I have been using DVBViewer for watching TV on my system (say purchased, we come up to that later) for like 6 months or so by now, from their site and introduction, it looks very promising, very functional, but IMHO, the user experience was very bad..

I was attracted to its record format, especially in .TS format (unlike Windows Media Centre, protected .wtv format) with multi-language audio channel, subtitle support, and their recording service which support web base control is what I just needed, I can add/remove recording anytime anywhere.

First when I brought and install it, I used it a few times, but when I started to get more to work for it, example their recording service, their web interface, etc I just felt so upset and let it sat on my start menu and never used it any-more, here are some summary:

1. It crashed ALL THE TIME, or say, from time to time, at a random chances it just crashes, the main problem I have here is not even it crashes, it is refused to quit, killing it by ALL MEANS (TaskManager. taskkill.exe and some others like 1x ways) other than reboot did not help. and without killing or quitting it you cannot reopen it..

2. It has so much great ideas and plug-ins, addons, which if they all work would lead to so many useful solutions, but most of them does not work very well with each others, and reading those documentation is really not a happy job.

3. Since the developer is not English native speaker, main core documentation are not in English (in deutsch), or many of the needed documentation is either outdated “Fans” translated which is really confusing users.

I can get its basic function to work, that is, watch TV (skip the random crashes), but try to put them together never worked out well, all I wanted is their watching TV, recording service to record in .TS format by web interface and that’s it.

My current setup is:
– Recording service, as back end, with DVBServer, web interface on.
– DVBViewer, as front end, configured to work with the DVBServer by unicast to 127.0.0.1

The reason of my setup is because then I do not need to keep that buggy front-end on all the time, I do not like to hear what I am recording isn’t it?

The recording service is all time beta (an “addon” towards its core installations), within the service there are settings for web interface, which seems good, but utf8 EPG is broken for like I can’t remember since when, entering the option page would STOP the service (why? most system even Windoz would not)..

Trying to do record from web, which is call timer, it looks ok, when it was time for the record, it hangs…and there is NO way of killing the service either, it just hangs.

Trying to find where to remove the timer? sorry mate, not on the web interface.

About the main program DVBViewer Pro, way too many options confusing users, took me like at least a week or so to mostly “understand” them instead of using them, not talking about the confusing multilingual fan made not-up-to-date “documentation” reading, painful messy support forum searching, you will need that, since patches, workarounds, support are just ALL OVER the place, reading them is not a happy job I tell you.

Honest it took me a while to consider pay for it at the first point since they do not provide any Free/Trial/Demo, and I learned my lesson, NEVER pay for software that do not provide a FULL function trial..

A bit of experience in the painful crashes, which if you are having same problem as I had, try them out.
– When it crashes, hangs, and no luck in any-means, try kill the capture device by unplugging it, I mean physically, sometimes it helps, or else, sorry, reboot it is.
– If you were attracted by their so very rich function, think twice or at least physically see it in works before paying for it, see prove of concept is NOT a production solution.
– Once you are done setup with it and get all you need? DO NOT even try to change any settings, you cannot get them working anymore, no matter you set them back to what it used to be.