not in XL. One can't just wipp up a good pvr module like that and think it's gonna be a good one.

I said this before...
Since Mediaportals TvEngine is client server, why not add client functionality to XL, then one does not have to care about tv cards and such...


//Lasse

[jji666]

I would LOVE to be able to access broadcast media through XL in an integrated way so that it seemed to flow from the same menus as my networked media.

However, I agree with Wes that broad-based support of standard def TV tuners and the like would probably be a money pit and take tremendous time to support and make work, plus it's been done as he said.

More importantly, most of us serious video adicts are into high definition, and not just the broadcast channels but cable or satellite TV as well. I personally use Directv's HD DVR and it is a reasonably nice solution, albeit not integrated at all with XL and I have to switch inputs on my TV. So the idea that there is the possibility of developing a hardware component video recording solution that one could attach to a hard drive that is also networked would be awesome. Still, this seems more like a way to import recorded video to your network (which I would die for anyway) rather than a way to watch live HDTV as it's being broadcast, so a further enhancement would be some sort of method of streaming the HD content directly into XL to be watched "live" as well as recording for later watching or as an archive. So perhaps this should really be a device with a network port on it that can stream HD content being received from the component video ports into some client plugin for XL. Assuming that the plugin would also control channel changing and recording selection from the DVR, this would pretty much approximate a full XL controlled TV watching and recording solution.

(Yeah a slingbox kind of does this but it encrypts the content so I don't think it would work with anything but a slingbox client, and it won't record, etc.)

Is anyone aware of a reasonably priced device that allow component video to be recorded on a computer? I don't think there is anything. It would also need to be able to accept AC3 or other digital audio signal and include that in the stream or recorded content.