Two more bits of Hauppage HD-PVR news today. First up, Hauppauge has launched an official preorder page. While the HD-PVR isn't expected to hit the streets until May, you can place an order for one today for $249.

In other news, Snapstream Media CEO Rakesh Agrawal wrote in to let us know that his team has received a prototype unit for testing purposes. Snapstream makes the BeyondTV personal video recorder software for Windows, so it's safe to say that HD-PVR support will be added to BeyondTV in the not too distant future. Agrawal says he's not ready to make any official statement yet, since Hauppauge is still working on the hardware.

Blogger Dave Zatz has already confirmed that SageTV will support the HD-PVR, which means that it's possible the only major commercial PVR application for Windows that won't support the device when it's launched will be Windows Media Center. But Windows Media Center support is expected later this year.

Observant readers will note that every time I've mentioned the upcoming Hauppauge HD-PVR, I've slapped an image of the Hauppauge logo on the post. That's because up until now Hauppauge had not released any images of the new video capture device which will be able to do real-time H.264 compression of 1080i video from a component video source.

Now a moderator at the SageTV user forums has posted 2 images that show the front and back view of the HD-PVR. It appears to come with a standard Hauppauge infrared remote control, the same type the company bundles with many of its existing TV tuners.

The Hauppauge HD-PVR should be available in May or June for about $250. But if you believe the folks at the SageTV Forums, you should be able to preorder one from the Hauppauge web site later today.

[via Brent Evans Geek Tonic]

If you've been waiting to get your hands on the new HD-PVR from Hauppauge, you might have to wait a little bit longer. Brent Evans reports that the device, which had been targeted for a late March launch has been pushed back and is now scheduled for a May or June release.

The HD-PVR will be able to capture HD video from any component video output and compress it in real time to H.264. In other words, you can using your existing cable or satellite box to flip channels, and record HDTV without getting a CableCard tuner for your PC.

Evans has also learned that Windows Media Center will not support the new device at launch, but that you should be able to use the HD-PVR with a Windows Media Center machine by this summer. But we'd be surprised if the device isn't supported by third party media center software like SageTV, BeyondTV, and MythTV.

There's a dirty little secret in the PVR world. Once you start using a personal video recorder, you're pretty much locked into continuing to use that recorder until you watch all of your recorded programs or decide you can live without them. That's because it's quite difficult to transfer your TiVo recordings to your generic cable company PVR.

Things should be a lot easier if you're using a PC-based PVR with software like BeyondTV, SageTV, or Windows Media Center. After all, your recorded shows are already on your hard drive, how hard could it be to try watching them with a new piece of software?

While you can certainly watch SageTV recordings in BeyondTV and vice versa, things get a bit complicated if you want to sort them by chronological order or view program descriptions. Fortunately, long time BeyondTV user Brent Evans has put together a comprehensive solution for importing your BeyondTV metadata into SageTV. That way users who might want to switch software packages can. Or better yet, users who want to test out SageTV without losing all of their recorded shows can do that too... and can still go back to BeyondTV if they like it better.

The whole operation isn't exactly user friendly. You'll need to download several applications built by members of the BeyondTV and SageTV community, export your BeyondTV data, convert it to a SageTV friendly format, and then import it into SageTV. But in the end, it'll all be worth it when you can see the cast of your cherished saved recording of Howard the Duck.

SageTV is pushing out the public release of SageTV 6.3, which makes a lot of sense, because one of the most important updates in version 6.3 is support for the new SageTV STX-HD100 media extender which the company began selling this week.

For the uninitiated, SageTV is a media center suite for Windows, Linux and OS X. In other words, you can use it like a TiVo to record and pause live TV programs. Or you can access online media like YouTube videos, listen to music, or watch photo slideshows.

SageTV 6.3 features a long list of updates, but here are a few that caught my eye:

• Support for additional hardware including the SageTV STX-HD100 media extender, HDHomeRun, Hauppauge HVR-950, and ElGato EyeTV Hybrid
• Added 125 new online content sources
• Support for MKV and DVR-MS files

The update is only available for Windows and Linux users at the moment. No word on if or when an updated Mac version will be available.

[via Missing Remote]

SageTV's STX-HD100 media extender is available starting today. You can pick the set top box up for $199 from the SageTV store. SageTV also plans to offer a $249 bundle in the future that will get you an STX-HD100 and SageTV software.

Brent Evans got his hands on a review unit and wrote up a pretty extensive review. Overall Evans was impressed, but he does complain that the remote control does not have universal features to control your TV and while the unit comes with AV cables, there are no HDMI or component cables for HDTV.

Nitpicking aside, the STX-HD100 is reportedly quiet, easy to use, and supports a ton of file formats including AVI, ASF, MPEG-1/2/4, MKV, QuickTime, MP4, OGG, WMV, H.264, VOB, MP3, AAC, AC3, FLAC, and WMA. It also sports 2 USB ports on the front that are currently inactive, but could be used in the future to add support for a keyboard, external hard drive or other device.

I'm still a bit skeptical that there's going to be a ton of demand for these boxes, since they are designed to work only with SageTV software, which is probably still a pretty small niche. How hard would it have been to throw some Windows Vista Media Center compatibility in there?

A few years back, ReplayTV looked like a company that could give TiVo a run for its money. Both companies had high quality set-top boxes that let users watch TV on their own terms.

But the times have changed, and while TiVo has managed to survive the onset of generic cable-company PVRs, ReplayTV got out of the hardware business and has decided to focus on making computer software for those of us brave enough to turn our computers into personal video recorders. But ReplayTV doesn't hold the name recognition it once did. The company was also late to the game with its PC software, and charged far more money at first than competitors like SageTV or BeyondTV. In other words, we kind of shrugged when ReplayTV entered the consumer software business.

But now TiVo, the company that is still synonymous with the concept of personal video recording is talking about getting into PC-based software. And we can't help but think that this could be a game-changer.

If you're running Windows Media Center on your PC, you can buy a media center extender box to stick next to your TV. Companies like Niveus, D-Link, and Linksys all make boxes that let you access your Windows Media Center menus, recorder programs, and other media. But if you're using a competing media center application like SageTV, those boxes won't get you very far.

So SageTV is taking matters into their own hands and building a dedicated SageTV extender device. No word on the pricing or ship date yet, but you can check out a bunch of pictures of the upcoming STX-HD100 over at the SageTV forums.

What we can tell you is that the box will feature HDMI, component, composite, and S-Video outputs. It also sports an ethernet cable for connecting to your home networks. No WiFi included. There are also two USB connectors, although it's not clear yet exactly what you'll be able to use them for.

The STX-HD100 looks like it won't work with Windows Media Center or other applications.. According to the retail package, you need SageTV software to apply, which seems like an odd move to us. We would have expected SageTV to use this box as a way to build name recognition in the marketplace. The best way to do that would be to position it as a standalone device that works with all the major PVR/media center suites, but save some advanced functionality for SageTV software users.

[via Engadget]

SageTV has released a new beta of its PVR/place-shifting software for Mac, Windows, Linux, and Windows Home Server. I'm pretty sure that list of supported systems makes SageTV the most cross-platform software based personal video recorder on the market today.

There are a bunch of tweaks and bug fixes in SageTV 6.3.1. But probably the most exciting bits include hardware support. While SageTV has been supporting Mac OS X since this summer, the Mac client only supported two Hauppauge TV tuner cards. The update adds support for the popular ElGato EyeTV Hybrid and Hauppauge HVR-950 tuners. There's also Mac support for the HDHomeRun networked HDTV tuner.

It looks like SageTV has also built in support for the company's upcoming STX-HD100 Media Extender, which will do for SageTV what other media center extenders do for Windows Media Center. In other words, you'll be able to put the box next to television sets throughout your house, connect them to the home network and access live and recorded TV and all the other content stored on your main media center PC.

[via Brent Evans]

After spending a few months in beta, SageTV 6.2 was officially released this week. The powerful PC-based PVR offers a lot of features you won't find in Windows Media Center (without appropriate plugins), like automatic recording of recommended shows and the ability to watch online video from sites like YouTube.

So what's new since SageTV 6.1?

• Support for transcoding videos for viewing on the Apple TV or iPhone
• Enhanced H.264 support
• Support for DVB-T, DVB-C, and DVB-S on Windows and Linux
• ClearQAM support for the Hauppauge HVR-1600/1800 on Windows
• ClearQAM support for the AverMedia M780 on Windows Vista
• New themes
• Bug fixes
  

SageTV 6.2 is available for Mac or Linux. It's a free update if you've already paid for SageTV 5.0 or later. New customers will have to cough up $80.

[via Missing Remote]

Remember ReplayTV? Once upon a time the company was about as well known as TiVo, which is to say not very. While TiVo eventually became synonymous with "personal video recorder," ReplayTV stopped making set top boxes a few years ago.

Last year the company emerged from the ashes to relaunch as a desktop software maker. ReplayTV PC Edition is a complete desktop PVR solution that lets you turn your computer into a video recorder. There were just two problems:

1. A ton of other companies already had a stronger foothold in this space
2. It's not really a complete solution if you still need to buy hardware to make your PC record TV shows.

Point number 2 is a problem for pretty much anyone who sells desktop PVR software, Microsoft included. When I tell people how easy it is to turn their computer into a PVR, the first question they ask is "great, but where do I plug my cable box in?" And there's the rub. You don't, unless you get a TV tuner. For a computer geek that's hardly a deal breaker. But until TV tuners begin coming preinstalled on all computers, ReplayTV, BeyondTV, SageTV, and other PVR packages will have a limited audience of people who are savvy enough to buy hardware to go with their software.

Does the fact that ReplayTV is getting ready to launch what looks like a standard USB 2.0 HDTV tuner change any of this? Probably not. But it does give the company a way to package an all-in-one solution. Buy a retail package with the ReplayTV hardware and software all in one box. We're guessing this tuner will probably work just as well with BeyondTV, SageTV, or free software like Media Portal or MythTV.

It's probably worth noting that the ReplayTV HD looks an awful lot like the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 950 recorder with a red and white paint job. So you can probably expect it to sell for about $100.

There's good news and bad news for users of free PC-based PVR suites like MythTV, Media Portal, and GB-PVR.

While Zap2it Labs plans to cease offering the free television program guide data used by these programs in September, there are at least two groups planning to offer similar data. And both are close to having tools in place to pick up where Zap2it leaves off in September. That's the good news.

The bad news is that neither group will be able to offer this data for free. It's not surprising. Zap2it was offering the TV episode data in an XML format in addition to its online TV guide. The company was is owned by Tribune Media Services, so providing data to the open source community cost Zap2it nothing.

That's not true for CTpvr or Schedules Direct, the two new groups planning to offer TV episode data. Both now say that they will be charging users for access to the data, although pricing has not yet been set.

Most users of commercial PVR applications like BeyondTV, SageTV, and Windows Media Center won't be affected. Those companies get their data from alternate sources. So you have a choice. Pay for the software, received the program guides for free. Or get free software and pay for the program guides.

SageTV released a new beta of its PC based PVR software today. SageTV 6.2.5 Beta for Linux and Windows includes a boatload of bug fixes and new features, including:

• Added support for Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1800 TV tuners in Windows
  
• Added ClearQAM (unencrypted high definition cable) support for Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1600 and HVR-1800 TV tuners in Windows
  
• Added support for AverMedia M780 TV tuner in Windows Vista
• Fixed a Windows bug that caused music files to end early
• Fixed audio/video sync bug with H.264 files
• Support changing from over-the-air to cable TV tuning without restarting the application or having to pick a different input
• Added Apple TV transcoding profiles

As always, remember that this is beta software, so your results may vary. If you're the adventurous sort, and don't mind crashing your PC or missing a few recordings, it looks like a great update. For everyone else, you might want to wait until the next stable release.
[via Missing Remote]