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If you could tie it into some kind of distribution system for your house, throw in Tivo's ability to predict what your family likes, you have a very cool system. Every member of your family could be watching a different program at one time.

You can do this now. With GPL'd software, no less. Check out MythTV. As long as you get well supported hardware and are willing to spend some time configuring, you can use multiple backends recording multiple shows at once and have multiple frontends playing the content anywhere on your LAN.

Go build a Myth TV device and stick as many PVR cards in as it can handle. If you're missing any features, crack your nuckles, break out the keyboard and get coding....

And here I thought that the authors were going out of their way to show that they're about fair use, not copyright infringement (even going so far as to NOT remove the purchaser's information from the files, just the DRM). I mean, what good is it if I want to buy a song from the iTMS, but then (since I don't really use Windows or MacOS) want to share that song out via MythMusic, or listen to it in RhythmBox.

Its like the do-it-yourself TiVo's that aren't really anywhere near as convenient or feature rich as the real deal.

Sorry, I was 100% with you until I saw this line that almost blew me off my chair.

I built my own PVR and it runs MythTV, and it lietrally blows TiVo out of the water.

Does TiVo have a web interface where I can adjust scheduled recordings anywhere, anytime? Can I watch the recorded programs on any computer in the house ( or TV with a MythFrontEnd box ) ? Can I transcode the recordings to DivX for storage on DVD? Can it play DivX and MPEG videos and fetch information on them from IMDB automatically? Can you edit recorded shows in real time.. can you play SNES, PSX, etc. video games on it, can it be an MP3 jokebox, can you browse your photo collection, can you surf the web on it with a remote control... ?

I can do all this with MyTh, out of the box. And a bozo could install it, you just boot off the KnoppMyth CD and go.

the CNN article mentions SnapStream software for $60...

What about MythTV?? for free!

Plus, Mandrake is fast.

Using similar configurations, Mandrake has been consistently >10% faster than Redhat (and now Fedora) on all systems I have installed it on.

While Fedora might take 2 seconds to load the KDE menu, Mandrake opens it instantly. This is running the same kernel version and similar kernel configs.

I've been using Mandrake on and off since the 5.x releases, when it's main feature was the much-hyped Pentium optimizations, and it has consistently been one of the most responsive distros around.

Once every six months or so, I get annoyed with one buggy program or another (I steer clear of the bug-ridden drak tools), or want to try something different, and go back to Fedora, Debian or Slackware, but none of them are as fast as Mandrake.

I use MythTV for recording TV shows, and only Gentoo results in lower CPU utilization when recording, and even then, the difference is small when compared to the difference betwen Mandrake and Fedora.

So, I think that Mandrake has received an unjust reputation as a "newbie-only" distro. Over the years, I have tried every other major distro, and only Gentoo matches Mandrake's responsiveness. I don't know what the guys at Mandrake do to make their distro so fast, but whatever it is, I'm happy with it.

I am wondering why anyone would want to do this aside from the pure hacking coolness that this is.

I thought the X-boxes were sold at a loss, and that is in relation to the fact that MS already gets the hardware cheaper than we can due to their immense purchasing power. Can you really build a comparable box for $150 or even close to that? Seems to me that is better to take an x-box and mod it to a fully functioning computer (like linux) rather than take a fully functioning computer and mod it to an x-box at more $$.

In fact, I was even thinking of picking up an x-box, not to play games, but to use as a frontend for a mythbox as there is no way I could build one for anywhere close to $150, particulary with that form factor. I don't even play games, as my ability to do so ended after pitfall for atari 2600.

I finally put my mod chip to good use with GentooX and mythTV on my xbox. It acts as a great front end. And yes, there is an easier mythtv only xbox-linux distro here

That the creator of Myth TV is currently out of work, I would like to see some type of money go to him from this.

My wife and I use it every day, but I haven't had to do ANY sort of admin work or changes since I got it up and running. It's really easy to use.

Also, ditto on the parent post. We watch many more programs now, but in A LOT less time. It's great.

I understand that MythTV is being demonstrated at CeBIT by Axel Thimm (the AT-RPMS guy). Good to see these projects getting some publicity.

The CoolerMaster ATX-620 fits nicely in my audio rack. Relatively quiet, one discrete blue LED indicator, black brushed aluminum.

The breakdown:

• CoolerMaster ATX-620 $139 US
• Biostar M7V1G motherboard $69
• Athlon XP 2100 $69
• 1GB RAM $140
• PVR-250 capture card $139
• nVidia MX440 $69
• NIC $15 (no luck with the onload Rhine VT6102)
• CD/DVD driver $29

You know I am pretty sure creating such a beast shouldn't be a problem. Watch.

Step 1: Get yourself a small form factor PC, like the ThinkGeek Cappucino or The Open Brick or build your own cool looking mini PC.

Step 2: Get yourself a USB DVD drive (brownie points for DVD burners)

Step 3: Get a USB TV Card that runs under Linux (Note: I did a quick google, but I'd bet money you could find one that worked much better. And that page was talking about spotty TV signals in 2002. I bet it's gotten better)

Step 4: Download a copy of MythTV

Bingo! You've now got a PVR which will either look nice in your stereo cabinet (like that ThinkGeek case), or which you can keep hidden, save for the external DVD drive (and since every DVD player has a DVD drive in it, you're not going to find anything with a much smaller footprint). And, it shouldn't be too hard to hide the OpenBrick. And all for under $1500.

I use an HDTV tuner card for off-the-air HDTV, and a Hauppauge 350 card (in the same computer) for cable/analog TV.

It is a little tricky getting the drivers to live together, but I found a handy howto on getting it done (sorry, I don't have the link handy, but check out the mythtv forums, pcHDTV forums, and ivtv driver lists for details.

Far easier, if you have more than one computer, is to have your HDTV tuner card in one and your hauppauge card in a second. Mythtv allows you to use one seamless interface for multiple backend recorders, giving you the best of all possible worlds with a lot less manual hacking than is required if you try to combine all of the hardware into one box (this was ultimately my preferred solution, though you CAN make the hardware all work together with a little blood and sweat).

It is a bit of work getting all of this working seamlessly, but having control of your own hardware (rather than giving such control to the MPAA or another third party) makes it well worth the time.

I haven't used a tivo so I can't compare, but at home I've got a mythtv box, and I think it does a considerably better job than the SA.

I have not tried it myself, but you should be able to use the pcHDTV card. It's an HDTV card designed specifically for linux. It won't solve the cable-box problem, but it does support the OTA broadcasts.

It has been supported to some degree in MythTV since October (v0.12), and with continued updates since then (v0.13, v0.14).

I have not tried it myself, but you should be able to use the pcHDTV card. It's an HDTV card designed specifically for linux. It won't solve the cable-box problem, but it does support the OTA broadcasts.

It has been supported to some degree in MythTV since October (v0.12), and with continued updates since then (v0.13, v0.14).

I have not tried it myself, but you should be able to use the pcHDTV card. It's an HDTV card designed specifically for linux. It won't solve the cable-box problem, but it does support the OTA broadcasts.

It has been supported to some degree in MythTV since October (v0.12), and with continued updates since then (v0.13, v0.14).

It seems you could do some minor changes to MythTV to accomplish this. It does everything else under the sun.

myHTPC (runs on windows)
MythTV (runs on linux)

Both are free.

I would start with MythTV. They have a section on working with DVDs for their PVR software.

I would start with MythTV. They have a section on working with DVDs for their PVR software.

The client, though, is a tougher nut to crack. If you only want to stream MP3s, then a product like the Audiotron would be excellent; you don't have to worry about finding a good Linux-compatible character-LCD based control system (which you probably would want to use, in this case), and then programming it. The Audiotron-type products are probably best in an audio-only environment, although you could probably get by with a second PC, especially if you can stand to have a small keyboard, mouse and monitor in your rec room. Wireless might be a problem, but I'd imagine anything that doesn't natively grok 802.11x would work with an AP on the other end of a short network cable.

I would advise you to take your thinking beyond just MP3s, though. If you were to get a Shuttle or similar small form factor PC and put a TV card, Linux and MythTV on it, you would have an excellent PVR system that would also play MP3s and even act as a frontend to emulators like MAME and ZSNES. Even if you don't want a PVR (already have Tivo, don't watch TV, whatever), you can still use the other functions. Also, most of the small form factor PCs I've seen are designed to be small, quiet and non-intrusive - it probably wouldn't be much worse than a system like the Audiotron, from an annoyance standpoint. If I were in your shoes, I'd seriously consider taking the money I was going to spend on an Audiotron or similar product and putting it towards one of these babies.

mythtv.org

[rattles tin cup containing a few pieces of karma] ..actually who cares about karma

love, AC

Hmm, MythTV anyone? It's been working great for me for months now. And no monthly fees!

I want my
I want my
I want my MythTV

The problem with ready-made solutions like TiVO is the lack of privacy and the lack of control. I don't want someone out there knowing what I watch, or being able to arbitrarily change the software running in my entertainment system.

I'm building a MythTV-based box to do PVR, watch DVDs, etc. Yes, it winds up being more expensive than running out and buying a commercial PVR. But it offers the same capabilities without giving up control.

(By "I am building" I mean that I have all of the software and supporting hardware installed on my desktop PC, and once I've gotten everything tweaked to my satisfaction I'll get a mini-ITX box and "deploy" it).

• AMD Athlon XP 1800
• Some micro-ATX MSI motherboard (I forget the exact model)
• 256 megs of RAM
• Yuan MPG600 tuner/capture card
• GeForce 4 MX440 (for TV out)
• Western Digital 160 Gig hard drive
• Antect Minuet micro-ATX case (it's a beautiful case and fits in perfectly in anyone's home theater)
• Extra case fan and anything else I can't think of off the top of my head

So what if you already have a home server PC? This was my situation when I started to consider a tivo box. I thought it silly to have essentially two equivilant computers systems up 24/7. So I added the PVR function and TV video out to the PC.

Asthetics are not an issue as the PC sits in a closet. I pass remote control commands to it via a IR->RF->IR remote extender. The system is *almost* headless except for the TV. I run a long s-video cable from the PC to the TV for display and run MythTV for the PVR function. All up, the cost of adding PVR capability to the system was about $200 -- which included a cheap tuner/capture card and a 180 GB disk. Myth gives me free schedule updates and a very cool web based interface for programming the recordings. Even my wife is happy!

To do this from scratch is tougher. A budget for the system would be upwards of $800 or even $1000 to get a reasonable machine. Off the shelf may be better unless you already have a server. Take a gander at Here for pix of my *unfinished* HTPC.

MythTV

Find me a third party DVR that does all that!

Finally, I settled on buying a computer to do all of this. I had quite a few of the parts I needed; the only thing I was missing was an OTA tuner card, the DVD software, and the sound card. I already had decided on Windows XP (which I will explain below), so I was set.

The DVD software I went with was called TheaterTek and the benefits it had over a standard player are numerous:

• Ability to resize any move to any resolution including 1080i
• Ability to expand the movie to get rid of the black bars around the edge (i.e. anamorphic widescreen)
• Ability to save these changes for each individual movie
• Using Windows to further enhance the output using various filters (i.e. fdshow filters)

The other problem was getting the actual HD content from the main networks. Locally in Omaha, NE ABC, CBS, and NBC have been broadcasting in HD for a while, so an OTA tuner was the way to go. A stand alone box was going for $600 locally, and I had found a card that does it for $200, the MyHD OTA Tuner Card. The picture quality is incredible and the performance was great on my 850 Duron. It gave me everything the set top box would have done and also Tivo like functionality out of the box, something that still isn't available for HD yet.

As I mentioned before, I went with Windows XP as everything mentioned above is only available for that platform. Also, due to the mature video drivers on Win32 vs. Linux for the ATI card I went with, I was able to tweak more aspects of the output to the HD monitor through a program called Powerstrip. I tried DVD playback on Linux (mplayer), but it had no where near the functionality of the Theatertek software. Also, I did look into the pcHDTV card available, but it isn't nearly has mature as it should be for a commercial HD tuner card (the only user fiendly app I have found, MythTV, has very limited integration with the pcHDTV card. That is changing quickly, though).

All in all, I highly recommend making a HTPC if you have the time. Plus, you don't need that Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition crap to make it work, just plain old XP will do you fine.

Maybe it wouldn't make as much sense if you are truely building from scratch, but this is slashdot. How many peeps here don't have a basement/closet full of spare parts. If you have a box sitting around, it's much cheaper than say a replayTV or MCE Windoze box. Part of building your own is the fun. Aside from that, you can cusomize your own box a lot more than a tivo or replaytv. Mame anyone? Check out MythTV for a cool OSS project or MyHtpc.net for a really cool, community driven front-end. For an all around informative site about hardware, and mostly windows frontend software, check out ruel.net It's more tweaking and screwing around, but more adaptable too.

and don't care about much of Tivo's functionality

What does Tivo do that, say Mythtv doesn't? And don't say Season's Pass. That's trivial to implement once you have a database of guide data, and has been done by every PVR software package that I've seen.

You're right about cost, though.

For the channels that my (live-in) girlfriend and I would want (Independent Film channel, Discovery, Bravo, Cartoon Network, etc...) the necessary package with Comcast was almost $60/month, when getting the same channels with DirectTV wound up being in their $32/month package.

After some thought we decided that if we had either, we would watch much more TV than we really want to, so I went to Radio Shack and bought a good outdoor antenna and some cable (total cost $80). Now we get all the local channels (including MTV 2) with perfect reception.

With the money I saved on the monthy fees, I built a MythTV box so we can have a variety of things to watch (without commercials) whenever we do want to watch TV.

Why not use MythTV? As far as I can tell ForceWare doesnt have any features myth doesnt have... (and MythTV has a few ForceWare doesnt appear to have).

Basically, shitty hardware in, shitty results out. We have an eMachines at home that suits most needs but will tank when bittorrent exceeds a certain number of active connections. Result is a blue screen. All I can really do is tell bittorrent to be conservative, which naturally impedes performance.

If the hardware is bad, most operating systems don't let programs know it. The role of an operating system is to present a uniform interface and manage multiple processes. That's where hardware fixes must rely if its even possible to write a software fix. Some problems, like fault-prone RAM, are nearly impossible to handle, even in the all knowing kernelspace. I wonder how much of "windows instability" was indirectly related to PC vendors skimping on commodity parts.

Building a PC from scratch isn't easy to do right. A strong analogy for building a PC is building a motor vehicle from parts. You can pick out a nice frame and body from a junkyard, but the real important part is what's inside and how well it all works together. Customizing the system to a specific use does require some insight, which the author had some of by way of guide, but was missing on-site expertise. The mythTV guide on prerequisites has a somewhat detailed discussion on the topic. If you want to build a customized system as a project, do so. But if what you really want is a customized system done by somebody else, it will cost you, both in price and flexibility. Duh.

Other posters have said you can do that, but don't believe them, believe the MythTV offical feature list.

Here you go. If that link doesn't take you to the proper anchor in the page, it's about 3/4s of the way down, section 8.7, "Configuring lirc for use with an IR blaster".

I also run MythTV on my PVR... It is an Asus Pundit with 2 ATi TV-Wonder cards. I can be recording two different TV programs and watching a pre-recorded program all at the same time. Plus, I can run MythTV on my workstation in my office and watch TV as if my workstation had a TV adapter, all over the network. Same goes for the TV recordings. Excellent software, always getting better.

If you are comfortable mucking around Linux, then MythTV is definitely the way to go.

Excuse me, but I don't think MythTV is that hard to get working. Try harder next time. Maybe you didn't *click* hard0enough.

After looking around at alternatives to Tivo, I settled on MythTV [MythTV.org]. Lots of plugins (DVD, Video, etc) and surprisingly stable.
I run an Epia Nehemiah 1Ghz w/512 MB RAM with a Hauppauge PVR 350. The web front end makes all my Tivo using coworkers drool. Yes, it was a pain in the rear to get everything working, but in the end, I gained some knowledge and have one neat little system.

MythTV?

I nominate Asterisk and MythTV

Mythtv does this.

With programs like MythTV it looks like the linux community will be forever beating Microsoft to the punch as far as hardware usability goes.

When there are lots of free alternatives out there which use Linux and bring you all the features of your PC such as DVD burners and internet access and RAID arrays of 120GB HDs for plenty of recording. (Damn Discovery Science Channel and History International and...)

I personally feel TiVO is a dead company as it's idea was great but can be offered with nearly as many options and more if you are Code/Script inclined. So look for cheap 400Mhz system to start on and enjoy personalized TV in most countries.

Translation for the Technically Challenged(MBA): Liquidate TIVO from your portfolio.

How about combining IPchains, MythTV and/or Freevo with MisterHouse and some X10 equipment on a commodity $300 1.5-2 Ghz machine?

I built a MythTV system (using a hacked XBox as a frontend!) with a USB webcam for videoconferencing on my TV for less than $2000. It can do everything the Pluto adverises except home automation, but some X10 devices would take care of that.

This is a perfect toy for the busy executive who loves using the latest technology but doesn't understand it -- not for us able Linux lovers on slashdot!

Try out KnoppMyth which is a Knoppix bootable CD customized to do just MythTV

MythTV also has this feature built in.

I cannot emphasize just how cool this project is - it has all the features you'd expect from a modern DVR, and many more besides. It's open-source and immensely configurable. For example:

I also decided I'd like to be able to transfer recorded programs to my machine at work and watch them there, so I hacked up a little script to re-encode them at 100kbps, and added a "Watch Now" link to the MythWeb HTML web interface.

The other day my wife was complaining that the fonts on the screen were too small, so I tweaked the XML configuration file to bump them up a bit.

Thanks to LIRC, I can pretty much use any remote I like to control the box. I'm using an ancient, spare TV remote right now, and I can map the buttons whichever way I like.

It'll also optionally rip DVDs and CDs, enabling you to play them from the hard drive. It will also play pretty much any video file you have (through MPlayer). If I want to show the wife a movie trailer that I've downloaded from the internet, I just copy it over to the MythTV box, and she can watch it on the television.

Let's see you do all *that* with a Tivo!