Watch and Record TV: a TiVo for free!

Using MediaPortal, you can watch live TV, record shows to your hard drive, or view the TV guide on any PC in your home.

• You can even watch and record TV at the same time with only one DVB/ATSC TV Card.
• You can use any analog card that supports BDA.
• There is no limit on the number of TV Cards supported.
• MediaPortal supports all major brands of cards, like DE, Hauppauge, Pinnacle, TT, including analog cards.

Before you can use TV, you must first scan or find your channels. See TV Quick Setup to get started. Then for advanced options see Configuration > TV-Server.

TV-Server

The TV-Server is an application which allows you to set up one central server with one or more TV cards. All TV related tasks are handled by the server and streamed over the network to one or more clients. Clients can then install the MediaPortal Client software and use the TV-Server to watch live or recorded TV, schedule recordings, view and search EPG data over the network. Since version 1.0.1, the client plugin of the TV-Server has replaced the default built-in TV Engine.

Even if you do not have a network (i.e. a singleseat installation), the TV-Server treats your PC as both the server and the client.

Of course to use all the TV features, you will want to add EPG data to your TV Guide and likely wish to add TV Channel logos as well.

Using TV

Once you have configured the TV-Server with your channels and added EPG data, you can:

• TV On - Watch Live TV with time shifting (you may change the default settings in Configuration > TV).
• Channel - Displays the Mini Guide, to view channels by channel groups.
• TV Guide - Browse the Electronic Program Guide.
• Recorded TV - Browse and watch all your recordings.
• Record Now - Start or stop recordings.
• Active Recordings - List or stop the programs currently recording.
• TV Streams - Displays a list of all currently streaming TV channels. Allows you to use the existing timeshift buffer of these channels.
• Scheduled - Browse and manage all programs you have scheduled for recording.
• Search - Searches all program listed in your TV Guide.
• Teletext - Browse broadcast text information such as news, weather and TV schedules.
• TV Shows - Shortcut to the MP TV-Series plugin (only accessible if the plugin is installed).