Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC 1.6

[Pokemon_Dad]

Well, version 1.6 has been released. You can download the upgrade here (http://www.nero.com/enu/downloads-liquidtv-update.php) or a trial version here (http://www.nero.com/enu/downloads-liquidtv-trial.php). As far as I can tell, 1.6 has no new features since the list I posted in the 1.5 beta thread (http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=426866). Clear QAM support would be nice, but not today folks sorry. Hopefully they've at least fixed bugs and defects in the software, like the way it was showing GMT times and dates for transferred files no matter where you are in the world, but so far I've hit one bug that stopped me cold during the upgrade installation.

I started installing 1.6 and immeditately got stuck on a bug that I thought was fixed during the beta: the installer halts and says it cannot start the "NTBackground" system service. There seems no way around this on my PC (Vista Ultimate 32-bit) except to uninstall the old version and then do a clean install. And don't forget, when you do that uninstall of version 1.4 it will delete your videos even if you ask it not to. Back up first.

This whole LiquidTV experience really has no class...when I mouse over a downloaded upgrade file, each time there's some Russian developer's name in the file properties under "Company:". Where you would expect to see "Nero", instead for 1.4 and 1.5 you see "Igor Pavlov" and for the 1.6 file you see "Oleg N. Sherbakov". Really makes you feel confident that you're paying for a subcription to upgrades for retail boxed software from a major German company under license from a big US Silicon Valley company, doesn't it? Not.

Maybe someone else would like to install 1.6 and pick up this thread? I'm done for today and am really in no hurry...I've been using the Hauppauge HVR-950Q stick that came with LiquidTV to watch TV on my PC using other applications, not LiquidTV. I'd rather watch live TV in free (Clear QAM) HD and SD digital cable, which you can do with Beyond TV and even with the free Hauppauge WinTV 7, if you don't mind setting up the channels manually for them. The Nero software really isn't necessary for transferring from my TiVo HD boxes, I'm happy enough with TiVo Desktop. At this time I have no plans to renew unless version 2.0 comes out with some really spectacular features, but as someone else said on on of the other threads, it's possible they really should just scrap this code base and start over again.

(Keywords: "LiquidTV", "Liquid TV", "TivoPC", "Tivo PC")

[SullyND]

Looks like Oleg and Igor are involved in creating an installation program.

http://7zsfx.solta.ru:8080/en/

[innocentfreak]

I'd rather watch live TV in free (Clear QAM) HD and SD digital cable, which you can do with Beyond TV and even with the free Hauppauge WinTV 7, if you don't mind setting up the channels manually for them. The Nero software really isn't necessary for transferring from my TiVo HD boxes, I'm happy enough with TiVo Desktop.

You can even do clear Qam in Windows 7 Media Center and it is incredibly easy to setup. It was plug and play when I connected two Avermedia Duet dual tuner QAM cards. Simply pick your provider and it automatically maps everything for you along with free guide data.

If you have Windows 7 RC you may want to try it if you haven't. I am already building a quad tuner clear qam dvr for locals when the new fall season starts up. I have a 360 in one room for an extender and the only other dilemma is how to get it on the Tv in the other room. You can right click on the WTV files to conert to DVR-MS and then use Video Redo to make them compatible with Tivo Desktop plus. I haven't fully tested this though since my tuners are on backorder.

[Pokemon_Dad]

Looks like Oleg and Igor are involved in creating an installation program.

http://7zsfx.solta.ru

Looks like a compression program. Anyway, I have no doubt they're geniuses, but clearly they have been handed a limited list of features and fixes to do for Nero, and they have very little in the way of a release infrastructure supporting them. In fact, very little support of any kind at all...like QA.

[Pokemon_Dad]

You can even do clear Qam in Windows 7 Media Center and it is incredibly easy to setup.

That would be very cool. Were you able to download and install a Clear QAM channel lineup easily, or was this a mostly manual process as with the others I mentioned? I have Windows 7 RC living in a virtual machine on my Vista box, and its Windows Media Center can't seem to find my tuner stick but that's not surprising. I'll keep poking around in the Virtual PC settings.

[innocentfreak]

Mine found it immediately. It then asked me to enter my zip code and select my provider at which point it found the 25 channels I receive. I was up and running within 10 minutes or so.

I did it on two different machines with the same result and no problems whatsoever. Truth be told I didn't expect it to be that easy. Avermedia also has a QAM mapping tool for Vista since vista doesn't have QAM support without the tv pack from what I have read. There is a lot of good info in thegreenbutton (www.thegreenbutton.com) forums.

[Pokemon_Dad]

I did it on two different machines with the same result and no problems whatsoever. Truth be told I didn't expect it to be that easy.

Turns out MS Virtual PC 2007 (= version 6.x for Windows) doesn't support USB and that's why my Windows 7 RC can't see my TV tuner. There are no settings for USB at all so I surfed around and confirmed: you need the Virtual PC 7 to use USB, but of course version 7 only works in Windows 7 so at that point I won't need it. I'm not motivated enough to buy VMware or build another box right now just to test this in the release candidate.

Sounds like Windows Media Center will be taking over the world in October! Yet another reason not to bother renewing my TiVo PC subscription, but we'll see if Nero surprises us with an absolutely fantastic version 2.0. If there is a 2.0.

Anyone try 1.6 yet?

[Pokemon_Dad]

Finally took the time to install LiquidTV 1.6 last week. I got around the installation bug by manually uninstalling 1.5 (which was the beta...there never was a 1.5 public release). I told 1.5 to leave my old shows on the disk, and unlike 1.4 it didn't go ahead and permanently erase them anyway, but this doesn't matter much: LiquidTV does not see any .tivo files unless the current installation put them there itself, and I can find no way to force the software to scan that folder. (They show up just fine in TiVo Desktop, of course...)

On a positive note, the developers have fixed many bugs - like the time and date of shows on networked TiVo boxes always showing in GMT before and after transfer - but I didn't get very far into the software before I became annoyed and disappointed once again. They haven't fixed several other problems, like the way the Play button always says "Resume playing..." after you transfer a show from another TiVo even though you've never played it, and more important HD transfers still fail and disappear without any message or warning. :mad:

I queued up one 2-hour SD show and two 2-hour HD shows. The SD show transferred in about 15 minutes. The first HD show took about 3 hours - over 20% slower than TiVo Desktop - and the second one just never transferred. It was no longer even marked with the little blue dot as being selected for transfer. This is not new: every time I try to transfer two 10+ gig HD shows in a row, the second one falls off the list. So I then set that second show up to transfer by itself, and like the first one it also took approximately 20% longer than TiVo Desktop.

This poor handling of integration with an existing home network of TiVo boxes is especially disappointing since that's all LiquidTV is really good for, at least for me. LiquidTV supports only ATSC (over-the-air/OTA digital) and analog cable. I want many channels that are not on ATSC. Comcast has changed our local service so that most analog channels are low-res digital now, and cannot be received without a Digital Transport Adapter (DTA). Comcast sent me a DTA for free, but I was unable to get LiquidTV to work with it which means I not only couldn't use the TiVo remote to control the channels, I also could not use the TiVo guide or many recording features.

TiVo appears to have made a business decision not to support Clear QAM (unencrypted digital), even though the supplied Hauppauge 950Q USB stick does work with Clear QAM just fine. I am using the 950Q with BeyondTV and WinTV 7 for exactly that, in fact. Think TiVo and Nero will get the message and put it in 2.0? Think there'll even be a 2.0???

I certainly don't want to pay for a separate cable box, especially after all the frustration I had trying to get a Digital Transport Adapter box to work with this software. The ATI digital cable tuner with cableCARD slot, now available in external or internal versions, is a possibility but that opens a whole new can of worms...the expense, a BIOS hack and other knotty installation issues (http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/05/12/how-to-install-a-cablecard-tuner-in-your-diy-media-center/), black market purchase, etc. - and if even Windows Media Center will work with Clear QAM in Windows 7 and will also be better tested with those ATI cableCARD products then what's the point? I have no incentive to go to all that DIY trouble and expense just for TiVo.

I could go on...

[innocentfreak]

I certainly don't want to pay for a separate cable box, especially after all the frustration I had trying to get a Digital Transport Adapter box to work with this software. The ATI digital cable tuner with cableCARD slot, now available in external or internal versions, is a possibility but that opens a whole new can of worms...the expense, a BIOS hack and other knotty installation issues (http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/05/12/how-to-install-a-cablecard-tuner-in-your-diy-media-center/), black market purchase, etc. - and if even Windows Media Center will work with Clear QAM in Windows 7 and will also be better tested with those ATI cableCARD products then what's the point? I have no incentive to go to all that DIY trouble and expense just for TiVo.

I could go on...

Well as I said before Win 7 definitely works with clear qam out of the box. Also I would wait to see what is announced at Cedia in September. ATI is rumored to announce new cable card tuners along with new firmware to relax DRM restrictions and Ceton's card is still coming soon which they are supposed to offer a 2 tuner, 4 tuner, and 6 tuner cable card for the PC.

[Dan203]

I really don't get the point of this product. I thought that getting the TiVo software onto a PC, with it's greater power and flexibility, would open it up all sorts of new features. But thus far the it's been even more limited then buying a real TiVo.

I guess that's what you get when you hand the project off to a bunch of German programmers who have never even used a TiVo before.

Dan

[Pokemon_Dad]

I guess that's what you get when you hand the project off to a bunch of German programmers who have never even used a TiVo before.



Actually it's some Russian programmers (see above...Oleg and Igor forgot to take their names out of the installation file properties), probably geniuses but certainly not TiVo customers...probably under contract to German product marketing managers at Nero who are also not TiVo subscribers and in addition seem to have something against Blu-Ray in general...under license from TiVo which has placed too many restrictions on the product in the first place.

Just a guess. By the way Dan, speaking of Blu-Ray and other video editing: I love VideoReDo! (See? I'm not always complaining. I have recommended VideoReDo elsewhere too.) :up:

[innocentfreak]

I really don't get the point of this product. I thought that getting the TiVo software onto a PC, with it's greater power and flexibility, would open it up all sorts of new features. But thus far the it's been even more limited then buying a real TiVo.

I guess that's what you get when you hand the project off to a bunch of German programmers who have never even used a TiVo before.

Dan

I definitely agree. This could have been a nice addition to the Tivo lineup but this is feels like the Series 1.

[tavidal]

Hi all,

I just got my Tivo PC | Nero Liquid TV retail box (software + WinTV-HVR 950q TV Tuner Card + IR Blaster + Antenna + Remote). I would like to share my experience and ask some questions along the way.

Installation
The package was bundled with software update disc v1.0.5.3, which I first installed. Later, realizing 1.6.2.114 was the latest version, I had to update. I had made some test recordings before upgrading and I had changed the disk location of the recordings from the default value during initial install. During the upgrade process I did not check the flag to keep recordings. Also, I was not asked to give a disk location for my recordings (as in the initial install). The summary page that is displayed before actually commiting to the upgrade showed as the recording folder the default location, so for a moment I thought it was going to be changed to that location -from what I originally had determined- with no option to change it. After the upgrade process finished, recordings were not deleted (eventhough I did not ask it to not delete them), and the recording's disk location remained unchanged (my non-default location selected during initial istalled was kept, eventhough the summary page that showed what was going to be installed said otherwise). These are small bugs (perhaps the deletion part not so small), but annoying nevertheless.

Setup
I receive cable TV with no box. Through this source, I receive HD channels as well. What I mean is that if I hook up my HDTV to this source (coaxial cable straight from the wall), I get typical analogue cable channels (channels 2 to 99), but I also get channels of the sort of 4.1, 7.1, 10.2, which are local HD channles (NBC, ABC, etc).
If I connect this same source to the WinTV-HVR 950q TV Tuner Card and run the Tivo PC setup, I get two options: 1. WinTV HVR-950 BDA Tuner - digital (ATSC) or 2. WinTV HVR-950 Capture - analog
If I select #1, the only option is Antenna. If I complete the setup with this option, I am able to see all HD channels (4.1, 7.1, etc.) but non of the cable channels (2-99). If I select #2, I get 4 options, Antenna, Cable (no box), Cable box, Satellite box. I select Cable (no box), complete the setup, and I am able to see all analgoue channels (2-99) but no HD channels (4.1, 7.1, etc.).

Is there a way to see both channles at the same time? If yes, how can it be done? If no, is this a TIVO PC limitation, or a limitation on the TV Tuner Card (I know this one supports clear QAM and ATSC)?

Going back to the non Clear QAM support discussion, how does this behavior relate to it, if it does?

I am thinking that if I get another TV tuner, I can set one as #1 above and the other as #2, and I will get both set of channels. Would this work? Is this the only way to achieve what I want? Is Tivo PC intelligent enought to show both set of channels combined into one same guide?

How come my TV is able to see both set of channels with the same source and not the TIVO PC setup as described?

I am hoping someone can shed some light on this doubts.

I did give Tivo a call and spend quite some time with Technical Support on the line, but I can say the support team was almost unaware of the existence of Tivo PC and were not helpful at all. I will call Nero, but I am afraid the experience will be similar.

Usage
Of course this is the best part and the one that draw me to this product in the first place. I loved the GUI, the Remote Control worked flawlessly, I have been able to record non-HD and HD channels with no issues. I will further share my experience once I use it more if it is useful.

Thanks all.

[Madoc Owain]

Let me know if you get an answer outside of what's posted in this thread, please.

I just got my hardware last week, and have been playing around with it this weekend. It's working very well with the latest software updates, though I had to update my NVIDIA drivers to get better performance. The only two issues I seem to have right now are with recording analog cable at the same time I am watching the show at an earlier point - some stuttering and artifacts are present on the screen. Additionally, if I delete a show I am watching, it can crash the software.

Oddly, it will not allow me to use a network drive to store TiVo data. I am forced to use local drives only. I'd rather put it directly on my networked server drives, as I have multiple terabytes of space there. Same deal with playing back video recorded from other sources (DVDs, home videos, etc) - cannot in Windows XP connect to a networked drive, only local drives. I assume in Windows 7 I can create soft or hard links from the local directory to a networked drive?

Running a Geforce 7300 GS (256MB onboard, 256MB system RAM) at 1080i with a Core 2 Duo at 2.33GHz, dumping video on a 36GB 10K RPM Raptor instead of on my main system disk. Video is subject to tearing, but this is an issue I have seen on DVD playback on this PC, so I suspect it is the video card hitting it's limits at 1080i.

[Madoc Owain]

The DVD playback feature of the Nero software, the ONE THING I would have thought a company who specializes in DVD software would get right, is crap, to put it directly. I get all kinds of odd interlace lines in sections of the picture where there is motion, when playing back using the LiquidTV software (set to 1080i). If I use InterVideo's WinDVD software on the PC instead, it plays back beautifully, at 1080i.

[tavidal]

Is there anyone that can help me with my questions?

Thanks in advance.

[tavidal]

Can anyone please help, or at least point me towards another forum/community where someone might be able to help?

[Pokemon_Dad]

Is there a way to see both channles at the same time? If yes, how can it be done? If no, is this a TIVO PC limitation, or a limitation on the TV Tuner Card (I know this one supports clear QAM and ATSC)?

Going back to the non Clear QAM support discussion, how does this behavior relate to it, if it does?

I am thinking that if I get another TV tuner, I can set one as #1 above and the other as #2, and I will get both set of channels. Would this work? Is this the only way to achieve what I want? Is Tivo PC intelligent enought to show both set of channels combined into one same guide?

How come my TV is able to see both set of channels with the same source and not the TIVO PC setup as described?

I am hoping someone can shed some light on this doubts.

I did give Tivo a call and spend quite some time with Technical Support on the line, but I can say the support team was almost unaware of the existence of Tivo PC and were not helpful at all. I will call Nero, but I am afraid the experience will be similar.

tavidal, sorry nobody has answered you. I think we all got worn out by trying to get the software to work and got busy with other things. (I no longer use it, but I'm willing to at least look at version 2.0 if it arrives.)

With any software of this type you can only choose one side of the tuner: cable or ATSC. For example, Beyond TV requires two tuners to access both cable and OTA signals at the same time (or one card/stick with two tuners built-in, like the HVR-2250). This is the way the TiVo HD box works too: two jacks in the back, one for "cable" and one for "antenna". I don't know that TiVo PC will do this...you would think so from looking at that setup screen, but I haven't tried it because I have only the one HVR-950Q. Rather than spend the money, I would borrow a second tuner to test this out.

This is not related to the clear QAM issue. That is a business decision on TiVo's part, just as they do not allow you to skip commercials only fast forward through them, even though the technology to identify and skip commercials was built into some VCRs years ago. I suspect TiVo as a company is far too dependent on just a few big cable companies right now to risk upsetting them. Clear QAM is a must-have for the "enthusiast" market (hmmm, I resemble that remark), but TiVo and Nero seem to think they are targeting a mass-market with this software. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for 2.0 to support it, but hey it could happen.

I can't answer your question about your television set but clearly it has both types of tuners and the manufacturer is not business-dependent on just a few US cable companies. Can your TV download a schedule for the clear QAM channels it finds? I suspect one of my Sonys can do that but I haven't tried since I've got TiVo boxes with cable cards attached to it. Apparently Microsoft is also in this category, and based on what innocentfreak has told us here I think Windows 7's Media Center is going to blow all other competitors out of the water...except on Macs of course.

You're right about the lack of support...only the contract developers, who are in Russia, seem to know anything about this product but they would probably get in trouble if you found them and they started answering questions from customers. Nero hasn't even tried to develop a serious knowledgebase or FAQ, and there just isn't a well-developed forum for this product (this is all you get right here, sorry) because it hasn't caught on with enough enthusiasts, is still too hard for the general public, and is still too buggy for all of us.

[Pokemon_Dad]

I assume in Windows 7 I can create soft or hard links from the local directory to a networked drive?

We'll know on October 22nd...but often third-party software doesn't see things like Win 7's new "Libraries", especially if it was developed beforehand. It might look directly at the file system and if so then you'll be out of luck. If you're successful please let us know.

I suspect it is the video card hitting its limits at 1080i.

Well, your card was introduced 4.75 years ago and in Internet years that's older than a retired sled dog. But I wouldn't start upgrading hardware just for TiVo's sake, only if you think it is important for other software, or Win 7. As you said in your followup post, when you use an InterVideo player (is that the free version, even!?) you don't see the same problem. At the risk of repeating myself (but I will anyway) I'm really disappointed in LiquidTV.

[OneGr8Mick]

I cant seem to find a definite answer I know Tivo PC can watch shows recorded on another tivo in the house but can the other tivos in the house MRV a show recorded on the tivo pc

[Pokemon_Dad]

I cant seem to find a definite answer I know Tivo PC can watch shows recorded on another tivo in the house but can the other tivos in the house MRV a show recorded on the tivo pc

Yes, definitely, you can transfer shows in both directions. The TiVo PC appears in the Now Playing list just like any other TiVo on the network.

[OneGr8Mick]

Thanks

[wrhy]

can anyone tell me if the liquid tv remote or ir receiver can be used for any other media apps in windows, like media center in windows 7? or do they only work in the tv software?

[Pokemon_Dad]

can anyone tell me if the liquid tv remote or ir receiver can be used for any other media apps in windows, like media center in windows 7? or do they only work in the tv software?

Yes, the remote works in Windows 7 Media Center, although not perfectly and of course some of the dedicated TiVo buttons don't do anything. Navigation and Select work, Info brings up the guide, navigation also brings up the in-picture guide. Play, Fwd, Rev, Stop and the number buttons work as you would expect. Your mileage may vary.

For others on this thread following our previous discussion of Win 7 Media Center:

Yes, it found my Comcast QAM channels and their schedules up to about channel 82, but won't let me view anything over channel 36. Viewable channels include 2, 2.1, 3, 4, 4.2 and so on, but not 37-82. The unencrypted HD channels like 702 or 704 aren't even on the schedule even though I am easily able to get with the Hauppauge or Beyond TV software which see all Clear QAM channels.

Essentially Media Center is behaving the way Comcast wants it to: Comcast wants us to have at least the free basic external DTA box even to view just the standard-def previously-analog channels above 36, which are now digital but Media Center doesn't seem to know that. Previously I was unable to get the TiVo remote to control one of those DTA boxes, which I tested and gave back months ago. Again, your mileage may vary.

Extended basic channels apparently now have a "privacy flag" set and the only way around this is to manually set up Media Center the same way you would set up Beyond TV, looking up your local QAM frequencies and setting up labels yourself. Haven't figured out how to do this in MC yet, and not sure if it's possible to get the schedule to sync up with this manual setup correctly. The effort isn't really worth it to me at the moment but I'd be interested in seeing further discussion of this here.

[innocentfreak]

For others on this thread following our previous discussion of Win 7 Media Center:

Yes, it found my Comcast QAM channels and their schedules up to about channel 82, but won't let me view anything over channel 36. Viewable channels include 2, 2.1, 3, 4, 4.2 and so on, but not 37-82. The unencrypted HD channels like 702 or 704 aren't even on the schedule even though I am easily able to get with the Hauppauge or Beyond TV software which see all Clear QAM channels.

Essentially Media Center is behaving the way Comcast wants it to: Comcast wants us to have at least the free basic external DTA box even to view just the standard-def previously-analog channels above 36, which are now digital but Media Center doesn't seem to know that. Previously I was unable to get the TiVo remote to control one of those DTA boxes, which I tested and gave back months ago. Again, your mileage may vary.

Extended basic channels apparently now have a "privacy flag" set and the only way around this is to manually set up Media Center the same way you would set up Beyond TV, looking up your local QAM frequencies and setting up labels yourself. Haven't figured out how to do this in MC yet, and not sure if it's possible to get the schedule to sync up with this manual setup correctly. The effort isn't really worth it to me at the moment but I'd be interested in seeing further discussion of this here.

When 7MC downloads your channel guide it only pulls the channels Comcast tells them about. What you have to do is scan for additional channels. I believe this is under Settings:TV: TV signal.

This will then map every channel it detects a signal on. It will use the manual channels though. Once that is complete I usually flip through the channels to see if there are ones I don't care about like the digital music channels and Spanish stations. I then remove those from the guide by disabling channel.

Then you use Guide Tool (http://1geek1tool.com/guidetool) outside of Media Center to map those remaining channels to the corresponding channel on Comcast. I usually use Silicon Dust's channel guide (http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels_us) to figure out what the manual channel is on Fios. For example 7MC will add 55-100 with no guide data so I go in guide tool and link 55-100 to WGN Gamer channel 9 on Fios.

Now any channel linked this way will have guide data and you can rename and remap 55-100 in my case to channel 9 and it will show this way in 7MC. If you pay the $5 for guide tool you will also be able to back up your lineup also so you don't have to repeat this.

There are also tricks where you can merge the SD and HD channel so it uses 8 for HD content instead of 8 for SD and 8.1 for HD. You can also download My Channel Logo (http://mychannellogos.com/default.aspx) which will add logos to any channel it recognizes or you can add your own.

I hope my explanation made sense. If not go to The Green Button (http://www.thegreenbutton.com) and read some of the various threads on mapping channels.

[Thunderclap]

I don't know if anyone is interested but Nero is selling Liquid TV at 50% off for the next two days. That means it's $50. I ordered it even with the negative reviews figuring $50 was worth the gamble.

I've only attempted over the air so far. The picture comes in but I don't get any audio. Has anyone else experienced this problem? If so, how was it resolved?

[Pokemon_Dad]

I don't know if anyone is interested but Nero is selling Liquid TV at 50% off for the next two days. That means it's $50. I ordered it even with the negative reviews figuring $50 was worth the gamble.

In this thread some people are saying they can get it for $35:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=436930

That's a deal just for the tuner alone. And by the way this is an analog/ATSC/QAM tuner, in that thread someone left off mention of QAM. Works great with Beyond TV, Windows Media Center, etc...

I've only attempted over the air so far. The picture comes in but I don't get any audio. Has anyone else experienced this problem? If so, how was it resolved?

Never had exactly that problem, no. Many other bugs and defects, but not that one. Maybe someone else can enlighten us.

[Pokemon_Dad]

I hope my explanation made sense. If not go to The Green Button (http://www.thegreenbutton.com) and read some of the various threads on mapping channels.

Thanks, makes a lot of sense and is exactly what folks here need to know.

[cowboydren]

Has anybody ever gotten LiquidTV and Video Redo to integrate to the level where Video Redo would watch the recorded video, automatically scan and delete commercials, and then add them to the Now Playing list?

[Thunderclap]

In this thread some people are saying they can get it for $35:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=436930

That's a deal just for the tuner alone. And by the way this is an analog/ATSC/QAM tuner, in that thread someone left off mention of QAM. Works great with Beyond TV, Windows Media Center, etc...

Missed the $35 deal, but $50 with shipping is still good IMO. With BeyondTV or Windows Media Center is there a way to send content to my TivoHD? I don't like watching shows or movies on my computer unless I have to.

[HerronScott]

Marc,

I just ordered it for $35 and they are still showing 254 coupons left.

Scott

[Pokemon_Dad]

With BeyondTV or Windows Media Center is there a way to send content to my TivoHD? I don't like watching shows or movies on my computer unless I have to.

They don't interact with TiVo directly but anything you can export or convert to one of these formats on your PC can then be made available to all the TiVo boxes in your house via the free TiVo Desktop:

Windows Media Video (.wmv)
QuickTime Movie (.mov)
MPEG-4 / H.264 (.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v)
MPEG-2
DivX or Xvid (.avi, .divx, encoded with the DivX codec, version 4 or higher, or with the Xvid codec. No other video formats are supported within .AVI files.)
.tivo files.

See http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/howto/downloadmoviesandtv/howto_download_videos_using_PC.html for more on how to do this with TiVo Desktop. (LiquidTV / TiVo PC is no help here, you can't even drop a new properly formatted .tivo file in a TiVo PC directory, it will not see it.)

[Pokemon_Dad]

Has anybody ever gotten LiquidTV and Video Redo to integrate to the level where Video Redo would watch the recorded video, automatically scan and delete commercials, and then add them to the Now Playing list?

Never tried that but the danger is that after you re-save the .tivo file then LiquidTV would no longer recognize it. There's no way to import anything new. If it wasn't recorded by LiquidTV or transfered by LiquidTV from a networked TiVo it just doesn't show up in LiquidTV's Now Playing List. AND, LiquidTV only sees other TiVo boxes on the network, it doesn't see the TiVo Desktop server sitting on the same PC, so that's not going to get you around the problem either.

This software had so much potential at first...it's just sad.

[wmcbrine]

With BeyondTV or Windows Media Center is there a way to send content to my TivoHD?Older versions of Windows Media Center create .DVR-MS files, which pyTivo can remux for the TiVo. (It might support metadata from them soon, too.) Newer WMC makes .WTV files, which ffmpeg doesn't understand yet (hence neither does pyTivo). I don't know about Beyond TV.

[innocentfreak]

Windows 7 does include the option to right click and convert WTV to DVR-MS.

As far as watching my computer stuff on my TV, I just use the 360 since it works as an extender and can stream just about everything from live TV to recorded TV to various other formats with Windows Media Center. I believe the Walmart deal on the 360 is supposed to be through the end of the week or at least the 14th.

[Pokemon_Dad]

I hope my explanation made sense. If not go to The Green Button (http://www.thegreenbutton.com) and read some of the various threads on mapping channels.

Hey thanks again but I just want to point out that Comcast subscribers trying to receive all Clear QAM channels without any external box or cablecard setup will have an additional and cumbersome step to perform that you probably don't have to deal with out there in FIOS-land.

The Extended Basic channels are not encrypted, and they show up in 7MC's scans if you root around in Settings far enough, but they simply will not display. This is because of a Privacy Flag setting Comcast has added to those channels. Apparently there is a way around this in Media Center. (LiquidTV / TiVo PC lists them in settings screens and also refuses to display them, but nobody knows how to make changes to this in LiquidTV yet.)

This guy here describes how to deal with this in Vista Media Center or Windows 7 Media Center:
http://mpsharp.com/blog/2009/09/10/comcast-digital-transition/

[innocentfreak]

If I am reading this correctly, you should be able to do everything still through Guide Tool. Being able to have Media Center Scan and add the channel just makes things slightly easier since the channels checked in Guide Tool will be the ones you know you want to add.

If you haven't yet, I highly recommend you download Guide Tool and try it for yourself using silicon dust's listing for your guide of channels. I would just do one channel to make sure it works and you will know immediately.

[Thunderclap]

So I should have heeded all the reviews: Liquid TV does in fact suck. Not only does the software suck I was hoping the tuner would record two shows at once. That was my own fault.

Anyway, I'm sure Nero won't let me return the item so I was wondering if I sold it on Ebay if the buyer would still be able to take advantage of the free year of Tivo service even though I already activated the Tivo service. Thanks!

[cowboydren]

Can't answer that, but that tuner alone sells for $70 new. Gotta' be worth something.

[Pokemon_Dad]

If I am reading this correctly, you should be able to do everything still through Guide Tool.

Thanks, you may be right, but Beyond TV finds all the channels without any problem so I'm not too motivated to play with 7MC right now. Maybe later just for fun. Just wanted to make sure everyone knows there's this new wrinkle in Comcast reception.

Before I mislead anyone into thinking Beyond TV or similar products are a 100% solution either, let me say that Beyond TV does require you to manually match the found channels to the Beyond TV listings for your area. But unlike 7MC or LiquidTV, after a scan they're all there before you do any work matching them up with the schedule: in my case 132 Basic and Extended Basic channels, including all local HD broadcast channels, no cablecard or external box required.

[Chris Gerhard]

I just installed LiquidTV|TiVo and version 1.6. It is too buggy to really have a discussion, I don't know whether Nero will develop this further but it has a long way to go before the product is ready for prime time. If Nero is going to continue to try, I guess we can report bugs but it appears to me that the TiVo bong works right but not much else. Considering the clearance price, it may very well be the end of the line. I might continue to run this until my year is up but I sure can't imagine buying another year.

Chris

[cowboydren]

LiquidTV First Thoughts:

I have to say that I'm running this on some pretty beefy hardware, a Dell Opteron 960 with an Intel E8400 dual-core CPU at 3.0GHz and 4GB of RAM (3.25 usable thanks to Windows XP x86). I don't have much disk space, but I'm really just playing around on this machine. That said, I don't know what all of the griping is about.

I installed the Hauppauge hybrid USB tuner stick first. Windows XP (SP3) automatically downloaded the drivers and configured the hardware. I downloaded the LiquidTV 1.6 package from the Nero web site myself, and installed that rather than using the CD. I waited for the web installer to finish before I plugged in the USB IR receiver box, and it was fine. I also took a second to enable 30-second skip (Sel - Play - Sel - 3 - 0 - Sel) on the remote, but that's as much hardware configuration as I needed.

I'm at work, which is up on a hill, less than 15 miles from the broadcast towers, and Kansas City is an all-UHF market, so a simple 7.5" hoop antenna with rabbit ears is all I need for outstanding signal strength. LiquidTV addressed the card, scanned the channels, activated my service number, downloaded the guide data, and I was off to a running start.

I do have to say that it took me three tries to get the software side right. I installed it once, the computer kept locking up, so I rebooted, which wiped all of the software clean (our machines are set up to do that). The second time I installed the software, the registration server was unavailable, so I played with Beyond TV 4 for a couple of hours, and came back to LiquidTV later. This computer is not the permanent home of my software, so we'll see how transferring the license to another machine works out later.

Incidentally, the TiVo remote does work with Beyond TV, but only has as much functionality as, say, a Mac remote. There isn't even an "ESC" key on the remote that Windows/BTV recognizes. With that in mind and the slightly ugly interface that BTV4 has, I decided that I couldn't take any more. BTV doesn't seem to have a DVD player, and I didn't like the way it filled my disk (which is small) with lots of little files every time I changed the channel, and something else was wrong that kept adding to XML log files even after I turned the viewer software off. I had to kill the whole BTV server to get the disk to quiet down.

I don't own a real TiVo appliance, so I don't have much to compare it to, other than my Dish Network ViP-722, which I looove to death. The 722 is a great box, fast, easy to use, and has three tuners when you count the internal ATSC OTA tuner. What I don't like about the 722 is that it costs at least $1.50 per day in programming from Dish, the obscene prices for VOD events, and the fact that if the satellite signal is knocked out hard enough during a storm, I lose access to my OTA tuner, too.

What I like the most about LiquidTV is the level of integration between media sources. I like the fact that I can simply drop .mpg or .mp4 files into my Now Playing List folder, and I really like the option to play a DVD from inside the TiVo interface. Being able to recompress events to MP4 to save space or transcode HDTV for burning to DVD-R is just icing on the cake...a spicy, rum-flavored icing. I'm sure that if I had other TiVos or if I used Amazon or Netflix from inside a TiVo, I'd be disappointed that LiquidTV doesn't do this, but I don't, so I'm not.

Currently, I'm watching Aliens (1990 SE) with LiquidTV. The DVD rip (single VOB) with 5.1 sound took 6.5 gigabytes of disk space. I used Nero Recode to squish it to a 3.5 gig .mp4 file, dropped that in X:\Video (which is set to share), and LiquidTV fired it right up. I can skip back and forth, as with any DVR recording, stop and resume at will. I can even create subfolders with Windows Explorer, and use them to organize my DVD rip library. I recorded a 30-minute SD program, and had hoped to use LiquidTV's compressor to shrink it for an iTouch, but with only 9GB of disk space, that seems to have failed.

A few things are missing, but I think part of that is just getting used to TiVo. I don't like how hard it is to go from the Guide to the To Do list (8 keypresses? really?!?!), I don't like the fact that there's no "-" or "." key on the remote, so I haven't figured out how to punch directly to a channel, and there seems to be no "resume" feature in the DVD options. It would also be nice if the programmers were using CUDA to do the codec/container transcoding; this isn't the sort of thing that I'd want a lower-power CPU to handle by itself.

According to Nero's tech support, this is designed to handle up to four tuners. If this is true, I'll definitely pay $99 per year for the software, though I'd rather pay $39. I'll keep posting as my experience deepens.

[BJBBJB]

Longtime Tivo user....so hard core, still holding on to my 10-250 for dear life hoping for that new Tivo DTV box while I suffer along with my DTV DVR for the MPEG-4's!

Anyway, even with all the caveats, I installed Liquid 1.6 for a very basic SD recording need (cable, no box) I had on Vista 32. Had the retail box with the tuner and remote. With all the tips here (never installed the old version for one), the install of the tuner and software actually went well. I had to try to register twice and it worked the second time and got to the completion of the setup.

Anyway, my one issue is that when I got to the "remote" screen, I hit 2 on the Tivo remote that came with the software (and the arrows worked, etc. so I thought I was good). I did however have to hit "will use a remote later" to get to the next screen. I used the remote for the rest of the setup. BUT, when I tried to use it to bring up the guide it did not work...the Tivo button does not work either, nor do the channel buttons, etc. And when I go to the "remote" screen, it says I am NOT using a Tivo remote and I should buy one!!! I am looking at one!! I do not see an AV/Tivo switch on it either like I think some of the real old ones had. The onscreen commands do work.

I also noted that it never asked to scan the channels (although I found that under setup and ran it). Hopefully the program guide downloads over time. Is there anyway to force that? It did find the right cable company and city.

So overall, just happy it installed and appears to work. But if there was a fairly easy way to get the remote to be recognized as a Tivo remote that would be great! The IR reciever/blaster is listed in device manager as working correctly. And also, of course it "lights up" regardless of what button I hit...however the Liquid software only seems to recognize the arrow keys, select keys...mute....and that's about it.

Thanks for any help! It seems like a small group that has gotten this working...

BJBBJB

[BJBBJB]

Just reporting on some additional investigation in case it helps someone.

Had a conversation with Tivo customer support that was somewhat helpful. They found my account as active and verified that the software via that account was making requests for updates (I assume service and guide) to the Tivo server that appeared successful.

So the question is since the software has not changed since July, why is it now not updating the guide unless the Tivo data stream changed?

I am still trying to get hold of anyone at Nero support...

BJBBJB

[BJBBJB]

Nero got back to me and said that something was corrected on the Tivo server side. I re-ran guided setup and guide data is there. I hope it updates the next time also!

Tivo remote also recognized the second time through guided setup...

BJB

[BJBBJB]

Just in case anyone is still using Liquid Tv or reading these posts....

I spoke too fast... Some data did download but amazingly, the guide is only showing data that starts five days into the future!!

The time at the top of the guide is right....Tivo knows what time it is..however, the guide data it is displaying for example as of today, is really a show from January 20th!

Do any current users (or perhaps people smarter than me that tested the software but no longer use it) see this happening or have any idea how to fix it?

Or perhaps this is still some kind of tivo-to-nero transmission issue.

BJBBJB

[jhankins]

Okay, I'm resurrecting this old thread.

What happens with LiquidTV if you don't renew it? Now that it can be had for $25, I'm thinking of picking it up just as an easy way to burn shows to DVD. I'm not interested in using it to record or even watch programs. I've got two TiVos that do that more than adequately.

Can it still transfer recordings from other TiVos and burn them to DVD once the subscription runs out, or does it completely stop working?

Like I said, it can be had for $25 on ebay at this point. I don't want to get it, then get shut down in a year, though, because it certainly isn't worth $100 a year for what I want to do.

Jamie

[TerpBE]

Can't you do what you want just by using Tivo Desktop?

[jhankins]

No, I want to burn to DVD with the TiVo menus. TiVo Desktop can't burn to DVD at all. You have to buy Roxio Creater 2010. I bought Roxio Creater 2009 for the same reason (a year ago), and it was flaky and never did successfully burn a show to DVD.

[paraman52]

Hello, Folks,

I have noticed that in NERO Liquid TV, sometimes I get a black static screen with the message that "NERO LiquidTV (or TiVo) cannot display live TV." The only way that I have been able to fix this is to restart Windows 7. What is the problem? How can I fix it?

Thanks!

[qz3fwd]

Hello, Folks,

I have noticed that in NERO Liquid TV, sometimes I get a black static screen with the message that "NERO LiquidTV (or TiVo) cannot display live TV." The only way that I have been able to fix this is to restart Windows 7. What is the problem? How can I fix it?

Thanks!
You can fix it by un-installing the POS software, and using a real media center application.

[Worf]

Unfortunately, Windows 7 MCE doesn't support the Hauppage HD-PVR, the only way I can get high-def...

But I do have this, I'll give it a try. Wonder what happens when the sub expires.

[innocentfreak]

Unfortunately, Windows 7 MCE doesn't support the Hauppage HD-PVR, the only way I can get high-def...

But I do have this, I'll give it a try. Wonder what happens when the sub expires.

Not yet it doesn't, but it is coming.
HD-PVR Driver coming soon to Windows 7 (http://www.geektonic.com/2010/05/hauppauge-hd-pvr-driver-coming-soon-to.html)

[Worf]

Cool. It's coming out this month, too.

My HTPC has Win7 on it.

If it would integrate the blu-ray player, it would be perfect.

[innocentfreak]

You may want to check this thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7924298#post7924298) especially around page 3. If you have room for a Blu-Ray drive or can replace your DVD drive with one, there are ways.

[Worf]

Cool. Looks like it works already (I use Arcsoft TMT).

Yeah, I replaced the DVD drive with a blu-ray one. Works great for that with bitstreaming and everything.