Hi all,

I'm thinking of buying a Beyond TV bundle (Beyond TV and Dual-Tuner
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 MCE Kit, to be specific) to install in my PC.
Before I take the plunge though, I'd like to hear any feedback from
others who may have had experience with this product.

My reasons for wanting to try Beyond TV has to do with the fact that
where I live, in Canada, we are pretty much limited in terms of PVRs to
what is offered by our local cable and satellite providers. For
example, I just paid almost $800 (CAD) to Shaw cable to purchase the
Motorola DCT6412 PVR unit that they offer. Hardware-wise it is a good
unit, except that its hard drive can hold only a maximum of 15 hours of
recording in HD. (It holds up to 40 hours of standard-broadcast-only
recording. But I bought the unit especially to compliment and take full
advantage of my newly purchased widescreen HDTV. If I have to ration
my hard disk space, it won't be by limiting my HD broadcast
viewing/recording.) The DCT6412 has myriad digital ports on both the
back and front of the machine. I'd just love to attach an SATA,
Firewire, or USB 2.0 external hard drive to it in order to try to
address the limited storage space issue. But all the digital ports on
the machine are rendered disabled by its software, which is provided
and controlled by the local cable provider (Shaw Cable; whom btw has
expressed no credible intention of ever changing this). Installing a
larger drive without some kind of secret software authorization key or
something to that effect, I've researched and concluded, is pretty much
impossible. So my only option left in order to increase storage space
for recording is to spend another $800 and add an entire additional
Motorola DCT6412 unit alongside of the existing one. (I would then
manually switch between units as recording needs require.) Yet this
one additional unit would increase my HD recording capacity to only 30
hours. Obviously, I've realized, this approach is far too expensive
for the returns.

Then I heard about the Beyond TV PVR option, in that, unlike Tivo or
ReplayTV, etc, it will work (fully, that is) in Canada too. Now, I'm
posting my above query here as I just want to make sure by doing so
that this product is nothing less than it is promised to be, before I
buy. Therefore, thanks in advance for any helpful, informative, or
otherwise interesting responses.

Ken

Ken wrote:

If you want to record HD, you will need a different tuner board from the
WINTV-PVR500, which is analog-only. You _may_ be able to get unencrypted
HD off the cable using a Dvico Fusion V board, but encrypted HD you can't
get at all except using the cable company's box.

You might find this thread
<http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=3818890#post3818890>
helpful, Shaw may have killed the firewire ports since though.

If you don't mind being a scofflaw, HDDirecTivo remains an option--basically
you need a US mail drop and you're on your own for installation. You can
get up to 130 hours of HD recording time out of one of those.

There is a Series 3 standalone HDTivo coming shortly that is rumored to be
able to record HD off of Shaw in one fashion or another--it may have the
same limitations as the Fusion board or it may be fully functional--it
might be worthwhile waiting a bit to see what it can actually do once it is
shipping.


--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@snet.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:du732m07fb@news4.newsguy.com...
Yes, I'm aware of this. My only aim for now is to off load most of the
standard definition or analog PVR recording tasks to my PC's PVR system and
reserve the Shaw controlled Motorola DCT6400 for all of my HD recording
(which at present is limited in volume by the the fact that the amount of HD
programming available is still in its 'beginning' stage).

Correct.

I'm taking Shaw's word for it that the firewire ports won't work. There is
still the chance that they are over simplifying for the sake of us "clueless
consumers", and that there may in fact be some yet to be discovered
functionality there. But my gut feeling tells me they are serious about
keeping the machines digital ports strictly off limits to consumers.

130 hours HD recording? Nice! I already have a U.S. mail drop which I
could use for this. But what about EPG data for my area? Then there's the
problem of no direct access to the encrypted HD channels provided by local
cable or satellite providers.

How would it be able to do that? There is no HD or digital TV encryption
standard for third party manufacturers/software writers to reference. As
far as I'm aware of, Shaw uses its own proprietary encryption, so it's
doubtful a machine or operating system software not specifically authorized
by them would be able to decode their signal.

I'll keep my eyes open for sure. Thanks.

Ken

Ken Moiarty wrote:

It's worth a try--a Firewire board is cheap.

Since it's DirecTV everything comes over the satellite including the
matching EPG. The main thing that you miss is the local channels (in the
US you can get them for most localities by paying a premium, of course in
Canada that won't be an option, but you should be able to get the US local
channels for wherever your mail drop is located, which will get the
CBS/NBC/ABC/etc programming), which you should be able to get OTA. You
won't get any Canada-specific cable-only programming though. Is there a
lot of that in HD?

Actually there is, it's called the "CableCard", and US cable providers are
required by law to support it. Unfortunately the Canadian government has
chosen not to place a similar requirement on their providers. Maybe with
more and more consumer hardware supporting it eventually they will get the
message but my impression is that the Canadian cable providers are
resisting change with all their power. Even without that though it should
be able to record unencrypted content if there is any.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@snet.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:du7rm71fq3@news3.newsguy.com...
Well I actually already have a Firewire (400) port already on my PC. Just
to satisfy curiosity I will try to link my PC to the PVR unit's Firewire
port at some time. But presently the two are comfortably parked about 25
feet apart from each other, so I'm not in a big hurry. <g> In the future
when I can afford it, I plan to get a second PC just for home entertainment
functions. This PC will be parked in my living room alongside the DCT6412
PVR unit. I will do some trial-and-error experimenting with the Firewire
(and/or other digital) ports then, for sure.

Oh I get what you're talking about now. You mean I might subscribe to a
U.S. DirecTV satellite service, of course! Not being a Canadian you may
have difficulty understanding what I'm about to tell you here... But it is
against federal law for a Canadian resident to use a U.S. (or any other
non-Canadian government regulated) satellite-TV service. I haven't heard of
any prosecutions lately, but I recall back in the eighties there were news
stories of people who were quite upset because their analog-signal satellite
dishes were being confiscated by Canadian authorities. It wasn't like an
organized crack down or anything like that. It was more like if you had
funny neighbors who wanted to make trouble for you and so took it upon
themselves to report you, etc...etc... But in the event that I were to
subscribe to a U.S. based satellite service today, there is still the
problem of getting the required proprietary hardware passed Customs Canada.

You see, the Canadian equivalent to the U.S.'s FCC is the CRTC (Canadian
Radio and Telecommunications Commission). Unlike the FCC, however, the
CRTC's role is not just essential regulation of the public's airwaves. The
CRTC has the legal mandate to exert totalitarian-like control over content,
or what programming the Canadian public are allowed to watch and listen to,
on their televisions and radios! Ever heard of "Canadian-content laws"? Or
that during a federal election all election news is blacked out from coast
to coast until the last polls close on the West coast. It's needless
political nonsense, of course. But ever since the Pierre Trudeau government
of the late sixties, the Liberal Party dominated Canadian government has
seen its role as being, not a servant of the people, but as a kind of
'bureacratic baby sitter' over the people. Anyway... a long story and a
discussion for another time and place.

I've been told about "CableCard" before. But I was given the impression
that it was still in the development phase.



The Canadian government and cable providers are bed mates.


I'm not so optimistic.


A perceptive observation!


Ken