alebowgm
09-06-04, 04:23 PM
Comparing the Canadian PVR's vs. American PVR's
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040827.gtro9tech-1/BNStory/TechReviews/
Tame your telly
By George Emerson
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Tempted to pony up thousands for a big screen? Before you whip out your chequebook, know that your money might first be better spent on the back end of the TV.
PVR (personal video recorder) captures TV signals as a digital image file on a magnetic hard drive, just like the storage memory of computers. While streaming to the hard drive, it also allows you to pause and replay live TV and, in some cases, skip commercials with ease. There's a fairly simple menu for searching through and selecting upcoming programs as much as seven days in advance, and the image quality of a recorded show is as good as the original, which is never the case with a VCR.
PVR gives users control over the TV experience. In fact, it's almost liberating, if such a thing can be said of watching television. The technology made its debut in the U.S. in boxes from ReplayTV and TiVo, which may never be available in Canada. But it is working its way into the TV set-top boxes of cable and satellite companies, as well as into stand-alone boxes from the likes of Panasonic, Sony and RCA. There are even computers you can plug a TV feed into: for Windows, there's the Media Center PC; for Mac, there's EyeTV.
Having tried them all, I've concluded that most Canadians will find it easiest to deploy PVR when it comes in a set-top box from a local cable or satellite provider--there's virtually no set-up required. For those of you who can read manuals and fiddle with inputs and outputs, a DVD recorder or PVR in a computer lets you archive to a recordable disk. Blank DVDs are getting much cheaper (about $2 or less), which is good because even a 160-gigabyte hard drive in a PVR fills up quickly when you're recording movies or the complete Simpsons oeuvre.
Of cable companies in Canada, Rogers ($599 to buy; $19.95 a month to rent) and Videotron ($509 to $749, depending on the model) are the first to offer PVR in a set-top box. Bell ExpressVu ($499 to $599 to buy; $15 a month to rent) has it for satellite. I like the Rogers unit because it has a good menu for searching for and selecting programming in advance, as well as having two tuners (a tuner selects or "tunes in" the broadcast signal). This allows you to watch one channel while recording another. That said, Bell has a nice skip-ahead button that jumps forward in convenient 15-second increments, enabling you to pass over annoying commercials. The lack of this feature is a major failing of the Rogers unit. Bell also allows you to purchase and program the recording of pay-per-view movies in advance, while Rogers requires you to wait for the movie to start before pressing the Record button.
All in all, the Rogers and Bell units are not as good as TiVo or ReplayTV because they're not as powerful or as flexible as their American brethren. Still, I hope that the cable and satellite guys will keep leapfrogging each other with new and better features. That way, PVR will fulfill its promise of making TV ever more user-friendly. --
NEXT MONTH: The latest in big-screen TVs
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040827.gtro9tech-1/BNStory/TechReviews/
Tame your telly
By George Emerson
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Tempted to pony up thousands for a big screen? Before you whip out your chequebook, know that your money might first be better spent on the back end of the TV.
PVR (personal video recorder) captures TV signals as a digital image file on a magnetic hard drive, just like the storage memory of computers. While streaming to the hard drive, it also allows you to pause and replay live TV and, in some cases, skip commercials with ease. There's a fairly simple menu for searching through and selecting upcoming programs as much as seven days in advance, and the image quality of a recorded show is as good as the original, which is never the case with a VCR.
PVR gives users control over the TV experience. In fact, it's almost liberating, if such a thing can be said of watching television. The technology made its debut in the U.S. in boxes from ReplayTV and TiVo, which may never be available in Canada. But it is working its way into the TV set-top boxes of cable and satellite companies, as well as into stand-alone boxes from the likes of Panasonic, Sony and RCA. There are even computers you can plug a TV feed into: for Windows, there's the Media Center PC; for Mac, there's EyeTV.
Having tried them all, I've concluded that most Canadians will find it easiest to deploy PVR when it comes in a set-top box from a local cable or satellite provider--there's virtually no set-up required. For those of you who can read manuals and fiddle with inputs and outputs, a DVD recorder or PVR in a computer lets you archive to a recordable disk. Blank DVDs are getting much cheaper (about $2 or less), which is good because even a 160-gigabyte hard drive in a PVR fills up quickly when you're recording movies or the complete Simpsons oeuvre.
Of cable companies in Canada, Rogers ($599 to buy; $19.95 a month to rent) and Videotron ($509 to $749, depending on the model) are the first to offer PVR in a set-top box. Bell ExpressVu ($499 to $599 to buy; $15 a month to rent) has it for satellite. I like the Rogers unit because it has a good menu for searching for and selecting programming in advance, as well as having two tuners (a tuner selects or "tunes in" the broadcast signal). This allows you to watch one channel while recording another. That said, Bell has a nice skip-ahead button that jumps forward in convenient 15-second increments, enabling you to pass over annoying commercials. The lack of this feature is a major failing of the Rogers unit. Bell also allows you to purchase and program the recording of pay-per-view movies in advance, while Rogers requires you to wait for the movie to start before pressing the Record button.
All in all, the Rogers and Bell units are not as good as TiVo or ReplayTV because they're not as powerful or as flexible as their American brethren. Still, I hope that the cable and satellite guys will keep leapfrogging each other with new and better features. That way, PVR will fulfill its promise of making TV ever more user-friendly. --
NEXT MONTH: The latest in big-screen TVs