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Home-Grown TiVo Stories?
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?"
Freevo and linux have been working pretty well for me. Just setup xmltv and go.
A great place to look for small form factor machines is over at mini-itx.com, great small form factor stuff. For software, freshmeat.net and a bit of scripting is your friend :D
mythtv.org looks promissing, version 0.8 works well, dunno about the receiver stuff as I just have cable.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s= &forumid=26
They'll be your friend.
Regular cable is best, just because of TV tuner cards.
Also check out http://www.mythtv.com if you want to go the linux route.
I have an old Celeron 433 with an STB TVPCI (BT848 chipset). For software I'm running IULabs IUVCR (their site seems to be down) which changes the channel and sets all the encoding options. Everything captures to AVI, which I then play on that computer or any other on the network (nothing has TV out yet)
For scheduling everything is run through the MS Task Scheduler and is under manual control.
Travis
How many of these topics will we see?
They are $200 and you save time, money and effort. Even the geek effect isn't worth it this time.
Spend the money and help a company.
Here's a list of sites that can help if you're married to doing this:
Freevo
XMLTV
they're not THAT expensive, and its probably not worth the effort at all to try and duplicate all that functionality.
I suppose its one thing if you want to do this for the purposes of learning how to do it, but if you're going to build it to try and save money, just buy a tivo. you're going to wind up spending as much or more money and a LOT of time fine-tuning everything to your preference, and working out little bugs with a self-built solution.
so, unless this is a project that's more about the journey than the destination, get a tivo.
To stave off all the wankers sure to fire up with their superior "I don't watch TV!" pablum, here's the obligatory theonion.com article. Grow up, folks. There's plenty of quality programming out there and PVR's (TiVo included) are a great tool to filter the good stuff out from the worthless programming. Avoiding television because you don't like Survivor is like staying off the Internet because AOL is here. It just means you're incapable of scrutiny.
He wants a computer based PVR, not TIVO. Happily, TIVO has not copyrighted the concept (yet).
Sounds like you want something small, silent and with one of those nice Hauppage cards - and a really big HDD!
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Turn the TV off, the noise goes way down.
What happened?
VCRs are being replaced by better technology that does more, better, and provide a much more useful experience. VCRs perform only a small portion of what a PVR does that it's really unfair to compare them.
The real win of a PVR is being completely insulated from scheduling and the learning capabilities which are able to record programs which you'll enjoy but aren't aware of yet.
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.
The MythTV Project is what you want. As often noted on Slashdot, it does nearly everything that TiVo does, and a heapload more. It's open source, and under active development ... however, it's not quite at full functionality. The most recent stable release is version 0.8 and while not without some bugs seems to work quite nicely. I've paired it with a AVerTV Studio TV capture card, a Shuttle FV25 mainboard, and a Celeron 1.4 GHz processor. To my understanding, MythTV supports external tuner devices such as satellite systems. Installation/construction is straightforward but not for the faint of heart. Some RPMs exist for certain required components, but much of installation involves the "./configure; make; su; make install" cycle.
IF -- and this is a strong supposition -- you either have spare hardware laying around that's pretty strong (eg, in the GHz range rather than 100s of MHz) or have a weird bent on building your own systems, then by all means roll up your sleeves and dig in! However, if you are looking for the least expensive or easiest alternative, then buy a used or refurbished TiVo.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
My question for [you] is[,] "What's worked best for you?"
Tivo
seems like one good way to cut the noise and design a scalable system is to provide independent frontend and backend systems. I know mythtv does this. This way you can run a "server" that can do all your recordings and store all your media and be as loud as it wants since it will be anywhere in your house on a network. Then you can attach any number of frontend clients to tvs or monitors ... and those can be hacked down mini boxes of all sorts. To keep the noise down you wouldn't use HDD's or many fans, you would just netboot or boot from cd or floppy. There are also some using XBox as a frontend as well. Pretty nifty if you ask me.
This is -1 Redundant, but just buy a Tivo. The Tivo service alone is worth the subscription fee, and Tivo v2 users who have a Mac will absolutely love the new Media Pack, allowing for Rendezvous discovery of iTunes / iPhoto libraries.
Check out this site for information about quieting your system.
Seriously. It works.
I tried to roll my own. I bought an ATI 8500DV specifically because they touted their awesome TV-on-Demand capabilities. Seemed perfect.
8500DV: $235
Until I tried to use the damn thing. Oh. It doesn't work well with my motherboard. I was planning to upgrade anyway.
Refurb motherboard: $50
XP1800+: $95
ATX Case: $40
DDR RAM: $100
Okay. We're up and running. TV-on-Demand works great. Scheduling recordings isn't that good, tho. The software's pretty bad. Can't do anything automatically. Can't clear out old searches. No conflict resolution. Only a week's worth of data. And it sure wasn't cheaper than a Tivo when I figure in the cost of the new PC. But I can handle setting up scheduled recordings once a week. And the live TV stuff is great.
Oh. The live TV stuff stops working if the machine's been running for a few hours. Maybe I should upgrade to the latest drivers and software. Great. Now it doesn't work with one of my games. Try a different version. Now TV-on-Demand is worse. Try a different version. Hey! Finally have a setting that spits out SVCD format. Too bad TV-on-Demand is totally broken now.
And so began the downward spiral. After a few weeks, I just bought a damn Tivo. $200 for the unit, $80 for a network adapter (series 1), $250 for lifetime service. About what I spent on the computer solution with one major difference. IT WORKS. I can leave it alone for days, weeks, months at a time.
After downloading episodes of 24, Alias, and Smallville which were in HDTV format I really am a believer in it. Fantastic looking, even on my 17" monitor.
Unfortunately the software with the PCI cards I've seen aren't that great and are Windows only. (Sadly none are yet available for my Mac)
I have both a Tivo and a homebrew, and unless you have real serious moral obligations to purchasing something from a company instead of building your own, consider getting a Tivo.
Homebrew: All parts (sff case, mb, memory, cpu, tv card, large hdd, etc. using MythTV) = ~$650
+: Yours to do with whatever you please, using actively maintained popular open free software, easily hardware upgradable, fun to play around with, much more software functionality (MythMusic, emulator front end, weather modules, etc.)
-: Hardware failure is your problem, TV software not quite up to par, more expensive, not quite as slick looking (without looking real hard for a decent case), maintainers can stop working whenever they get the urge, good luck getting digital/satellite TV working well with a cheapo TV card
Tivo + Lifetime subscription = ~$600 (add a larger hdd for more money)
+: Company paying people to maintain software and accurate listings, nice to look at, full featured and completely functional, hacker friendly, warranty makes getting a replacement unit easier, software head and shoulders above competition (IMHO YMMV blah blah - I'm sure other posts outline such functionality), it's a device that doesn't care if the power gets yanked on it, is built to support all sorts of television (digital cable, satellite, coax, whatever)
-: Warranty voided if you open it up, no control over software or updates, company controls any and all software, if Tivo goes out of business listings and software are at their mercy (although there's rumors of a Plan B if that should happen), only does the TV thing (unless you feel like paying for the lackluster Home Media option).
Simply put:
Like tinkering? Have a lot of time and money to burn? Roll your own. Otherwise, there's an excellent effortless pvr already available for the same cost. Worst case scenario, buy a Tivo and keep the receipt (choose monthly sub instead of lifetime). Give it a test run. Don't like it? Return it and make a better one.
The real question is: Has anyone started trying to hack together drivers for the Tivo hardware so you can use their box but your own software?
Poor kid. At 2 years old, I think she has more than enough to do without having to learn how to use a computer. That will come soon enough. I'd focus more on potty training, socializing with other kids, and learning basic fundamentals (colors, shapes, words, etc). And as far as entertainment goes, I'll bet she'd be happier with a $50 DVD player and a copy of The Little Mermaid than she would with some custom homebrew Linux-based PVR thing.
Priorities, man!
Personally, I still have a VCR.... three of 'em, in fact, and I use them quite often for making copies of things for other people.
However, I get much better quality making the original dub using a digital recording (well, I've had a few times where it's gone odd, but typically it's a much higher quality, and I don't end up introducing macrovision in there 'till the final run to tape). It's easier to edit out the commercials once, if I'm going to be making multiple copies to tape, or even just changing the playback order.
Oh..and let's not forget storage... I'm recording at about 1G/hr... so with 2x120G drives in my system, I don't have to worry about changing tapes every few hours. [and actually, every show, as when I used to send everything straight to VHS, I tried to keep shows in order on each tape, so some nights, I'd be switching tapes every hour or 30 minutes, and having to get the next one queued up and wait for my VCR to to its recording calibration test in just a minute or so.
Now, I can collect up a few shows, and when I want to dump to tape, I just prep a job to run overnight, or do it right before I leave for work....
hmmm...that reminds me...I was supposed to dub a new copy of Invader Zim for a friend who wore our her tape. (she has a TiVo, but well, she doesn't have enough space on it to keep all of her Zim)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
"What happened to the days of using a VCR? Yes its not cool or geeky or even the best quality but it certainly suffices for tape delaying a show. Plus a good VCR costs like $60 nowadays with tapes to be had for under a buck. Cheap and a tried a true technology(plus no monthly fee!)."
Hi! New here? Just transferred from the "Doesn't Get It" department?
"Derp de derp."
I tried this route.
I had trouble with getting my VCR to play one show while recording another. I also had some difficulty getting it to stream video from my home network. I couldn't figure out how to set the IP address on the VCR. It doesn't seem to use DHCP either. I think the IP is hardcoded to 1.2.0.0 or something, but setting my gateway to 1.2.0.1 didn't help, it won't ARP for it.
The commercial skip feature works, but it's pretty slow. Resetting the file to the beginning also takes forever for some reason. The REW button works eventually, but I can't find the slider. At first I thought it was hung, but I just let it sit for 5 minutes, and it finally switched from the REW state to the STOP state.
There's some sort of bug, the media cartridges keep auto-ejecting if I try to record more than 3 hours. There's a low quality mode (mpeg1?) which works for 6 hours, but the quality is just about unusable. This problem is interfering with the monthly show scheduling.
I also can't seem to get it to load any games, browse the web, or play DVDs. I'm not sure how to even load code onto it. Does anyone have an VHS API reference?
I understand that there are these manufacturing byproducts of processing trees, called books. They seem to come in varying costs from a couple of dollars, through hundreds, or even thousands of dollars in rare incidents. I understand that the modern distributers like to get between $5 and $25 for a new one, and they don't ask you to pay that much again, should you decide to re-read the book.
Surely they are good enough for you, and you shouldn't be pushing these newfangled VCR's on people.
-Rusty
You never know...
TiVo does not do this. RePlay 4000 supposedly did this, though since neither I, nor anyone I know has a 4000, I don't know how well that works.
As I understand it, most of the programs out there use blank monitoring. Before and after a section of the program, there will be blank space of two or three frames that programs that try to remove commercials key on.
The problem is that unless one of these frames happens to concide with a keyframe in the mpeg stream, they are extreamly hard to find in that stream. As a result it is sometimes disasterously ineffective. It may very nicely catch the begining of the commercial block, but miss the end, and start the stream at the begining of the next commercial block.
I seem to recall a few years ago that in Japan, they had a work around on some VCRs that would monitor the audio stream. Since most commercials (at the time) were recorded in mono, and programs were in stereo, the VCRs would automatically pause when the audio stream went to mono, and resume when it went back to stereo.
The only thing that I am aware of that would make sense to try similar to that would be to monitor close captioning, as most locally produced commercials that I have seen do not have captions. It also seems to be hit or miss for nationally produced commercials.
Good luck.
-Rusty
You never know...
I live in Canada - TiVo is not supported here, for love or money. Besides, I would prefer a totally DRM free and open, networkable appliance. I am really looking forward to seeing HDTV and time-shifting support.
I wish these open source projects would pool their efforts - I hate to see duplication of effort between Myth TV and Freevo.
My rights don't need management.