TivoPC (aka Nero Liquid TV)

Advertisements

Aaaaah fuggetaboutit. I still can't make it work but why would I want to watch TV on Nero LiquidTV anyway, when the program won't allow me to adjust the display resolution? At my LCD screen's optimum resolution of 1280 x 1024 everything looks distorted because LiquidTV set itself to 1024 x 768 and there is no way to change this. As I said before, I know of no other PC TV software with this problem!

Besides, standard def TV looks tiny and/or terrible on a PC screen at any resolution so there really is no reason to use that Comcast adapter, which only converts digital channels for use with old analog TV sets. Comcast offered it if for free so I was willing to play with it, but now I'm done and ready to return it. I was planning to use LiquidTV primarily to view HD programs transferred from my TiVo boxes, or to view OTA HD channels. Still, It's a shame that LiquidTV does not support unencrypted digital cable channels ("Clear QAM"), because the Hauppauge HVR-950Q USB tuner included in the LiquidTV retail box package will receive those channels just fine.

To test this, I downloaded Hauppauge's free WinTV 7 and the 21-day free trial of Snapstream Media's Beyond TV 4 and used them with the 950Q. Scanning Comcast San Jose cable, neither product had any problem at all finding well over 125 digital channels, including all the local HD channels in clear crisp video requiring no cable box, cable card or adapter of any kind. I'll post more about these and other alternatives soon.

 

Did everyone get an invitation today offering participation in the beta release of version 1.6? Apparently 1.6 is scheduled for final release this summer. The message says "a lot of general improvements and bug fixes have been added". I'm enjoying Beyond TV at this point but since we've already paid for the privilege of being beta testers of a very unfinished product, maybe I'll take a look at this...

 

I've started a new thread on the version 1.5 beta here:
http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=426866

 

Why? It's still crap, so I don't see a need for another thread. It's not like anyone posts much on this one.

 

Advertisements

No argument here. Nobody's posting because nobody's buying. But for some reason I am trying to help the Nero people understand why.

For live TV viewing on my PC, I'm using only Beyond TV now. I'll post info on that program in another thread soon too.

 

Does anyone know if the remote works with any other software, like as an HID device, or with EventGhost? I'd like to use the remote to control.. eh.. media center.

-Dan

 

Nm

 

because it is only half done software and takes just as long as Desktop 2.7 to transfer files and now desktop2.8 transfers them faster. In a nutshell I have no need for the TiVo interface on my PC when other free software or else windows 7 media center that comes with a PC can be used instead and sometimes more effectively.

Nero needs to come up with a value add if they want people to use the software on the PC

 

Yes, it's neither stable and useful enough for the general public nor full-featured enough for enthusiasts. I did my best to communicate that during the 1.5/1.6 beta but I was apparently dealing only with developers tasked with fixing the current poorly designed implementation.

One can only hope that it's on sale right now because they're clearing the decks for a 2.0 release that will be better than a TiVo box _and_ better than offerings like Beyond TV. But I wouldn't bet any money on that. More likely, Nero and TiVo they gave up on this product after seeing 7MC.

 

Why would anyone want to run something like this on windows. It appears to me that after you start this software you can't get out of it except to kill it. This tells me it was meant to run as the primary application. If this where the case then why did they not just release this under linux.

Greg

 

Does anyone know if this can be used for tivo multiroom viewing? I have no desire to try to record with it but I would love to be able to transfer recordings from my tivo hd to my htpc in the bedroom.

 

I would think you can do that with tivotogo? Although it would not transfer from the paused point. This should do that. Have not played with it yet though since the latest version crashes on the pc I was trying it on...

 

Yes, you can use it for multi-room viewing / MRV. I never tried to transfer a show that was paused in the middle so I don't know if it preserves that, but I did transfer shows from my TiVo HDs. Also on those TiVo HDs I could see the PC and transfer from it in that direction too. It was not an entirely bug-free experience. Nor defect-free either.

As the previous poster mentioned, you can just as easily move stuff to your PC using the free version of TiVo Desktop (which replaced ye ol' TiVoToGo awhile back).

http://www.tivo.com/buytivo/tivogear/software/index.html

 

One of the best things about TiVo is the very intuitive user interface. E.g. automatic rewind of a few seconds after fast-forwarding.

Moving your stuff to your PC means you are at the mercy of the (probably inferior) GUI of some other viewer.

 

I agree. That was why I was so excited about having a TiVo interface on my PC, but the software was so buggy I stopped using it. Transfers in the queue just disappeared sometimes, watching live TV on my configuration wasn't a good experience, etc. etc. I don't think they really thought about users like me, I think they expected that we would all use it at the center of a dedicated HTPC, but they didn't meet expectations there either and I certainly don't recommend that dbutts let TiVo PC take over his HTPC. It's really a shame, this idea had a lot of potential.

Anyway, to your point yes TiVo Desktop integrates with Windows Media Player and that has its limitations. One would have to decode the file for use with other interfaces, but given time and patience anything is possible.

 

Looks like they decided to kill the product. Nero LiquidTV (aka TiVo PC) now shows up under "Previous Products" on Nero's website.

http://www.nero.com/enu/support-liquidtv.html

I am now wondering if you can transfer the included 1-year of service to a real TiVo?

 

Maybe if they are discontinuing it, TiVo will give some kind of an upgrade path, especially for those of us with regular TiVos in our stable... wouldn't count on it though.

If LiquidTV would just even work anywhere close to a regular standard def TiVo I would use it for sure. I could not even get the latest version to run on my system... it would crash every time on startup...

EDIT:

It says right on the page you linked:

Sales of Nero Liquid TV™ | Tivo PC® were discontinued on December 30th, 2009

But I suppose they will continue to "support" it so we get nothing but the tuner and peanut remote for our money spent?

 

Actually this is the exact reason that I bring this up. I am not currently an owner, but I did see this on sale for $29.00 at Fry's last week...including the TiVo software, the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950Q tuner (OTA HD and QAM), the remote and 1 year of service.

So assuming that the service is transferable to a Physical TiVo (S2 or S2), you get 12 months of service (assuming 12/month = $144) for $29 plus a Hauppauge to toy around with on the side.

 

I believe that will not work. When I registered my liquidtv (which the software itself does through an internet connection), it asked for an email address, I used the same email address as my TiVo account for my series 2 TiVos. I got a form-letter-type email back from Nero saying I needed to change the email since it was already in use for a TiVo account.

So it appears Nero is managing the accounts and possibly guide data themselves, and from every indication to me it will not transfer. Unless TiVo takes over this discontinued product and decides to allow it.

Kinda sad. This product had a lot of potential in its time. The TiVo interface is way easy to use. But The product was bungled and poorly written apparently (I still can't get mine to run), and now there is media center in mainstream windows...

I have to admit after this I would never buy another Nero product no matter what it was.

 

Note, there's a lot of discussion about this over at the Nero site. Be warned all guide data seems to have ceased on Jan 1.

I'm one of the users in this boat of having no guide data. It's correct the TSN numbers are different than what Tivo expects, so I don't think they will transfer to another Tivo

I've temporarily switched to Media Center (on Windows Vista) since it has guide data.

I also have the downside that my Humax Tivo died this week, so I'm without most of my programs!