Nero Liquid TV

Other products by Nero Inc.

Product Features

• Enjoy the unique and easy-to-use TiVo interface; all the great TiVo features like Season Pass and WishList included
• Watch and record shows in HD and Standard formats on your TV or on your PC
• Export your favorite programs to portable media players; burn shows to DVD or save them to your hard drive
• Schedule TV recordings online (US and Canada only); Pause Live TV on your PC
• Includes a 12-month subscription to the TiVo service

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 10.7 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Note: Gift-wrapping is not available for this item.
• ASIN: B001EM5XVO
• Item model number: 8027586
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 20, 2008
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,492 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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Product Description

Amazon.com
No other digital video recorder (DVR) offers the unique ease-of-use, personalized features, and flexibility of Nero LiquidTV. That's because at the core of Nero LiquidTV is the Emmy award-winning TiVo service, which is always working to automatically find and digitally record the entertainment you want to watch, and to suggest related programming you might like to see.

No other digital video recorder (DVR) offers the unique ease-of-use, personalized features, and flexibility of Nero LiquidTV. Click to enlarge.

TV on your PC made easy

Ease of Use
Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC is a next generation DVR application for your PC built around the award-winning TiVo service. It makes it simple to record your favorite TV shows and then watch them wherever and whenever you want whether on a PC, TV, iPod, PSP, or DVD player. Record and pause live TV, plus rewind, slow motion, and instant replay. The user-friendly TiVo interface makes it easy for anyone to enjoy the ultimate DVR experience.

Freedom of Enjoyment
With your busy schedule, it's tough to schedule your life around TV program schedule. Why not have enjoy TV fit to your schedule. With Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC, it's easy for you to enjoy your favorite TV shows on your time. Record your sports, soaps and sitcoms, and even the whole season, then watch them when it's convenient for you. Travelling or always on-the-go? Take your shows with you on your iPod, PSP, or other portable device and enjoy them anytime, anywhere.

TV at Your Control
Ever miss an episode of your favorite show, only having to wait for reruns to catch up? With Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC you're in control of your TV enjoyment! Never miss your favorite TV series again Ð with the Season Pass recording the whole season of selected shows are automatically recorded. With WishList search, you can search for programs by title, actor, director, keyword, and star rating. You can even burn shows to DVD and watch on DVD players when you have time.

Online Scheduling
Forgot to set the recording for your favorite program? Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC makes it easy for you to browse TV listings and schedule recordings with Online Scheduling features. Now you can schedule recordings from anywhere you have access to the Internet.

Safe for the Whole Family
Concerned about what your kids may see on TV? When you enable KidZone and Parental Control available with Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC, you select only the programs and channels that you want your children to access and watch. YouÔll never have to worry again about what your kids are watching!

At the core of Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC is the Emmy award-winning TiVo service, which is always working to automatically find and digitally record the entertainment you want to watch, and to suggest related programming you might like to see. Click to enlarge.

Just grab the remote control and the award-winning TiVo service will walk you through the process every step of the way. Click to enlarge.

Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC does everything a set-top-box DVR does, as well as everything else you wish it would do. Click to enlarge.

Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC makes it simple to export TV shows to an iPod, PSP, or other mobile devices to enjoy them any time you want, wherever you go. Click to enlarge.

TV for the way you live

The Ultimate TiVo DVR experience
No other digital video recorder (DVR) offers the unique ease-of-use, personalized features, and flexibility of Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC. That's because at the core of Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC is the Emmy award-winning TiVo service, which is always working to automatically find and digitally record the entertainment you want to watch, and to suggest related programming you might like to see.

Simple to use
Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC takes all the guesswork out of using a DVR. Just grab the remote control and the award-winning TiVo service will walk you through the process every step of the way.

TiVo KidZone
TiVo KidZone gives you total control over what your kids see on TV. Personalize KidZone with only those shows and channels you pre-approve. Personal settings and a password of your choice ensure that your children only see what you want them to see, keeping TV as safe as possible

WishList Search
Create your own WishList search and Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC will automatically find programs to match it. While cable DVR offerings are generally limited to basic program title searches, the TiVo service lets you search for programs related to an actor, director, keyword, or topic of your choosing. To find shows about cooking, just enter a related word or two (e.g. Italian, chocolate) and the TiVo service will find and record all the programs related to that topic--like an advanced search engine for your television.

Season Pass recordings
Season Pass recordings ensure that you never miss a moment of your favorite shows. The TiVo service will automatically record every episode whenever it airs --even if the network schedule changes--right to your PC hard drive. Season Pass recordings will also skip repeat episodes so you never get bogged down in reruns.

Integrated EPG
Integrate EPG between multiple sources:

• on air
• cable
• satellite

Watch & Record Live TV

Timeshifting
No need to schedule your life around the airdates of your favorite TV shows. Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC puts you in charge of when and where you watch TV.

Watch in HD and standard quality
Watch in HD and standard qualityNero LiquidTV | TiVo PC lets you watch and record your shows in High Definition for the ultimate in image quality and sound.

Watch and pause live TV on your PC
Need to answer the door in the middle of your favorite live program? No problem. Just press Pause and come back to it when you're ready.

Connect to a TV
Connect to a TVConnect your computer to your TV set and enjoy your content on the largest screen in the house.

Supports four tuners
Record two shows at once with support for up to 4 analog, satellite, and cable (ATSC and NTSC) tuners. Only supports one set-top-box among them.

Home Movie Sharing
Home Movie SharingGet your home videos out of your PC and into the living room where everyone can watch. Or export them to an iPod or PSP with ease and show them off wherever you go. Supported formats: .tivo, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (H.263 + H.264), AVI, WMV.

TV at Home or On-the-go

Online scheduling
Did you forget to set Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC to record a show? You can schedule recordings from the office, on the road, or anywhere you have access to the Internet (US and Canada only.) You'll never miss a movie or program again.

Record shows directly to the hard drive
Your recording time is only limited by the size of your hard drive. If you need more space, simply add another external hard drive to your PC

The TiVo DVR experience is now on your PC
Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC does everything a set-top-box DVR does, as well as everything else you wish it would do. Now you can transfer shows between computers throughout your home network. Or export them to your iPod, PSP, or other mobile devices or you can burn to a DVD and enjoy them on the go.

Export shows to portable media players
Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC makes it simple to export TV shows to an iPod, PSP, or other mobile devices to enjoy them any time you want, wherever you go.

Burn to DVD
Build an archive of your favorite TV shows by burning them to DVD. This also frees up more space on your hard drive for additional content. When you want to watch the shows again, just place the DVD into any DVD player and press Play.

Required Hardware

TV Tuner Card

• Watch standard definition as well as High Definition ATSC digital TV or analog cable TV on your PC or laptop screen! ATSC HD is the over-the-air High Definition TV standard for North America
• Digital ATSC over-the-air TV tuner built-in. A portable digital TV antenna is included, and can be used to receive digital TV up to 10 miles from an ATSC transmitter.
• Or watch digital cable or satellite TV on your PC if you have a set-top box; a cable pack is included (S-Video cable required)
• Simply plug into your USB 2.0 port

Optional Hardware

TiVo PC Remote and IR Blaster (Transceiver)

• The ultimate ergonomic remote control for your TiVo experience
• Programmable to control power, input, volume, and mute on your TV and A/V receiver using built-in database of commands
• Special keys enable additional features in your Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC such as TiVo Suggestions
• TiVo PC Remote is optimized for PC usage
• Bundled with an IR Blaster and emitter cable
• Easy control of your satellite and cable boxes

Product Description
No other digital video recorder (DVR) offers the unique ease-of-use, personalized features, and flexibility of Nero LiquidTV. That¿s because at the core of Nero LiquidTV is the Emmy award-winning TiVo service, which is always working to automatically find and digitally record the entertainment you want to watch, and to suggest related programming you might like to see.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This Software Is Made of Fail And Broken, November 29, 2008

By	J. Pruitt "FTW" (DJ booth) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

EDIT: 9-JAN-2009 - I just got Verizon FIOS and a new cable box. Since the cable box is newer than the software, the software can't change the channel and is thus unable to record shows, so it is now a useless brick.

EDIT: 16-MAR-2009 - After waiting over two months for Nero to reply to my tech support email I decided to try again to fix the problem myself. I discovered after installing from the CD that it was upgrading to the new version as recommended by Nero that broke the software's ability to change channels on the cable box. This means that I can never upgrade the software to resolve such tasty issues as these problems covered in the release notes for the new version:

"Resolved error that deleted all recorded shows"

and

"Fixed system shut down when attempting to delete a show from Now Playing"

and

"Resolved Service Expired: Stuck on incorrect service message - Blocks access to application"

Furthermore, there's no way to delete a Season Pass, so once you've created it, you're stuck with it forever, even if the show is no longer on the air.

Yes, these are all critical failures that I can never have the fix for because upgrading the software makes it useless.

This software is utter garbage and Nero's technical support team is loaded with fail and useless.

I could call them on the phone if I wanted to pay $2 a minute to fix problems that are not my fault.

---

EDIT 19-MAR-2009:
Dear Josh,

thank you for your e-mail.

We were able to reproduce the problem in the meantime.
We are working full speed at a solution to this problem and will implement this in the next update of Nero LiquidTV.

Nero LiquidTV update page:
[..]

Sadly we have no means of offering a patch or a workaround to solve the problem in the meantime.
We apologise for the inconvenience.

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Best Regards

Sven Bolz
Nero Support
---

EDIT 21-MAR-2009

In their latest email response Nero's support team indicated that they do not have any intentions in the near future of releasing a product update to resolve the channel changing problem.

Given that the last update has been on the website for over six months and has not been pulled even though installing it completely breaks the software, I'm not looking forward to an update anytime soon.

Unfortunately because this product is sold as "software" it can't be returned to the store if it's been opened, so I have a $200 product that I can do nothing productive with other than throwing it in the trash.

EDIT: 29-MAR-2009
The problem with the IR blaster was fixed with a new release of the software. However, now none of the shows on TV match the guide, so I can't record any shows: Any show I schedule for recording is recorded at the wrong time. Also, all of the Guide data is wrong and the channel banner shows show info for a show that is not on at that time. Nero tried to fix the problem by pushing a lineup change but then the channel banner displayed NO INFO AVAILABLE on every channel.

EDIT: 07-ARP-2009
After 34 emails and over six months of waiting, I was given a Beta version of the Liquid TV software that displays the correct Guide data and records shows at the right times.

This resolves all of the issues I have been experiencing with the service. However, I discovered Tivo service cannot be transferred to LiquidTV so you have to cancel your Tivo account, which may result in an "early termination" fee. I also discovered that when I signed up for LiquidTV, the Tivo account was not automatically terminated so I was being billed for service I was no longer using.

I called Tivo to resolve the issue but the CS agent I spoke with refused to resolve the issue (cancel the account with no early termination fee and refund the double billed service). I had to request a supervisor and wait on hold for ten minutes. Then I had to explain the situation again to him, after which he resolved the issue.

The only remaining problem with the software is that the Tivo remote only works when the Liquid TV software has focus, so if you're browsing the web and you have the Liquid TV software going, you have to switch away from your web browser to the Liquid TV window before you can control the Liquid TV software with the remote.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid this product for some time!, January 12, 2009

By	Michael Rodoff "Mike from Chelsea" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am very strongly proficient in PC's and DVR's. I also work with digital media professionally and am a Tivo fanatic. This is one of the most disappointing products I have dealt with. It is extremely unreliable: the IR blaster barely works, upgrading the out-of-the-box sw destroys IR blaster function, the software consumes tremendous amounts of CPU. The software does not record when it is set to.

In short, the most important thing you need from a DVR is dependability. I would wait for a few more software upgrades before considering this option.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent product but needs improvements, November 6, 2008

By	J. Yuen (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I installed it on my primary PC in my computer room with the following spec. Asus P5B deluxe mobo, Q9550, 4GB DDR2-800, nVidia GTX 260. Recording on a Seagate 7200.10 500GB SATA2 HD and watching on a Dell 2709W.

Setup. Fairly straight forward. Insert CD, Plug in USB tuner, decline window driver search and click tuner driver on the CD. Once that is done. Install the Liquid TV software and you are almost ready to go.

Launch the application and you are greeted with a first time setup menu much like any other Tivo product. Setup the remote, enter zip code, your Tivo subscription code, select the tuner you want to use and go thru channel scan and you are good to go. (I'm using the same OTA antenna that I use for my HD Tivo)

Operations. The Tivo remote work pretty good and make it seems like operating any other Tivo product. Live broadcast look decent but not as good as the HD Tivo or the built-in tuner on my Sharp 46" LCD. I would say it's better than DVD but nowhere near that of the other units. I have a 1.2GB 720p mkv file for the Terminator Sarah Conner Chronicles season opener that have more picture detail but maybe slightly less frame rate.

I did a recording of the 10PM Law and Order and the result is about the same compared to watching live. I check the recording file and the 1 hour show took up slightly over 6GB. that is pretty close to what a standalone unit will take. With that much data, the picture should be very close to that of a SA unit but it's not.

I also have some minor tearing on full screen live and playback. That issue seems to be software related as the recorded file plays just fine using media player. Hopefully this will improve with future updates.

The only thing that I think could cause the lower quality is the USB tuner. I have the older ATI HD tuner card in the same PC although I have not used it since I went to a nVidia video card. I can see if it still works and if it gives a better picture. (it's been a while but I think I have seen better picture from the ATI when I had it running). Maybe some of you with a better PCI tuner card can give the trail version a try and see.

I also tried multitasking with it running in a window box. At one time, I have Eve Online (MMO game), Googletalk, Firefox and a download ongoing at the same time. There were some minor pauses and out of sync when I'm switching between apps and such but it's ok in general. I did have one CTD while setting up a season pass though. I have not have a chance to watch the complete 1 hour recording so I don't know if the pause and out of sync was carried over to the recorded file.

In conclusion. I'm a bit disappointed as the picture quality is nowhere near that of a SA HD Tivo box or the built-in tuner on a HDTV. However, The Tivo software and remote make operation just like a SA Tivo which is so much better than any other HTPC solution I have tried. I'll probably keep it as it's relatively cheap and hopefully the software will improve over time. I'll even be willing to invest in an better PCI tuner card if it turns out that they can improve the picture quality.