TVButler Touted as ‘All-in-One’ Solution for Converting NAS Into DVR

DVBLogic, one of the many small companies in Eindhoven, Netherlands, that grew out of Philips’ restructuring away from consumer electronics, thinks many people who now use a network attached storage (NAS) device to store all their data and entertainment at home and share it between multiple PCs and players would welcome the chance to record off-air TV direct to the same NAS. The company’s TVButler innovation, under development since 2008 and due for launch next week in countries that use the European DVB DTV system, does the trick, DVBLogic executives say. Pavlo Barvinko, DVBLogic’s founder and chief technology officer, gave us a preview in London Tuesday using a Wi-Fi laptop to access live and recorded HDTV content from his home in Holland. Barvinko, originally from Kiev, Ukraine, worked on hard disc DVRs at the Philips Advanced Products Lab, later with the Philips spin-off Civolution, the company behind the watermark/fingerprint system used to control Oscar screener piracy and by Sony for its TrackID music identification. TVButler is a hardware-software bundle. A small TV tuner dongle connects to a TV antenna and plugs into a USB socket on a NAS hard disc storage device. Proprietary server software, bought with the dongle, is installed on the NAS to turn it into a DVR. The NAS then networks live or recorded TV around the home or around the world. The dongle, and the server software license needed to activate it, costs 100 euros ($110). The software supports up to three more dongles at 60 euros ($66) each with the same NAS for multi-channel recording. Mobile client apps, allowing remote viewing, are free, as is basic 14-day electronic program guide software. For an annual fee of 25 euros ($28), the viewer can add an enhanced EPG, called TVAdviser, which builds a profile of content likes and dislikes. Barvinko acknowledged that open-source software already exists that enthusiasts can use to convert a NAS to a DVR. “But this is the first all-in-one solution, with all the hardware and software that’s needed in one box,” he said. “We are not aiming it at casual TV viewers. But you don’t have to be a geek. If you can set up a NAS, you can add TVButler to it. And you can then view home TV from anywhere in the world, including the USA.”