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It's actually cheaper than DDR or SDRAM.

Even 200-pin DDR2 SODIMMs are reasonably priced.

Oops, copied the wrong link, that was an even cheaper off-brand.

  here's the kingston.

512megs of DDR2 is over $200?

huh?

I think you put an extra zero on that price. You can get 512MB of Kingston DDR2 533 RAM for $27.85 on Newegg...

Limitations are that these networks have som powerline quirks, you should have both adapters on the same cirquit, and still the speed is pretty slow compared to 1Gb cat5, but if you are so into speed, the extra work needed to strecth that cable isn't complainable.

It's just another way to keep the wireless less crowded, and still get away with fewer cables.

I know they're big and bulkey, but I dig my USB hard drive enclosure. Works with any IDE hard drive, and my 80 gig Seagate Barracuda gets over 25 MB/s transfer rates. This is my little baby:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16817146052

Cheap, fast, and as much storage as I want to put in it.

If you want a small USB drive (size of 2 pennies next to each other) that holds up to 1 GB, and comes with a credit card holder that can fit 2 memory sticks in your wallet, then check out the intelligent stick by PQI. You can find it on newegg here. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16820214009. I swear by this thing, it is so convienent to fit in your wallet with the credit card sized holder that it comes with. I have had mine for almost a year now and I absolutely love it. Like you said, these thumb drives could be a lot smaller then the're being made to be. PQI seems to be the only company that makes them this small. You can find a review here complete with specs. http://www.extrememhz.com/Intellistick20-p1.shtml (I'm probably gonna get modded down for being offtopic, but I figured since we're talking about thumb drives, I might as well mention it. Cheers.

I think most of these will do what you want (all the same company... hope I'm not sounding like a fanboy)

JetAudio iAudio5 1G(AAA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 1G(AA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 2G(AA Betteries)

All made by Cowon From the site about the iAudio5:
Playback:
MPEG 1/2/2.5 layer 3 (8Kbps ~ 320Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz) and VBR
All ranges of WMA7 WMA (20Kbps ~ 192Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz)
WMA9 CBR(5Kbps Mono ~ 320Kbps Stereo)
VBR(48Kbps ~ 256Kbps)
* WMA9 Pro, Lossless and Voice Codec not supported.
OGG (Currently support up to Q10)
WAV (Up to 48Khz Stereo)

I think most of these will do what you want (all the same company... hope I'm not sounding like a fanboy)

JetAudio iAudio5 1G(AAA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 1G(AA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 2G(AA Betteries)

All made by Cowon From the site about the iAudio5:
Playback:
MPEG 1/2/2.5 layer 3 (8Kbps ~ 320Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz) and VBR
All ranges of WMA7 WMA (20Kbps ~ 192Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz)
WMA9 CBR(5Kbps Mono ~ 320Kbps Stereo)
VBR(48Kbps ~ 256Kbps)
* WMA9 Pro, Lossless and Voice Codec not supported.
OGG (Currently support up to Q10)
WAV (Up to 48Khz Stereo)

I think most of these will do what you want (all the same company... hope I'm not sounding like a fanboy)

JetAudio iAudio5 1G(AAA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 1G(AA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 2G(AA Betteries)

All made by Cowon From the site about the iAudio5:
Playback:
MPEG 1/2/2.5 layer 3 (8Kbps ~ 320Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz) and VBR
All ranges of WMA7 WMA (20Kbps ~ 192Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz)
WMA9 CBR(5Kbps Mono ~ 320Kbps Stereo)
VBR(48Kbps ~ 256Kbps)
* WMA9 Pro, Lossless and Voice Codec not supported.
OGG (Currently support up to Q10)
WAV (Up to 48Khz Stereo)

I use a Cowon iAudio 5 with 1 gig flash memory to play back my ogg vorbis files. They also have 2 gig models. (as well a hard drive models)

Its simple:

1.)Buy from sites like www.audiolunchbox.com, or www.allofmp3.com.

2) If thats not possible, make use of DVD Jon's pymusic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PyMusique

3) Buy an audio player, that plays all of the good formats such as ogg, flac or musepack:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Subm it=GO&Range=1&bop=and&description=Jetaudio&InnerCa ta=23 [JetAudio]

http://www.neurosaudio.com/

Both of these brands produce players far superior (IMHO) than any ipod or creative player, and both manufacturers support Open Source Ideals, and work on Operating Systems other than Microsoft windows.

4) Enjoy your new music, knowing you're not being controlled by DRM.

How about just get a Pentium M motherboard? Newegg has one, it's a little pricey as $250, but that's not super unreasonable. Power usage for the slowest Pentium M that Newegg carries is 21W nominal. The biggest problem you are going to have is the HDD's. It seems no one makes 5400RPM desktop HDD's anymore. So spinup power requirements are 16-30W per drive! A RAID 5 array with 3 more expensive drives is obviously superior to the 4 smaller, cheaper drives I normally advocate.

It sounds like you are going to be doing the majority of your work on you laptops and what you are looking for is a large file server.

VIA has some great micro/nano-ITX boards with power saving in mind. Many of which can run with out a fan. Combine that with a few 120g notebook hard drives (Toshiba has a 120g 4200rpm drive for under $200 on http://newegg.com/

Last I heard Ubuntu was still the king of powersave mode in Linux. Most of the people I know who have set up fileshares have used Samba.

Get a 1000mbps ethernet card for it and hook it up the the router. The low hard drive speed and power save functionality will likely give you a bit of latency, but once it starts pulling sequencial data, it should be fine. There was a great article about low power solutions, I think I saw a link to it on http://mini-itx.com/ and they had some storage arrays running under 30watts IIRC)

And let me commend you for your excellent drive. Energy conservation is a great field for both professional and financial improvement. With new integrated home systems like Solar Shingles and improved energy efficiency designs we can greatly reduce the growth demand on grid power.

-Rick

I feel the same way as I have a P4 system with 2GB of PC3200 memory and have an AGP slot on my Asus mobo. I got an XFX GeForce 6600GT card w/256MB of memory and I couldn't be happier. I installed SuSE 9.3 and downloaded the nVIDIA accelerated drivers for it. I then downloaded Doom 3 demo for Linux. The demo ran great and so I downloaded the Linux version of Doom 3 and bought the Doom 3 Windows CD set and loaded the data files from the CDs to my Linux system. I have been enjoying some great Doom 3 game play with this video card.

Last time I checked the price for the video card I got at newegg.com it was $119.00.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82 E16814150086

At least for now it's possible to get a relatively inexpensive AGP video card but I'm worried that eventually I will have to get a mobo with PCI-E. For now I'm happy to be able to at least have a system and video card that lets me play Doom 3 under Linux.

Newegg has the GS for $209.

Newegg seem to have them for under forty bucks after shipping. Do I have to fiddle around with binary-only kernel modules for those cards, though? I don't care about super-duper 3D performance--I won't be playing Doom or Half-Life or whatever with this card--but I would like my windows not to skip when I drag them, and the option to make use of spiffy vector-based everything when it comes along would be a definite plus.

Even better, only $209 at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16814130258

Here ya go.

Moving to PCI E is definitely a pain... Lacking in an option in motherboard that had both AGP and PCI E, I bought a dead-end stop-gap, which is a 6600GT AGP card. I love it so far, but I knew I'd have to take the big gulp of getting a new mobo and a new card at once down the line. :(

But finally, at least nowadays we have options like this one with both kinds of interfaces on them, so I can buy the mobo now and the graphics card later.

I agree with your comment, but want to point out that in spite of the rest, his estimate for DVD burner was actually high. The Best Place in the World to buy components, NewEgg, has a nice NEC drive for $42.99 + $4 shipping.

The stats on it:
Cache: 2M
CD-R: 48X
CD-ROM Access Time: 140ms
CD-RW: 32X
DVD+R: 16X
DVD+R DL: 8X
DVD+RW: 8X
DVD-R: 16X
DVD-ROM Access Time: 160ms
DVD-RW: 6X
Model #: ND-3550A BK OEM

Newegg also has 160GB SATA drives for about $ 75. I don't work for them or anything, but I am a happy customer.

Nope. You can upgrade to 1GB for less than $100 USD
It's the best investment you can make in performance for a machine with that little RAM :)

Ha! Voodoo Banshee! My first gpu upgrade! Nice PCI card, didn't even have AGP at that time.

I never spend over $200 for a vid card, so I hear what you're saying. Got my last card in the $150 range.. a 5900NU w/ Call of Duty (game was selling retail at that time for $59.99, so the card was only about $100), and that lasted a good year. Just "upgraded" to an XFX 6800NU. It didn't come with any software at all (except drivers), but it was on weekend sale at Newegg for $160. If you're looking at a card under $150, I assume you're still AGP bound? (like me)

Newegg has an eVGA 6800NU for $159 after mail in rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16814130202

Or you can pick up an eVGA 6600GT for $144 after the rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16814130220

I'd go for the 6800NU, myself but definately stay away from the 6600 non-gt.

These aren't going to be spectacular cards, but they should run 'all last year's games at 800x600' just fine.

Ha! Voodoo Banshee! My first gpu upgrade! Nice PCI card, didn't even have AGP at that time.

I never spend over $200 for a vid card, so I hear what you're saying. Got my last card in the $150 range.. a 5900NU w/ Call of Duty (game was selling retail at that time for $59.99, so the card was only about $100), and that lasted a good year. Just "upgraded" to an XFX 6800NU. It didn't come with any software at all (except drivers), but it was on weekend sale at Newegg for $160. If you're looking at a card under $150, I assume you're still AGP bound? (like me)

Newegg has an eVGA 6800NU for $159 after mail in rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16814130202

Or you can pick up an eVGA 6600GT for $144 after the rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16814130220

I'd go for the 6800NU, myself but definately stay away from the 6600 non-gt.

These aren't going to be spectacular cards, but they should run 'all last year's games at 800x600' just fine.

When I posted this I made a bit of a mistake - you see an AGP video card will not go into a PCI-e slot on the motherboard. So either choose an AGP mother board (New Egg has several in the price range - I like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16813123242) or get a roughly $60 PCIe graphics card. A non TC 6200 if you can find one.

Oh, and I know they only cost $20 sans P/S but they also forgot a case. Idiots.

Yeah, but they obviously didn't look very hard when they were making this list.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82 E16811209002

Viola, and you still have your sub $500 gaming rig.

You want to use a portable 40GB device to store images? I'm not sure about this, but I think there are products out there like that that cost a little less than $300

I would agree that the functionality of viewing these images on the 2.5" iPod screen does not make me feel too cosy...

Wow, it's vapor? Sure must have been REALLY hard to make a cooling system for that then. Oh wait, what's this, they're selling it on newegg? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16814102610.

Wake up you mindless troll.

According to the product info on Newegg, the 3ms response time is grey to grey. It has a 6ms response time for white to black to white.

PVR-500MCE is $138 at Newegg... I have one in my Pundit-R. It works beautiflly with SageTV, BeyondTV, and GBPVR. Had to use a shoe horn to get it in the the box though, it is a large card.

Are you on a separate ISP that just happens to use them as an outsourced news provider?

Yep, Adelphia. Of course, I have to wonder how that will work now that they have ceased to exist, in a vague "still have service, for now" sense...


I couldn't live with 5GB.

Trust me, I find it rather difficult as well. Before I started throttling my connection, I had no trouble eating that the first week of each new month (actually the "month" starts the 12th, but...).


Now I just need to buy a storage shed to fit all the floppies I downloaded the stuff on.

The Lian Li PC3077A works beautifully as exactly such a storage "shed". A bit pricey for just a case, but you can't beat the quality engineering of a Lian Li, and where else can you get seven 5.25" bays that fits under a desk? (And if you wonder why you need seven 5.25" bays, you need them for one DVD burner plus two of these)

but nothing handheld, be it game machine, PDA, iPod or whatever, comes close to the video on a PSP.

Ehhh.... maybe you mean no kitchen-sink handhelds...

Under Ubuntu Linux 5.10 any card based on the rt2500 chipset will work right out of the box. I have 2 such devices one pci(for a desktop) and one pcmcia (for my laptop). You don't have to do anything special to set them up. The installer does not recognize the wireless nics at install time. So be sure to have an regular ethernet nic available so you can do the install time updates. Once you boot up into gnome for the first time, you will be able to configure and select your wireless devices via the gnome network manager flawlessly.

I purchased both wireless nics from newegg. The rt2500 devices are usually under 30$.

I use the GIGABYTE GN-WPKG wireless pci card, it is 20$ at newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16839121008

here is the rt2500 project page:

http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main _Page

you can find a list of compatible hardware from there.

And all of that DRM and low resolution is why I'm still happy with my Gmini 402 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16855501130
Only 20gb, yes, but that's enough for me.
Also works just like an external hard drive (can't pull mp3s off an ipod to a friend's computer)
Also works as a USB host, so I can take the pictures off my camera's memory card on long stints away from a computer.
Also plays ANY DivX/XviD encoded video, no matter the resolution. And included a cable to output to TV.
Also has a microphone for recording voice (record lectures all the time this way)
Also has an audio-in adapter (included) for recording from a source (ex: audio mixer)
Also plays cellphone games.
Oh, and it's cheaper.

A few features I was looking for (and found):

• Solid construction- a lot of metal with some plastic trim for looks (and it looks good)
• Low temperature- a built-in fan (which is _whisper_ quiet) blowing on the circuit board of the HDD
• Good engineering- haven't yet had a problem interfacing with my XPPro laptop (in either USB or Firewire); can run multiples through USB hubs or just daisy-chained with Firewire; movable power connector adjusts to fit your drive

If you want more info, I found:

• A little flyer (.pdf) from AMS.
• A nice video review (have to click a few things to get to it).
• And a review with a bunch of pictures.
• I got mine from Directron ($59, cheaper to ship to AK), but it's also at NewEgg ($54 + s/h).

After I upgraded my laptop's HD I got a SABRENT SBT-EKU25 External Enclosure for the old drive. It's USB powered, it's incredibly lightweight and works great under Linux and Windows.

I purchased a very inexpensive Vantec Nexstar USB2.0/Firewire enclosure, and have been very impressed. The plastic of the enclosure feels cheap, however it comes with rubber HD mounts so that you isolate any drive vibrations from the desk/ground.

For any enclosure, the two things to look for are: type of bridge i.e. Oxford900/911/922, and whether there is an integrated fan.

The Oxford900 is the legacy chip, do not buy one. The Oxford911 is compatible with large HDs and the 922 is Firewire800. I use my enclosure for backup so heat was not an issue, however if you plan on using the drive full time, or as a boot drive, look into a more expensive enclosure that comes with a fan.

If you want to keep with the Mac Mini styling and have extra $$ to burn, consider these: http://www.123macmini.com/accessories/guide/enclos ures.html

otherwise the Vantecs are fine: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Subm it=Go&DEPA=0&type=&description=nexstar&Category=0& minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

Another great option is the Hauppage MediaMVP. The guys over at MVP Media Center (MVPMC) have ported a mythtv client to it, as well as a replay client, nfs, and other useful transports. It's as thin a set top box as you could ask for (about the size of DSL modem) and costs $80 US (I've heard rumors as low as $40).

Radio Shack has them (or had them, at least) on clearance for ~$40. This link will tell you if any stores near you still have them available.

I picked one up last week. It was fairly easy to get it talking to my MythTV box (just needed to tweak the DHCP server settings a bit and set up a TFTP server to push the mvpmc image out to it), but it crashes my backend when it stops playing video. I don't know if I have a version mismatch somewhere or if I'm doing things the wrong way on the MediaMVP end. Playback quality was fairly decent while it was running, though, and it'd be more convenient than running the MythTV frontend on a computer because it already has a remote control.

Another great option is the Hauppage MediaMVP. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16815116617 The guys over at MVP Media Center (MVPMC) http://mvpmc.sourceforge.net/idx.php?pg=main have ported a mythtv client to it, as well as a replay client, nfs, and other useful transports. It's as thin a set top box as you could ask for (about the size of DSL modem) and costs $80 US (I've heard rumors as low as $40). The forums are active and help is easy to come by and friendly (unlike the MythTV forums at times). Heck of a lot easier, cleaner, smaller, quieter, and cheaper than a DIY box. I almost prefer it to my normal mythfrontend at this point.

Here's two starting points, the first weighs in at just over $300 and is a standard PC with moderate performance and good expandability, could support 3 tuners, possibly 4. The second is a very low performance but FANLESS option, and weighs in at ~$350 but restricts you to a single tuner (external USB tuners are still an option). Both assume that you can scrounge a CD/DVD rom (or add ~$25 to the price) and also scrounge a case (or add ~$30 to the price for a cheapie). Since you are a slashdot reader, i assume you can probably get your hands on memory and probably a hard drive or two to help reduce the cost even further.

motherboard
video card with tv out
tv tuner/pvr
processor
memory
80G drive

alternatively:
all in one fanless mobo+processor tv tuner/pvr
memory
80G drive

now, the easiest option of all is to just add the PVR150 card to your current PC, and thats cheap!

my HTPC system:
AtlhonXP2400+
EPoX Nforce2Ultra400 motherboard with CMedia 7.1 sound
Nvidia 5200le with TV out video card
1GB RAM (2x512)
2 hauppauge PVR150 non-MCE tuners
2x160GB hard drives
1x300GB hard drives
1NEC 2510 DVD+/-RW (DL enabled)
SageTV3.0.11 PR
Windows XPpro
I should probably mention the iTunes and 34GB of music, one of the main reasons i did this!

I tried Snapstream's BeyondTV didnt like because it had no predictive recording
I tried MythTV on Knoppix, im just not great with Linux yet, had driver problems
I tried MyHTPC (now Meedio) then free, now costs$, it was ok, but finicky.
Sage was the most polished, and full featured option, and $70 one time fee versus TiVo's 10$/month... no brainer.

if that helps you, then you are welcome, if it does not, please dont flame me

Here's two starting points, the first weighs in at just over $300 and is a standard PC with moderate performance and good expandability, could support 3 tuners, possibly 4. The second is a very low performance but FANLESS option, and weighs in at ~$350 but restricts you to a single tuner (external USB tuners are still an option). Both assume that you can scrounge a CD/DVD rom (or add ~$25 to the price) and also scrounge a case (or add ~$30 to the price for a cheapie). Since you are a slashdot reader, i assume you can probably get your hands on memory and probably a hard drive or two to help reduce the cost even further.

motherboard
video card with tv out
tv tuner/pvr
processor
memory
80G drive

alternatively:
all in one fanless mobo+processor tv tuner/pvr
memory
80G drive

now, the easiest option of all is to just add the PVR150 card to your current PC, and thats cheap!

my HTPC system:
AtlhonXP2400+
EPoX Nforce2Ultra400 motherboard with CMedia 7.1 sound
Nvidia 5200le with TV out video card
1GB RAM (2x512)
2 hauppauge PVR150 non-MCE tuners
2x160GB hard drives
1x300GB hard drives
1NEC 2510 DVD+/-RW (DL enabled)
SageTV3.0.11 PR
Windows XPpro
I should probably mention the iTunes and 34GB of music, one of the main reasons i did this!

I tried Snapstream's BeyondTV didnt like because it had no predictive recording
I tried MythTV on Knoppix, im just not great with Linux yet, had driver problems
I tried MyHTPC (now Meedio) then free, now costs$, it was ok, but finicky.
Sage was the most polished, and full featured option, and $70 one time fee versus TiVo's 10$/month... no brainer.

if that helps you, then you are welcome, if it does not, please dont flame me

Here's two starting points, the first weighs in at just over $300 and is a standard PC with moderate performance and good expandability, could support 3 tuners, possibly 4. The second is a very low performance but FANLESS option, and weighs in at ~$350 but restricts you to a single tuner (external USB tuners are still an option). Both assume that you can scrounge a CD/DVD rom (or add ~$25 to the price) and also scrounge a case (or add ~$30 to the price for a cheapie). Since you are a slashdot reader, i assume you can probably get your hands on memory and probably a hard drive or two to help reduce the cost even further.

motherboard
video card with tv out
tv tuner/pvr
processor
memory
80G drive

alternatively:
all in one fanless mobo+processor tv tuner/pvr
memory
80G drive

now, the easiest option of all is to just add the PVR150 card to your current PC, and thats cheap!

my HTPC system:
AtlhonXP2400+
EPoX Nforce2Ultra400 motherboard with CMedia 7.1 sound
Nvidia 5200le with TV out video card
1GB RAM (2x512)
2 hauppauge PVR150 non-MCE tuners
2x160GB hard drives
1x300GB hard drives
1NEC 2510 DVD+/-RW (DL enabled)
SageTV3.0.11 PR
Windows XPpro
I should probably mention the iTunes and 34GB of music, one of the main reasons i did this!

I tried Snapstream's BeyondTV didnt like because it had no predictive recording
I tried MythTV on Knoppix, im just not great with Linux yet, had driver problems
I tried MyHTPC (now Meedio) then free, now costs$, it was ok, but finicky.
Sage was the most polished, and full featured option, and $70 one time fee versus TiVo's 10$/month... no brainer.

if that helps you, then you are welcome, if it does not, please dont flame me

Here's two starting points, the first weighs in at just over $300 and is a standard PC with moderate performance and good expandability, could support 3 tuners, possibly 4. The second is a very low performance but FANLESS option, and weighs in at ~$350 but restricts you to a single tuner (external USB tuners are still an option). Both assume that you can scrounge a CD/DVD rom (or add ~$25 to the price) and also scrounge a case (or add ~$30 to the price for a cheapie). Since you are a slashdot reader, i assume you can probably get your hands on memory and probably a hard drive or two to help reduce the cost even further.

motherboard
video card with tv out
tv tuner/pvr
processor
memory
80G drive

alternatively:
all in one fanless mobo+processor tv tuner/pvr
memory
80G drive

now, the easiest option of all is to just add the PVR150 card to your current PC, and thats cheap!

my HTPC system:
AtlhonXP2400+
EPoX Nforce2Ultra400 motherboard with CMedia 7.1 sound
Nvidia 5200le with TV out video card
1GB RAM (2x512)
2 hauppauge PVR150 non-MCE tuners
2x160GB hard drives
1x300GB hard drives
1NEC 2510 DVD+/-RW (DL enabled)
SageTV3.0.11 PR
Windows XPpro
I should probably mention the iTunes and 34GB of music, one of the main reasons i did this!

I tried Snapstream's BeyondTV didnt like because it had no predictive recording
I tried MythTV on Knoppix, im just not great with Linux yet, had driver problems
I tried MyHTPC (now Meedio) then free, now costs$, it was ok, but finicky.
Sage was the most polished, and full featured option, and $70 one time fee versus TiVo's 10$/month... no brainer.

if that helps you, then you are welcome, if it does not, please dont flame me

Here's two starting points, the first weighs in at just over $300 and is a standard PC with moderate performance and good expandability, could support 3 tuners, possibly 4. The second is a very low performance but FANLESS option, and weighs in at ~$350 but restricts you to a single tuner (external USB tuners are still an option). Both assume that you can scrounge a CD/DVD rom (or add ~$25 to the price) and also scrounge a case (or add ~$30 to the price for a cheapie). Since you are a slashdot reader, i assume you can probably get your hands on memory and probably a hard drive or two to help reduce the cost even further.

motherboard
video card with tv out
tv tuner/pvr
processor
memory
80G drive

alternatively:
all in one fanless mobo+processor tv tuner/pvr
memory
80G drive

now, the easiest option of all is to just add the PVR150 card to your current PC, and thats cheap!

my HTPC system:
AtlhonXP2400+
EPoX Nforce2Ultra400 motherboard with CMedia 7.1 sound
Nvidia 5200le with TV out video card
1GB RAM (2x512)
2 hauppauge PVR150 non-MCE tuners
2x160GB hard drives
1x300GB hard drives
1NEC 2510 DVD+/-RW (DL enabled)
SageTV3.0.11 PR
Windows XPpro
I should probably mention the iTunes and 34GB of music, one of the main reasons i did this!

I tried Snapstream's BeyondTV didnt like because it had no predictive recording
I tried MythTV on Knoppix, im just not great with Linux yet, had driver problems
I tried MyHTPC (now Meedio) then free, now costs$, it was ok, but finicky.
Sage was the most polished, and full featured option, and $70 one time fee versus TiVo's 10$/month... no brainer.

if that helps you, then you are welcome, if it does not, please dont flame me

Here's two starting points, the first weighs in at just over $300 and is a standard PC with moderate performance and good expandability, could support 3 tuners, possibly 4. The second is a very low performance but FANLESS option, and weighs in at ~$350 but restricts you to a single tuner (external USB tuners are still an option). Both assume that you can scrounge a CD/DVD rom (or add ~$25 to the price) and also scrounge a case (or add ~$30 to the price for a cheapie). Since you are a slashdot reader, i assume you can probably get your hands on memory and probably a hard drive or two to help reduce the cost even further.

motherboard
video card with tv out
tv tuner/pvr
processor
memory
80G drive

alternatively:
all in one fanless mobo+processor tv tuner/pvr
memory
80G drive

now, the easiest option of all is to just add the PVR150 card to your current PC, and thats cheap!

my HTPC system:
AtlhonXP2400+
EPoX Nforce2Ultra400 motherboard with CMedia 7.1 sound
Nvidia 5200le with TV out video card
1GB RAM (2x512)
2 hauppauge PVR150 non-MCE tuners
2x160GB hard drives
1x300GB hard drives
1NEC 2510 DVD+/-RW (DL enabled)
SageTV3.0.11 PR
Windows XPpro
I should probably mention the iTunes and 34GB of music, one of the main reasons i did this!

I tried Snapstream's BeyondTV didnt like because it had no predictive recording
I tried MythTV on Knoppix, im just not great with Linux yet, had driver problems
I tried MyHTPC (now Meedio) then free, now costs$, it was ok, but finicky.
Sage was the most polished, and full featured option, and $70 one time fee versus TiVo's 10$/month... no brainer.

if that helps you, then you are welcome, if it does not, please dont flame me

Here's two starting points, the first weighs in at just over $300 and is a standard PC with moderate performance and good expandability, could support 3 tuners, possibly 4. The second is a very low performance but FANLESS option, and weighs in at ~$350 but restricts you to a single tuner (external USB tuners are still an option). Both assume that you can scrounge a CD/DVD rom (or add ~$25 to the price) and also scrounge a case (or add ~$30 to the price for a cheapie). Since you are a slashdot reader, i assume you can probably get your hands on memory and probably a hard drive or two to help reduce the cost even further.

motherboard
video card with tv out
tv tuner/pvr
processor
memory
80G drive

alternatively:
all in one fanless mobo+processor tv tuner/pvr
memory
80G drive

now, the easiest option of all is to just add the PVR150 card to your current PC, and thats cheap!

my HTPC system:
AtlhonXP2400+
EPoX Nforce2Ultra400 motherboard with CMedia 7.1 sound
Nvidia 5200le with TV out video card
1GB RAM (2x512)
2 hauppauge PVR150 non-MCE tuners
2x160GB hard drives
1x300GB hard drives
1NEC 2510 DVD+/-RW (DL enabled)
SageTV3.0.11 PR
Windows XPpro
I should probably mention the iTunes and 34GB of music, one of the main reasons i did this!

I tried Snapstream's BeyondTV didnt like because it had no predictive recording
I tried MythTV on Knoppix, im just not great with Linux yet, had driver problems
I tried MyHTPC (now Meedio) then free, now costs$, it was ok, but finicky.
Sage was the most polished, and full featured option, and $70 one time fee versus TiVo's 10$/month... no brainer.

if that helps you, then you are welcome, if it does not, please dont flame me

Here's two starting points, the first weighs in at just over $300 and is a standard PC with moderate performance and good expandability, could support 3 tuners, possibly 4. The second is a very low performance but FANLESS option, and weighs in at ~$350 but restricts you to a single tuner (external USB tuners are still an option). Both assume that you can scrounge a CD/DVD rom (or add ~$25 to the price) and also scrounge a case (or add ~$30 to the price for a cheapie). Since you are a slashdot reader, i assume you can probably get your hands on memory and probably a hard drive or two to help reduce the cost even further.

motherboard
video card with tv out
tv tuner/pvr
processor
memory
80G drive

alternatively:
all in one fanless mobo+processor tv tuner/pvr
memory
80G drive

now, the easiest option of all is to just add the PVR150 card to your current PC, and thats cheap!

my HTPC system:
AtlhonXP2400+
EPoX Nforce2Ultra400 motherboard with CMedia 7.1 sound
Nvidia 5200le with TV out video card
1GB RAM (2x512)
2 hauppauge PVR150 non-MCE tuners
2x160GB hard drives
1x300GB hard drives
1NEC 2510 DVD+/-RW (DL enabled)
SageTV3.0.11 PR
Windows XPpro
I should probably mention the iTunes and 34GB of music, one of the main reasons i did this!

I tried Snapstream's BeyondTV didnt like because it had no predictive recording
I tried MythTV on Knoppix, im just not great with Linux yet, had driver problems
I tried MyHTPC (now Meedio) then free, now costs$, it was ok, but finicky.
Sage was the most polished, and full featured option, and $70 one time fee versus TiVo's 10$/month... no brainer.

if that helps you, then you are welcome, if it does not, please dont flame me

Here's two starting points, the first weighs in at just over $300 and is a standard PC with moderate performance and good expandability, could support 3 tuners, possibly 4. The second is a very low performance but FANLESS option, and weighs in at ~$350 but restricts you to a single tuner (external USB tuners are still an option). Both assume that you can scrounge a CD/DVD rom (or add ~$25 to the price) and also scrounge a case (or add ~$30 to the price for a cheapie). Since you are a slashdot reader, i assume you can probably get your hands on memory and probably a hard drive or two to help reduce the cost even further.

motherboard
video card with tv out
tv tuner/pvr
processor
memory
80G drive

alternatively:
all in one fanless mobo+processor tv tuner/pvr
memory
80G drive

now, the easiest option of all is to just add the PVR150 card to your current PC, and thats cheap!

my HTPC system:
AtlhonXP2400+
EPoX Nforce2Ultra400 motherboard with CMedia 7.1 sound
Nvidia 5200le with TV out video card
1GB RAM (2x512)
2 hauppauge PVR150 non-MCE tuners
2x160GB hard drives
1x300GB hard drives
1NEC 2510 DVD+/-RW (DL enabled)
SageTV3.0.11 PR
Windows XPpro
I should probably mention the iTunes and 34GB of music, one of the main reasons i did this!

I tried Snapstream's BeyondTV didnt like because it had no predictive recording
I tried MythTV on Knoppix, im just not great with Linux yet, had driver problems
I tried MyHTPC (now Meedio) then free, now costs$, it was ok, but finicky.
Sage was the most polished, and full featured option, and $70 one time fee versus TiVo's 10$/month... no brainer.

if that helps you, then you are welcome, if it does not, please dont flame me

You would have to spend over 1K before you could get the same performance as a tivo.

That's pretty ignorant. I'm no zealot, but after analyzing all my options, including TiVo and ReplayTV, I went the DIY route, but not exactly HTPC. It is not complicated at all, the only caveat is that you get a device in your living room networked with your normal PC, wherever that may be.

I've got full what I believe is full TiVo functionality (pause/rewind live tv, robust recording options) and then some (auto-skip commercials, watch other videos, play mp3's). Two devices needed:

Hauppauge Media MVP $86
Hauppauge PVR250 tuner card $137
(I think you can spend less on a different tuner card; You'll want hardware encoding however.)

Didn't need a new hard drive. I just want to keep current on shows, I'm not doing long-time archiving here. I never use more than 20-30gb.

I use GB-PVR software for windows. This guy is really good. Very active developer and community, though the base project is not open source.

My main PC in the basement runs GBPVR on Windows XP. I also use it for gaming, surfing, etc. In the background, it records shows. Media MVP is RCA-plugged into my 27" TV in my living room, streams content from my PC over my home network.

Very easy if I want to take a video with me, there's just .mpg's on my PC's hard drive. Burn it to DVD, or copy it to my laptop for a car ride.

I like my setup.

You would have to spend over 1K before you could get the same performance as a tivo.

That's pretty ignorant. I'm no zealot, but after analyzing all my options, including TiVo and ReplayTV, I went the DIY route, but not exactly HTPC. It is not complicated at all, the only caveat is that you get a device in your living room networked with your normal PC, wherever that may be.

I've got full what I believe is full TiVo functionality (pause/rewind live tv, robust recording options) and then some (auto-skip commercials, watch other videos, play mp3's). Two devices needed:

Hauppauge Media MVP $86
Hauppauge PVR250 tuner card $137
(I think you can spend less on a different tuner card; You'll want hardware encoding however.)

Didn't need a new hard drive. I just want to keep current on shows, I'm not doing long-time archiving here. I never use more than 20-30gb.

I use GB-PVR software for windows. This guy is really good. Very active developer and community, though the base project is not open source.

My main PC in the basement runs GBPVR on Windows XP. I also use it for gaming, surfing, etc. In the background, it records shows. Media MVP is RCA-plugged into my 27" TV in my living room, streams content from my PC over my home network.

Very easy if I want to take a video with me, there's just .mpg's on my PC's hard drive. Burn it to DVD, or copy it to my laptop for a car ride.

I like my setup.

Some of us are still humming along on our AGP 4x/8x AMD64 mobo's with plenty of RAM to spare. Where are the new graphics cards for us?!?! nVidia and ATI are in some damn war over their latest, greatest PCI Express cards while they pay little attention to providing cards built for AGP card slots. This, quite frankly, sucks. I'm not a freak about buying every new graphics card that comes out, but it's getting to the point where it's about time to upgrade (so I can enjoy more features of HL2's DoD:Source HDL tweaks) and you simply can't buy an nVidia 7800 card for an AGP slot. If I'm going to spend twice as much on a video card than any processor I've purchased in the last 5 years, it better be the best I can get right now so that it lasts me for a long time to come, but alas, no such card is made for my mobo! Where's the love, graphics card companies?