A digital video recorder (DVR), also referred to as a personal video recorder (PVR) particularly in Canada and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes (STB) with direct to disk recording, portable media players and TV gateways with recording capability, and digital camcorders. Personal computers are often connected to video capture devices and used as DVRs; in such cases the application software used to record video is an integral part of the DVR. Many DVRs are classified as consumer electronic devices. Similar small devices with built-in displays and SSD support may be used for professional film or video production, as these recorders often do not have the limitations that built-in recorders in cameras have, offering wider codec support, the removal of recording time limitations and higher bitrates.
Kodi is a free and open-source media player and technology convergence software application developed by the Kodi Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, with a software 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most streaming media, such as videos, music, podcasts, and videos from the Internet, as well as all common digital media files from local and network storage media, or TV gateway viewer.
MythTV is a free and open-source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living room TV. It turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital multimedia home entertainment system, or home theater personal computer. It can be considered a free and open-source alternative to TiVo or Windows Media Center. It runs on various operating systems, primarily Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD.
A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording functionality. Since the mid-2000s, other types of consumer electronics, including game consoles and dedicated media devices, have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term "media center" also refers to specialized application software designed to run on standard personal computers.
Hauppauge Computer Works is a US manufacturer and marketer of electronic video hardware for personal computers. Although it is most widely known for its WinTV line of TV tuner cards for PCs, Hauppauge also produces personal video recorders, digital video editors, digital media players, hybrid video recorders and digital television products for both Windows and Mac. The company is named after the hamlet of Hauppauge, New York, in which it is based.
Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for current and upcoming broadcast programming. Some guides also feature backward scrolling to promote their catch up content. They are commonly known as guides or TV guides.
MediaPortal is an open-source media player and digital video recorder software project, often considered an alternative to Windows Media Center. It provides a 10-foot user interface for performing typical PVR/TiVo functionality, including playing, pausing, and recording live TV; playing DVDs, videos, and music; viewing pictures; and other functions. Plugins allow it to perform additional tasks, such as watching online video, listening to music from online services such as Last.fm, and launching other applications such as games. It interfaces with the hardware commonly found in HTPCs, such as TV tuners, infrared receivers, and LCD displays.
Dreambox is a series of Linux-powered DVB satellite, terrestrial and cable digital television receivers, produced by German multimedia vendor Dream Multimedia.
Windows Media Center (WMC) is a digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, as well as all editions of Windows 7 except Starter and Home Basic. It was also available on Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8.1 Pro as a paid add-on. It was discontinued as of Windows 10 and the operating system also removes all of Windows Media Center during an upgrade from previous versions of Windows, although it can reportedly be unofficially reinstalled using a series of Command Prompt commands.
SageTV Media Center, now open source, was a proprietary, commercial DVR and HTPC software for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It requires that the host computer have a hardware-based TV tuner card. The SageTV software has an integrated Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) that is updated via the Internet. The program provides a television interface for DVR, music, and photos on Windows and Linux. SageTV Media Center typically records in standard MPEG2, making it possible to transfer recordings to laptops or other devices. It also has a built-in conversion feature to transcode files into other formats compatible with iPod, PSP, cell phones and other portable devices.
ShowShifter, now obsolete, was a proprietary, commercial digital video recorder (DVR) and home theater PC (HTPC) software for Windows.
HDHomeRun is a network-attached digital television tuner box, produced by the company SiliconDust USA, Inc.
InterVideo WinDVR is a commercial digital video recorder (DVR) software package for Windows operating systems. It allows PCs to work as a TV set and a DVR at the same time, using a hardware-based TV turner card. It has an integrated electronic program guide (EPG) that is updated via the Internet. Its direct competition came from CyberLink PowerVCR.
GB-PVR was a PVR application, running on Microsoft Windows, whose main function was scheduling TV recordings and playing back live TV. GB-PVR is no longer under active development and has been superseded by NextPVR, also known as nPVR.
Unibox is a satellite, cable and terrestrial digital receiver. It has been distributed widely for use with Pay TV. It also enables the receiver to store digital copies of MPEG TS on internal harddisk or networked filesystems.
DVBViewer is proprietary, commercial software for viewing & recording of DVB TV & Radio using a TV tuner card or box and a Media Center for viewing Music, Video and Pictures. Among its other features are an Electronic Program Guide (EPG), remote control support, on-screen display, teletext, time shifting and picture-in-picture. Besides the support for BDA adapters, there is also the ability to use the Hauppauge MediaMVP with DVBViewer. The software also allows Unicable, DiSEqC and usage of CI-Modules with most adapters. The worldwide charge for the application is 15 euro or 22 US Dollars. Additional functions such as video on demand, TV series and movie management, home network distribution of TV to network devices including iPod Touch, iPhone & iPad & Android devices, and a recording service with web interface are provided by free plugins. A plug-in offering MHEG-5 and HbbTV support is available for a license fee of 12 euros.
A TV gateway is a television headend to a network UPnP router that receives live digital video broadcast (DVB) MPEG transport streams (channels) from terrestrial aerials, satellite dishes, or cable feeds and converts them into IP streams for distribution over an IP network.
VBox Home TV gateway is a network-enabled live TV tuner and PVR HDTV set-top-box produced by VBox Communications Ltd.
DVB Dream is a proprietary software for watching & recording of digital TV & radio with help of a digital TV tuner card. It supports the standards DVB-S (satellite), DVB-C (cable), DVB-T (terrestrial), ISDB-T, ISDB-S and ATSC.