TVSquad

This one seems to have slipped through the cracks here at PVR Wire, but better late than never. A couple of days ago ChrisTV hit the big version 5.00 mark.

For those of you unfamiliar with ChrisTV, it's yet another Windows based PVR option. Although it may not be as well polished or slick as some of the bigger boys (think Microsoft, SageTV, SnapStream, etc), it is still an alternative that you may want to look at if you are running a Windows OS without built-in PVR capabilities.

ChrisTV has different versions available, and if you use the promo code CTV-0307-PROMO before March 18th, you can an additional 15% discount

Freevo, one of the older PVR software solutions, has pushed out a new revision, 1.7.0 (up from 1.6.0). Although it does offer some of the standard bug fixes that come with these kinds of releases, there are also a few new features bundled with it such as:

• A web interface which gives you access to media stored on the machine
• A "web remote"
• A new encodeserver which can compress videos in the background
• Built-in RSS client which can automatically download podcasts

As of right now, the official release is not reflected on the Freevo home page, but you can check out the forum post which contains details about the package. The new package can be downloaded from here.

Yesterday Brad pointed us to a nice guide which went into detail with regards to building the perfect HTPC. Well that's all fine and dandy, but what happens when you have two or more in your house and you want to start sharing content between them?

Sure, Microsoft has told us about their upcoming Home Server, but unfortunately it won't quite do what we are looking for, and we don't know the exact cost of these things yet. The simplest answer is centralized storage, or a NAS (network area storage).

CED Magazine is carrying a piece about a continued joint partnership between Showtime and EchoStar which will give birth to Showtime Interactive 2.0. The concept behind the deal is to create a zone accessible via EchoStar PVRs where users can go to get exclusive material.

So far it looks like there will be the usual kind of stuff, like interviews with various celebrities, "the making of" style of videos as well as extras for some of the original content that Showtime puts out.

Not even 2 full days ago, Brad wrote about how we can expect to see a Vista Sidebar Gadget for WebGuide 4.0. But at the time no there no date set in stone as to when it would be available to download.

Well at some point within the last 24 hours or so the creator of WebGuide4, Doug Berret, posted the release version, which can be obtained from his website.

A few days ago I made a brief mention of DVRMSToolbox in a post about enabling Commercial Skip in Media Center. Since then, a newer version (1.1.0.4) has been released and can be obtained from the author's blog.

If you haven't used DVRMSToolbox in the past, I would highly recommend checking it out if you run a Media Center based PC. It adds a whole new level of flexibility to the experience by giving you the ability to manipulate the DVRMS files that Media Center records to.

Now that the AppleTV is out and about and we can see what it is (or isn't) capable of, there are still a lot of people looking for PVR functionality on their Macs. In the past we have mentioned some options, but today Mac News offers up a review of MediaCentral.

MediaCentral supports a lot of the standard features such as a Music section, an area for pictures as well as a DVD library. Some of the more interesting features that it boasts are IPTV, Skype integration and support for radio stations.

Yesterday Nielson released some new findings regarding how likely PVR users are to watch commercials. Well today is a new day and with that Chris Lanier has given us a quick run-through of what needs to be done to activate automatic commercial skipping in Media Center. Take that Nielson ...

The main ingredient for this tasty treat is the good old DVRMSToolbox application which can be found here. During installation there is actually an option that you can check off which tells it to automatically skip commercials. By checking this off, you will be prompted about whether you want Commercial Skip to process the show when you start to view recorded content.

The Nielsen Company released some new findings yesterday which looked at the relationship between PVR viewing habits (e.g. commercial skipping) and how much time has passed since the program was recorded. In a nutshell, are people more likely to watch commercials if they view the show right away?

Nielsen's answer to that question is a yes. In fact their words were "playback that occurs closest to the original telecast retains more of the audience during commercials than DVR playback that occurs further out."

If you are a PVR enthusiast and it comes time to choose a new PVR, do you build it yourself and possibly save some money, or do you play it safe and buy an off the shelf solution?

DVR Playground decided to toss two of the top PVR solutions into the ring together to see who would win: MythTV or the TiVo Series 3. Some of the factors that they looked at included ease of use, setup and the features included with each product.

DVR Playground made sure to note that the biggest downfall about using MythTV (and most do-it-yourself PVR's) is the hassle involved with setting it up. Whether it be the actual software setup, or even choosing the right hardware (think surround sound and hi-def output), things are never quite as straightforward as is you had a manufactured PVR.

However, if you are technical enough that you feel comfortable playing with the guts of a computer, then MythTV is probably your better choice. But if you are giving this Grandma and you don't want to get calls every day when she can't watch her soap operas, then the good old TiVo is probably your friend.