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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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
While off-topic, I feel the need to point out something about this comment- it's aburdly ignorant. Believe it or not, a LOT of people feel that no car company makes what THEY want, or they want the experience of going through the design process at any of a number of levels, from "simple" modifications to an existing shell, to really wild stuff or completely custom, hand-formed cars. You see this in particular with motorcycles, because they're easier to make from scratch, and of course, motorcycle enthusiasts are famous for wanting something -unique-; plenty of motorcycle guys would cut their throats before stepping into a Honda Civic(or a Honda bike, for that matter.)
There are lots of kit cars available, including my personal favorite, the Caterham R500. It's based off the famous Lotus Super Seven, weighs half a ton, and has 250 HP(hence a 500hp/ton ratio, and hence the name). It -is- a race car(again, it's basically a Lotus Super Seven), you can get it for $40k, and embarass silly almost every production roadcar made on the planet; it hits 60mph in a little over 3 seconds(it is limited top-speed-wise though, it has the high-speed aerodynamics of a brick), and being so light, it'll easily out-corner -every- production car available today; motorcycles are probably the only thing capable of beating it. The fact that you BUILT your car, versus the "poser" in the 911 twin turbo who "just" bought his car, is icing on the I-just-spanked-your-3x-as-expensive-little-toy cake.
In the slightly-less-extreme category, there are those of us who buy old cars and keep them running. I own a 10+ year old Audi that with a few hundred dollars in modifications has 280hp, all wheel drive, 5-speed(these are getting rarer and rarer-dammit, I don't WANT an automatic!) an ENORMOUS amount of interior space and trunk space, gets about 22-24mpg highway, weighs 3600lb(that's VERY light compared to cars its size today- full-size luxury cars nowadays tip the scale at well over 4,000lb- often much more!) It looks like "some old Audi"(nobody will ever steal it.) I get to blow the doors off most everything save the cream of the crop of sports cars. If I ever get bored and have the money, 330hp is about $2-3k around the corner. Almost everything on the car is easy to understand, and occasionally specialized tools are required, but I can repair almost anything myself with enough determination; I also have plenty of parts sources so I can get almost anything quickly and far below what a mechanic/dealer would charge me.
Please help metamoderate.