FreeVo
I love my TiVo. I really do. During the television season I watch about 10 - 15 hours of television a week. With TiVo handling the recording, I tend to watch the shows whenever I want and get to avoid commercials. It’s a great damned thing, I say.
A while back I mentioned that Jacob has set up a Digital Video Recorder using a PC called SageTV. I liked it, but wasn’t entirely impressed with the user interface. Kind of clunky, poorly organized, poorly designed. But, the thing recorded programs nicely and improvements were on the way. With the release of SageTV 2, most of the problems I had with it have disappeared. The user interface is far superior to the first version and ease of use has been improved greatly.
Today I read this article about PC DVR technology and it’s growth. Personally, I’d really like to set-up a SageTV box to compliment my TiVo someday soon. The biggest advantage to a Sage machine is the ability to share recorded programs with friends easily. Also, you can put as many hard drives in the machine as you like, creating an almost infinite amount of space to record to.
So, if you’re not a major techy and are considering a DVR, get TiVo. If you’re a techy and like playing with hardware, give SageTV a try.
