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Home-Grown TiVo Stories?

Posted by timothy on from the cheap-and-perfect-preferred dept.

PolyDwarf writes "I'm in the process of figuring out how I'm going to build a homegrown TiVo machine (i.e. a computer sitting next to or in my home electronics stack). My question for is "What's worked best for you?" Most solutions I've researched are great if you have regular cable. However, satellite systems and digital cable boxes seem to present a special challenge, in that the software on the PC needs to know about an IR connector that is then hooked up to the front of the digital cable/satellite box. Who has done a solution like what I'm researching? What cases/processors/memory/TV Card/IR transceiver/OS/software/etc worked out for you? Did the end result justify the pain and hassle?"

2 of 460 comments (clear)

  1. MythTV is great by foom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I just built myself a new MythTV (www.mythtv.org) box a few weeks ago with the following hardware:
    Shuttle SK41G case+MB+PSU - $250
    120GB Maxtor Fluid Dynamic Bearings 5400RPM HD - $130
    WinTV dbx model 401 card - $100
    Athlon 1800+ (I did not need to get this fast a processor, but I wanted speed left over for other things too) - $60
    512MB DDR ram: $70
    New remote control: $20
    Total: $630

    It works great, does ff/rew/pause of live TV, downloads TV listings off free websites, lets you record all showings of a show, has a webserver builtin so you can set recordings remotely, etcetc.

    It also looks pretty and works great with a remote control so you really can use it like a set top box.

    There are even optional modules for showing the weather, playing MP3s, and running various emulators/games.

    It also supports multiple frontends and backends, so you can make an ultimate setup with 10 tuner cards and 20 TVs all connected to the same video storage if you're so inclined.

  2. Re:just buy a damn tivo by J.+Tang · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just a note to people who still want to have fun hacking away: TiVos run a custom Linux kernel on a PowerPC board. Those lucky enought with a Series 1 TiVo can hack it the kernel to do stuff like providing a bash prompt or run a web server. Those with a Series 2 with Home Media Option (HMO) can write all sorts of applets to their hearts contents; see www.tivo.com/developer to download the API.

    To the original poster: Is it really worth it to build your own system if you reside within the TiVo market? Have you considered things like: hardware costs (a fast processor, video capture board, lots of RAM, motherboard, case), software (time to get the kernel + driver working, time to cobble together a UI), and other intangibles (getting a remote to work, fan noise, getting timely scheduling information)?