BeyondTV

For a while I've had a Hauppague PVR 150 card. It lets you watch or record TV from your cable feed. The software that came with it is crude, but works. It has a scheduler, but you have to manually enter the dates for each show you want to record. If you forget it, you miss it.

Everyone I know who has a Tivo says it changes the way you watch TV. You only watch your favorite shows because they are always being recorded, and waiting for you to see. I like that concept, but didn't want to buy another device to do it.

I was looking at alternative software for my PVR card. There are a couple options out there. The one that stood out the most was Beyond TV by Snapstream. Other options are MythTV and SageTV.

BeyondTV has a Tivo-like interface. The only thing missing is the little cartoon character. You can even can use a remote (sold separately), but a wireless keyboard works pretty well too.

It has a built-in TV guide, updated via internet. That works pretty well. You can scroll through channels and get descriptions for anything that's on.

But Beyond TV really shines in how it records. You can either pick shows from teh guide or look them up by name. Then you get to choose whether to record just one episode, new ones, or any ones that happen to play. This is the feature I most wanted from Tivo. It even has rules to determine when it can delete old shows to make room for new ones.

And, I didn't notice this until recently, it records in the background- cool!. The Happauge software always popped up when it was recording.

The interface is very similar most set-top boxes, which makes it a little funny running it on a PC. I could see it would work better if I had it on an extra PC connected to the TV, just like a set-top. I don't know why someone isn't selling it bundled like this. There are bundles available w/software + tv tuner card, but you have to install it yourself.