IceTV and Windows Home Theatre PC

LGish on 29/12/2014 - 15:40
Last edited 29/12/2014 - 15:40

Advice Needed:

Since 2006 I've been running a Windows HTPC and IceTV.

For the past 3-4 years I've grudgingly renewed using discount codes to renew my IceTV at a discount (~$49 rather than $99 per year) but am debating whether to renew this as there are no codes valid at the moment.

The quality of the guide has degraded dramatically. The Guide writers poke fun at several TV shows rather than writing a guide. If I wanted an opinion on whether a show is good or not, I'd look elsewhere)
Remote recording has never truly worked. (That said, after a few months of phone calls with 'try this, try that' and I gave up as it's not something I could have used fully).

I am too lazy to be bothered using any of the community guides.
Does anyone know if the FTA guides are any good nowadays? (series recording works?)

Also just tried to call them and their phone rings out… (The website lists that they should be there)

What has everyone else done in this situation? What would OzBargain do?

Computing

Comments

  • Davros on 29/12/2014 - 15:47
    +2

    Starts with a T and ends with one as well

    • Gish on 29/12/2014 - 16:50

      U Wot M8??

      • Davros on 29/12/2014 - 19:45

        Torrent

        • PVA on 30/12/2014 - 11:17

          Hard to torrent local shows, neighbours,news etc. Fine for US shows I guess.

        • Gish on 30/12/2014 - 11:26

          Ahh. (Racking my brain there).
          Wifey likes her free to air, Aussie content and loves the ad-skipping.
          That said, it't be worth paying for USEN3T subscription vs what I am paying for just a guide.

        • Davros on 30/12/2014 - 11:49

          @PVA:
          Whats wrong with free to air for trash TV (neighbours)or streaming?

          https://www.google.com.au/#newwindow=1&safe=off&q=+catch+up+…

  • PVA on 29/12/2014 - 17:08
    +1

    I assume its reduced hours for their office, they say normal hours after the 5th. Maybe only one staff during this time.
    Keep trying to call and ask for a discount as you are thinking to stop.

    • Gish on 29/12/2014 - 22:09

      Thanks PVA. Will do.

  • PVA on 30/12/2014 - 11:29

    maybe its better just to get a PVR with a proper Freeview Guide built in.

    • Gish on 30/12/2014 - 13:02

      That was part of my question.
      My initial question was along the lines of:

      Are the FTA (Free To Air/Freeview) guides any good nowadays?

      Last time I checked, they were out by a few minutes and the broadcast didn't flag 'repeat' shows correctly. Also series recording was hit and miss.

      • PVA on 30/12/2014 - 13:05

        what about the Humax PVR , come with lifetime ICEtv - is that a decent price? (no idea on pvr prices)
        delete that and go with Peters info below.

        • Gish on 30/12/2014 - 13:40

          Yeah. Initially wanted a device like that but all of of the user interfaces were terrible (can't speak for the Humax though, never tried them)
          Also needed more functionality (rip, burn and play dvd, play ANY video, even future formats (good thing about windows)

          And technically the 'lifetime' icetv is a bit of a joke. Think their version of 'lifetime' is about 5 years.

          That said, good suggestion though. The fact that it's a single purpose helps aid stability.

        • PVA on 30/12/2014 - 13:56

          @Gish:
          I guess Lifetime means the units Lifetime maybe.

          The beyonwiz below looks a fantastic unit, will play anything it seems (even media server files)

  • peteru on 30/12/2014 - 12:17
    +4

    The free to air guide these days is pretty good. Certainly more accurate and precise than IceTV. IceTV shows are always aligned to 5 minutes boundaries and the guide is updated at most a few times a day. In contrast, the FTA EIT EPG is updated continuously and the accuracy of EITp/f is down to the second on most of the channels.

    I'm using FTA EPG with a Beyonwiz T3 PVR and it uses the FTA EPG info data to drop bookmarks at the start of each event. This has been very reliable and accurate, GEM, GO!, ABC News and ABC2/4 are the most precise (down to the nearest second), but other channels are fairly good too, mostly to within 10 seconds or so.

    As far as series recording is concerned, that usually depends on the smarts in your PVR / HTPC. Again, the Beyonwiz T3 has autotimers, which are pretty good at hunting down your shows, even if they switch networks. I would expect that a decent HTPC solution could do just as well or even better.

    Whatever you do, do NOT buy any device with a Freeview or FreeviewPlus certification. Despite the advertising, it's a black mark against a PVR and it means that the PVR is crippled to comply with the various Freeview requirements that are designed to ensure that people have to watch ads and can not placeshift the content.

    • Gish on 30/12/2014 - 13:04

      Great work, Answers my question very well. Thank you.

      How does it handle series recording? (Currently running Windows Media Center to do all the recording and timeshifting.)

      • peteru on 30/12/2014 - 14:23
        +1

        How does it handle series recording?

        When you say "it" do you mean the FTA EIT EPG or do you mean Beyonwiz T3?

        The FTA EIT EPG does not really have any provisions to mark individual events as part of a series or to mark them as premiere or repeat. Some broadcasters supply some of this metadata as bits of text in the description, but this is not consistent. This is where the PVR/HTPC software has to pick up the job and have some smarts. On the Beyonwiz T3, you have the option to use the traditional timers, like almost every other device on the market, or you can set up autotimers. Autotimers are clever and will create and modify individual timers as the EPG is updated. You can set a few or a lot of various criteria / filters for your autotimers. For example, you may choose to record anything with the word "castle" in the title on SBS, but only between the hours of 7pm and 2am and only on the weekend. Or you may setup a timer to record anything with "Myhtbusters" in title or description an any channel. Once you setup an autotimer, it should get updated as the EPG changes. For example, if you have a Mythbusters autotimer and the show moves from 7pm to 7:30pm, the autotimer will update. If you are interested in more info, you may want to visit the Beyonwiz Forums.

        The best part about the Beyonwiz T3 PVR is that it is open source. If you want to change the way it works or improve an existing feature (or even add a new feature), then you can. Even if you don't have the skills yourself, but have a good idea, you can probably convince someone with the programming skills to make those changes for you. Most of the functionality is implemented in Python, with the low level stuff in C/C++.

  • peteru on 30/12/2014 - 14:29

    I guess I should also point out that the Beyonwiz T3 gives you the option to use IceTV or FTA EPG. The installation wizard will ask you to select if you want to use Free To Air or IceTV as your EPG provider and you can always switch later. The Beyonwiz T3 comes with a 3 month free IceTV trial.

    • Gish on 30/12/2014 - 14:47

      Sorry for the ambiguity. Was stuck on a phone call when I typed most of the above. ;)

      Purchasing another PVR isn't on the cards in the near future. We've got a $2500 HTPC running the rumpus room (purchased back in 2006, so that was the price at the time) and a ~$1200 HTPC at the front bought about 4 years ago.
      Both have had fans, drives and power supplies replaced so I intend to keep these running.

      These boxes run Windows Vista and Windows 7 respectively with Windows Media Centre as the front end.

      The guide (FTA/free/OverTheAir) guide VS Paid IceTV) would be to serve these two machines.

      I can change (and am really tempted to!) between the two, and this serves as a discussion as to whether I am going to lose much by swapping from the Paid IceTV offerings to the free, over the air, broadcast guides.

      I think the only further question I have now is, whether Windows will handle the series recording well with the FTA guides.

      Big thanks for your answers all, I really appreciate it!!!
  • spersephone on 30/12/2014 - 15:53

    I've been using it on Windows and more recently on Mac, for quite a few years. Remote recording works beautifully. I wonder what is going on with yours? The actual system works incredibly well in my experience. I will be renewing mine at the discount price next time it comes up.

    • Gish on 30/12/2014 - 16:14

      Given I don't use remote record (I use another solution if I am desperate) I am wondering if the guide data would be better and series recording would work just as well.

      • spersephone on 30/12/2014 - 16:19

        I have found the IceTV series recording works brilliantly, as good as on TiVo. I am not aware of any other system in Australia that works as well, but I may be mistaken.

        • Gish on 30/12/2014 - 17:02

          Sorry, to reclarify again, I currently have IceTV. I agree. It's good.
          But I am getting tired of paying for something that the broadcasters are now (supposedly) offering for free over the air. (The EPG that comes with the broadcast)

        • spersephone on 30/12/2014 - 17:07

          @Gish: I agree, but as far as I'm aware, there are no other recorders that have a superior series recording capability - I've never heard of any that can pick up channel changes etc as well as IceTV does. On the other hand, TiVo can do it really well, except it doesn't cope with channel changes (ie from channel 7 to 7Two). If you want to set and forget, as I do, I do not know of any devices that are able to do this as well as these two options.

  • MementoMori on 31/12/2014 - 04:39

    Honestly, I think the price of just buying content via an Apple TV is reasonable enough these days to just use that. No stuffing around, excellent quality.

    • spersephone on 31/12/2014 - 09:29

      Less than $1 a week versus ongoing continual charges to get the same content? No way, not for me. I use iTunes to buy stuff that I don't have, not stuff that I could easily have recorded for myself, removed the ads and kept to stream to the Apple TV at my leisure.

  • Seiko on 31/12/2014 - 07:18
    +1

    I've switched to the OTA guide after being a Ice customer and have not noticed a difference. Remote recording worked for me but I do not miss it. If I miss a show I either torrent it or get on with my life. This is running a win 7 machine with MCE.

    Switch to OTA, you won't regret it.

    • Gish on 31/12/2014 - 08:38

      Perfect. I'll give it a shot.

    • This Guy on 31/12/2014 - 18:13

      I'm OTA guides with WMC. I found I had to program recording to start 20 minutes early and run 10 minutes over to catch the majority of shows (I'm looking at you win).

  • Ramrunner on 31/12/2014 - 11:44

    Sorry I have to mention as some of what you've been mentioning seems like a lot of effort and for the things you want such as recording to DVD, throwing the content around the house I have to mention:

    Why not try MythTV?

    I have it running on an old Core 2 Duo 6600 I had lying around in 2007 (yes I've been running versions of MythTV since pretty much then). Stuck a big HDD in, a couple of Dual Hauppauge tuners, and replaced the internal fans with pretty damn near silent ones and I was done. Installed MythTV, installed the shepherd EPG script. Series recording? Excellent. Marking new episodes? Sometimes a little too aggressive so for some things like Formula 1 and V8 Supercars I turn that off and simply delete any repeats. Other shows it's pretty much prefect. The 4 tuners I've set up with 5 virtual tuners each so I can record up to 20 shows at one time on 4 different transponders (7, 7mate, 73 etc are all on the same transponder so basically I can record three shows simultaneously using only one tuner). I forward the required ports for MythWeb so I can control and manage the device anywhere with an internet connection. I've even installed a script that shows me notifications that come in on my mobile scrolling on my TV if I'm watching MythTV. It acts as a DLNA server so any recorded shows are available anywhere on the network or for a better UI use XBMC (now named Kodi?) or MythFrontEnd with a Windows remote. Want to burn to DVD? That's built in to MythTV as long as you have a DVD burner installed.

    Now, is it particularly easy to set up? NO! Is it much more difficult than a Windows installation with tuners etc? No, it is not HOWEVER if you're completely a Linux noob, then I would say it IS much more difficult to set up.

    But this is the important part.

    ONCE it's set up……FORGET IT. Well, provided you have good hardware of course.

    You log in to the web interface to manage your recordings…otherwise it….just….works…. I replaced my power pack about a year ago now because it died but it's been running non stop no maintenance no reboots for just over a year. Before the power pack gave up I don't even recall when it was rebooted last. I watch TV on any of my tablets or smart devices LIVE OR RECORDED with XMBC (or DLNA for my TV) it bookmarks automatically so it continues watching where I left off last time.

    AD SKIPPING is pretty much FULLY automatic for the channel 10 series of transponders (OneHD, Ten, etc). MythTV marks the ad, and I simply press ONE button on my remote and the ad is skipped perfectly.

    Other transponders are a bit hit and miss. MythTV tries to mark them but they seem to have something funky in their streams sometimes. Amazing Race and the Bachelor seem to be always one button skippable, the other shows, sometimes yes, but sometimes the usual 30 seconds forward, 10 seconds back buttons is the only way to skip the ad. These skip times are of course fully programmable.

    I think you should try going down this route personally. Occasionally I try MediaPortal as they are progressing very well, I think Windows Media Centre is actually quite crappy (sorry), but in the end I always go back to MythTV.

    If you want to play with it. I suggest grabbing the MythBuntu distribution. I found it the easiest.

    http://www.mythbuntu.org/

    On a similar note. Has anyone tried the Humax 4Tune device? I'd really like to know what it's like as it seems to do 90% of what my MythTV does but in a simple box. Would be great for some of my family if it works as advertised…..

    • spersephone on 31/12/2014 - 12:07

      I did try a couple of other systems but things didn't always work, when I was using Windows Media Centre. In the end I found IceTV worked beautifully, and continued to stick with it even when I switched to Mac and a network TV tuner. But, yes, there are some good free options out there too.

  • QuickToThePointless on 31/12/2014 - 12:32

    I use WMC for all recording of series, some movies etc with no additions, just the standard guide and dual tuners in the htpc. I set it to end 3 mins later than programming tome and it rarely fails. Anything that stuffs up or you forget to record can be streamed at freeview http://www.freeview.com.au/catch-up/.

    The mythtv set up is pribably better but my way is simple and near foolproof - if you dotn enjoy tinkering every few weeks when updates, bugs etc happen i suggest this is the way to go.

    Cant see why youd pay fro ice tv unless y made use of the remote recording thing but with freeview as a backup why bother?

    I recently set up plex ( takes 5 minutes) which runs alongside on my htpc and streams all content bar live tv but including recorded tv to bedroom tv with chromecast. If you need live tv in another room use xbox 360 as an extender instead paired with your htpc

  • dtgold on 31/12/2014 - 15:45

    I've been using Windows Media Centre with OTA guide for several years now, and it works really well. Series recordings work ALMOST flawlessly, but just a couple of things to be aware of:

    1. A lot of first-run shows are repeated on the multi-channels later in the week (e.g. a new Channel Nine show will repeat on Go). The first-run is usually called "[Title] - New", while the repeat is just called "[Title]". If you want to be able to record the repeats (perhaps due to a recording conflict in prime time), then you have to add both series.

    2. Networks are starting to be more annoying by adding things into the title - e.g. "[Title] - New (includes Crimestoppers at 8:32)", or "Title - New (includes sneak peak of [Other Title])". Windows Media Center is inconsistent in how it deals with this - sometimes it treats these shows as part of the series, and sometimes it misses them. For this reason, I suggest recording the repeated shows (which rarely have amended titles), as well as/instead of the first-run.

    3. One great thing about WMC and OTA guide is that it extends recordings on-the-fly when the network updates the guide mid-show (i.e. if a show is running longer than expected). However, this can sometimes cause unexpected recording conflicts with a show you might have scheduled to record next on another network. This is yet another reason to record the repeat instead of the first-run wherever possible.

    Hope that helps!

    • Gish on 05/01/2015 - 08:28

      It does mate. Thanks.
      I've got several tuners running so conflicts are usually handled quite well.
      Will give IceTV the flick (They still haven't gotten back to me for the message I left them) and can always re-purchase if it turns out to be crap.

  • spersephone on 05/01/2015 - 08:35

    Surely you just turn off auto renew and don't pay?

    • Gish on 05/01/2015 - 09:48

      That's the plan, now. :)
      That said, not even the IceTV rep has noticed this.

  • Gish on 27/07/2017 - 08:33

    Two years on, running the OTA guide works fine.

    • Ramrunner on 27/07/2017 - 13:14

      Wow forgot about this thread!

      Just to mention after 10 years service - My MythTV got the flick start of this year!

      Only because I bought a FetchTV mighty.

      What a machine! Love it!

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