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Building A Low-Budget TiVo Substitute?
thepuma writes "Since I'm cheap, and don't want to pay monthly fees to Tivo, I am researching building my own low-budget Personal Video Recorder and player. Free software options include Freevo and MythTV. Hardware options are the main cost factor. How would you go about building the perfect low-budget PVR?" We've looked at similar questions before, but the guts of such a system (both hardware and software) have been improving -- MythTV, for instance, now supports Hauppauge's PVR-350 card. How would you build a system like this now?
I use myth (mainly because it supports live tv while freevo doesn't.) It's a decent program, but still somewhat buggy. I find it crashes on occasion, and compiling can be a nightmare at times. With a fast processor (I have an Athlon XP1800) you can easily encode and decode without having to use a hardware mpeg card. The setup process is somewhat painful, and sometimes confusing. I think Myth is great for a DIY'er, but not ready for a consumer solution.
Go away, or I will replace you with a very small shell script.
...has a great article on just this subject.
...I just came for the free beer.
TV Cards
Pretty helpful site for beginners.
Don't try to use one of these projects because you think it will be cheaper.
If you want to do it because you think there are other benefits, or because you like to tinker, go right ahead.
You will spend more than the cost of a Tivo plus lifetime service by the time you are done, though.
Hmm... PC $600 + about a month configuring it to work as a PVR.
Tivo + Lifetime sub $300-$400
I know which I'd go for...
If budget is important, consider estimating electricity costs in a do-it-yourself solution. You might be surprised how much money worth of electricity a PC can use in just a year.
As an example, I've seen people "save money" by reusing old PC's as firewalls instead of buying a cheap $50 unit that does the same job. They're spending more money in electricity than it would have cost to buy the dedicated unit.
-Teckla
Isn't the biggest problem STILL programming guide information? Don't things like XMLTV use web sites that sometimes block IP's from using them?
Actually you probably can not get much cheaper than DirecTivo.
If you are a new sub. you can get the DirecTivo for about $50, and with a DirecTivo you only pay $4.99/month for the Tivo service (and that is for the account not the number of boxes). For me in my area DirecTV is MUCH cheaper than cable. Also the quality of a DirecTivo is far superior than any other option available for non-HDTV PVRs. It records the direct MPEG stream no encoded done on the box. Also the DirecTivo can record 2 shows at a time!
Course if you want to do it yourself you can and it would be fun, however it would most likely not be as stable, quality not as good. And you probably wont save much money if you already have cable or directv.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
You also don't need to buy a subscription when buying a tivo. You can purchase just the hardware if you want. Of course not having the program listings and scheduling features kinda defeats the main benefit of PVRs.
To be really useful, a homemade pvr has to solve the problem of obtaining program listings.
I agree, it's actually not that cheap to build one from scratch. I looked into this a few months ago and found it would cost as much as a Tivo, if not more. Asus Pundit ~200 CPU ~150 RAM ~100 Hard Drive ~100 PVR card ~200 Total ~750
I use mythtv, I have 1 backend server with a Hauppauge pvr-250 and a OLD win-tv card in it, it has 1GB of ram, 3x120GB harddisks, and an amd2500+. The two cards allow me to record two shows at once, lets two people on two different frontends watch two different channels, or picture in picture. This computer has more power than mythtv needs, you can use something with alot less power. Especally if you get a hardware tv capture card.
When I am recording off my old win-tv capture card and I am in gnome running mozilla, etc. I can tell a big difference in video quality as when I am not doing anything on the computer. So if you have a slow computer, you want to use X/mozilla/etc, or just want better video quallity get a hardware video capture card (happauge pvr 250/350). A pII 400mhz would do very very well with a pvr 250/350.
My main frontend is a Xbox with gentoo installed. If you have a Xbox and you are as disappointed as I was with the games the xbox is your best bet for a front end for a TV. It "fits" beside the tv, I mean who wants a tower computer beside the tv anyways? Also some guy made a xbox-linux/mythtv distro. I haven't tried it but it looks really neat.
My other front end is a laptop with 802.11g card in it. I must say mythtv does QUITE well wireless.
A cheap Duron, hard drive, case, TV-out capable video card, and TV card is going to probably cost more than a stand-alone Tivo, so you are only saving on the "backend." I like the progress that I have seen in MythTV and Freevo, especially the integrated features like emulators and such. That is the appeal for me to build these type of solutions, not price.
FWIW, I am a DirecTV subscriber and the DirecTivo gives you a lot of functionality that you just can't easily replicate. It stores full quality video from the satellite feed on the hard drive. It also allows you to record two shows at the same time. That makes it well worth the price. Of course, mine has a 120 GB hard drive hacked in to give over 100 hours of storage.
Now I just need to figure out how copy the video from the Tivo. I can ftp and telnet into the system, but I haven't investigated the state of the extraction software lately. One of those projects I need to get to...
Sure they do. I am using this functionality on my MythTV box right now.
When MythTV wants to change channel on the cable box, it calls a user-definable external script. I use LIRC to emit the IR control codes to switch channels on my General Instruments cable box.
If you add all the hardware costs up, you'll pay close to (or more than) the $250 it takes to get a tivo. Then you'll need to find some way to get program listings if you want to schedule recordings based on something besides just channel & date & time.
And the bottom line is, you don't have to pay tivo a monthly anything. Just buy the tivo and don't subscribe to the listings. Or you can buy the lifetime and not deal with monthly payments. Or buy a used tivo(with lifetime service) on ebay and get a deal. Lots of folks are trading up to series2 this way.
I have to admit that the series2 with home media is awesome. Get a $30 usb nic, and you can stream images/audio from the network. There's a sweet *nix program called byrequest (http://sourceforge.net/projects/byrequest/) that lets you serve files without windows, and they claim is will serve video also...
So why don't you go put that in your pipe and... nevermind.
> You also don't need to buy a subscription when buying a tivo. You can purchase
> just the hardware if you want. Of course not having the program listings and
> scheduling features kinda defeats the main benefit of PVRs.
If you plunk down $300 for the hardware, may as well plunk down the $250 for a lifetime subscription as well.
Just pretend the hardware costs $550, but in this way you will have full guide listings and no monthly fee.
Mom, can you tape the Simpsons? Mom, can you tape the Simpsons?
- CPU: Athlon XP 2400
- MB: Some random Gigabyte motherboard, about $60
- Case: I splurged here and got an HTPC-looking Cooler Master ATC-610
- Video: GeForce2 MX 440
- Capture: Hauppage WinTV PVR 250
- 120MB IDE HD
- 802.11 wireless card
- DVD-ROM/CDRW drive
In total, I spent around $700. This is clearly not cheap compared to a TiVo, but I can do a lot of things that a typical TiVo can't and I don't have any service fees to pay. If I really wanted to save money, here's what I would have done:To be really useful, a homemade pvr has to solve the problem of obtaining program listings.
May I direct your attention to this.
This is currently what MythTV uses.
Regards
elFarto
Lifetime subs are 300 now.
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
Compared to a Tivo: You have to switch tapes They only hold 8 hours You have to rewind them It's a pain to find that 30 min show in the middle of the tape They're louder (at least mine is) when FF and Rewinding Tivo has automatic scheduling
I'm sure there are other advantages, those are just off the top of my head.
Tapes have the advantage of being portable and everywhere so you can take what you recorded to your buddies house, but overall Tivo or some other similar DVR blows the VCR away.
I can see getting a lot of geek satisfaction out of building one of these things, but to use it as a day-in/day-out DVR, I don't think it makes a lot of financial sense. First thing is that it's expensive. A TiVo with a lifetime subscription costs about $500. The WinTV-PVR 350 card alone is most of the cost of the TiVo hardware. I have yet to see an example of building one of these things for that low of a price.
Second, if you've got DirecTV, then there's no DVR that you can build that's going to do as good of a job of capturing the signal as the DirecTV DVR w/TiVo (DTiVo). The DTiVo simply copies the already MPEG encoded stream that DirecTV sends. Thus the DTiVo doesn't need an expensive (and relatively low quality) hardware MPEG encoder. Which means that the DTiVo can be found for serious cheap, sometimes even for free. Assuming that a homebrew DVR costs about $800 to build, you could get a free DTiVo and put the $800 towards 13 yrs 4 mos worth of monthly fees.
Still it sounds like a fun project. But it seems like you'd be paying for the entertainment of putting it together. Not for the low cost of the DVR.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
It took a bit of work to get going, and I probably spent a total of about $500-$600.
BUT!
There is no subscription fee - TV listings are downloaded via XMLTV.
I can store CDs and DVDs on the HD.
I can run multiple front-ends, enabling me to watch TV/recordings on another machine on the network.
I can update recording settings through a very friendly HTTP interface.
I can extract and re-encode recorded shows.
In addition, people have written lots of groovy addons, including:
A MAME frontend
A CallerID module (when the phone rings, callerid information is displayed onscreen!)
A weather report module
The possibilities are endless.
Correction. Legally, the series 2 TiVos (all that you can find at your corner TiVo store) all require a subscription to the service.
Old Series 1 TiVos can be used without subscription, as a sort of digital VCR.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Not true (about the processor) - The Hauppauge PVR-350 and PVR-250 do all the processing onboard.
Here's a good resource: HTPCNews.com
actually what tivo is doing is going after folks who "distribute" images of a tivo drive to others. You're free to hack away at your own tivo, including making drive images. *Distributing* tivo drive images violates Tivo's copyrights to their software, and also it violates linux's copyrights, because you're distributing a binary of linux without the corresponding source. Nevermind all of the other GPL programs that go with the full "gnu+linux" based OS that runs on Tivos.
Frankly, Tivo is a company that has shown a very cooperative corporate attitude towards tivo owners and hacking. They recognize that a tivo hacker is a tivo owner and a tivo owner is a tivo customer. What kind of bass-ackwards company would try to prevent their own customers from excercising fair-use with legally purchased products... oh nevermind.
Hauppauge's PVR-350 tv tuner card: $200
Tivo after rebate: $200
It's hard to justify the cost of building your own when a tivo is so cheap. I'd like to build my own, but I can't do it as cheaply as just buying tivo hardware. (Yes, I have a Tivo).
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
Simple math, but how much of the 300 watts is used for an idling PC
There's no way a PC without a monitor is going to draw 300 Watts unless it's a specialty super-computer. (i.e. Runs at 100% CPU power at all times, while making use of heavy draw hardware such as GPU rendering.)
150 Watts is a much better average. 24 hours a day, with ~30 days in a month, at 150 watts gives:
24*30*150 = 108,000 Watt-Hours = 108 Kilowatt-Hours
Look up what you're paying per KW hour and multiply that by 108. For example, 10 cents per KWH gives you a monthly cost of $10.80.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I have a 1GHz TBird + cheap mobo, 256MB RAM, a 40GB HD, cheap case, a GeForce 4 MX440, and a PVR250. I'm using ATI's Remote Wonder and running SnapStream PVS 3.4 beta (on Win2K) with myHTPC as a frontend. Functionality-wise, it's a great setup. I'm about to pop another 80GB drive in and I'll be set for a while. All in all, with parts I already had, I think it put about $500 into hardware and software and enjoy having the system.
On the downside, there was far too much fiddling I had to do to get things right. If I were to do it all again, I probably would just by a TiVO and get the home media option.
Bottom line: Whatever you do, get a PVR250/350 for your capture card. Software capture cards simply don't hold a candle. Everyone who starts with a WinTV Go or other software card ends up upgrading to a PVR250 (yours truly included). Do yourself a favor and go straight for the PVR250.
as someone who's never built a linux machine from scratch, i found this to be helpful:
Linux HTPC How-to
--brian
I've researched this a little bit before. IIRC, it works out to about $6 or $7 a month. There are a tremendous number of variables so it is difficult to predict a particular situation. for instance, many of the "old" PCs that people toss in the corner as headless file servers don't support idling. Rather than go into a low power state, the CPU runs at full power in a noop loop. Sometimes older machines don't spin down the disk properly either. Newer machines should go to a low power state much more readily, but will require much more power while they are running.
The grandparent post was correct that running an old pentium as a firewall rather than buying a LinkSys box for $50 is a foolish economy. Of course, if one requires capabilities that the simple box doesn't provide - that is a different story.
I'm a fan of the VIA mini-itx systems for "always on" applications. With judicious use of eBay, one should be able to assemble a decent low power system for less than $300. I'm told that the 1 GHz Nehemiah based systems have good integer performance but not so good floating point performance. Think of them as about a 500 MHz Pentium equiv. Great little machines for a home file and print server, and they are practically silent aside from being good for the electric bill. If you run a mini-itx as your server/web-browser/email box and only use that Dual Athlon machine when you are actually gaming, you should see a noticable drop in your electric bill.
The worst mistake I ever made.
1;
http://www.solarpc.com/20.htm
It has:
Those are the bare neccesities if your just going to be cheap. I am cheap/poor too, so that is all I have. Someday I'll get a nice DVD burner so I can archive stuff I might want to see again somday. I also want a wireless keybaord.
For further info check out the PVR Hardware Database:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-view_ar
They have a page with some nice installation guides:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?
As you can see I am all for building a MythTV box, but having built one, I have to warn you that the software isn't perfect yet. It really kicks Tivo's ass in terms of functionality (I love the MythWeb interface, and you can set it too completely cut out commercials, which it does surprisingly accurately), but it still can be a little buggy sometimes and should only be used by people who like to tinker.
I built a MythTV box and went the Mini-ITX route for $500. I paid more for the small size, considering I could have gotten more CPU power, etc. for less money.
.deb packages since I was using the
For case, I used the Morex Cubid 2699R. It's about the size of a 12" pizza box (much smaller than the VCR that it replaced!), and uses a 50W external power supply, which *significantly* cuts down on noise. My hard drive is the biggest contibutor to noise with this setup. I got my case for about $80 US.
I keep it in my TV cabinet without an attached mouse, keyboard, or monitor. Just connected to TV and my LAN, and controlled via remote control.
You can see pics and a review of its older cousin at:
http://www.mini-itx.com/reviews/2688R/
As for the rest, I got:
Motherboard:
VIA EPIA M10000 ($150-$160 US) - Has onboard ethernet, 5.1 audio, video,
and one PCI slot. Processor is already on it. Processesor has
exceptionally low power requirements (compared to high-end AMD/Intel).
Memory:
Crucial 512mb DDR (if you do decide on the 2699R case, make sure the RAM
height is below 34mm or it won't fit - the Crucial fit just fine)
Tuner:
Hauppauge PVR-350 (less than $200 via pricewatch.com)
Its included remote works really well under LIRC
DVD:
Some generic slimline DVD player for $55.
If you get the 2699R case, you need a slimline which means more $$
Note that as of current date, MythDVD and MythVideo don't work
with the PVR-350, so you won't be able to watch DVD's (yet).
Hard drive:
I used an old IBM drive laying around, I plan on upgrading to a Seagate Barracuda which is rated at 20dB while idling.
Now the pros and cons of my setup:
Pros:
Very small, very quiet
PVR-350 with the Epia M10000 uses only 3% (!!!) CPU utilization during
playback and record
Front of case has firewire/usb connections if I need later on
Even without MythDVD or MythVideo support, it's already better than a
commercial Tivo because (1) I can record at higher bitrate and resolution,
and (2) I have direct access to the recorded videos, so that (3) I can
archive to DivX or DVD...
Cons:
No DVD or avi/quicktime/etc. file playback since I've using a PVR-350 (hopefully soon though!)
I couldn't use the already built 0.11
PVR-350. I ended up compiling both IVTV and MythTV CVS instead.
Since there's no attached keyboard/mouse/monitor, I need to ssh from
a different computer on the network, but I actually prefer it this way
Hope that helps
I've always maintained that buying a real Tivo was always the cheaper option, especially if you count the costs of your time involved. Now, even not counting those costs the commercial product is much cheaper! If "cheap" is really what you want (as it's listed in your request) then you really need to look at it closely.
With a new account (1 year contract) at DirecTV or Dish you can get a free or cheap PVR included... and many other benefits (3 rooms, free installation, etc. etc.). Certain plans (Platinum level or some shiiiiii) even give you the PVR subscription fee included (or included in your receiver mirroring fee).
I'm not saying you shouldn't try building one yourself, but the argument was usually "I could build one cheaper with parts I have lying around" however most people then went out and spent $75-$100 on a brand new capture card. With subsidized
MythTV has definitely progressed along the years, but it's still not 100% reliable (what open-source anything ever is truly complete, tested, and waranteed). That being said, it definitely has some other cool "Media" functions that I really would like in my family room. Of course, I'm not willing to live with the ugly beige box and noise (before you say silent processors and slimline cases, add those costs to your initial argument).
If I truly had the hardware lying around (I don't) and I truly wanted a project not just the end Tivo functionality (I don't) and I was willing to put up with all the tinkering and annoyances required (I might be, wife definitely isn't) then I would consider doing it.
--Darren
Can't press "record" on the TiVo from work, now can you?
Um, yes, actually.
PVR-250 is hopelessly inadequate for modern PVR. It's got an analogue tuner, FFS!!! At least get a DVB card.
>> not so good for the geek who has to have the latest tech.
But a used TiVo with an intact lifetime subscription should be worth at least $100-150 more on the secondary market than one without, shouldn't it?
It was always my understanding that the lifetime subscription was transferrable (since, as you point out, it's for the life of the unit).
The reasoning for the different items are as follows:
A similar model of the motherboard got good reviews by Toms Hardware Guide (yes, I know some people in /. hate Tom). The integrated sound on this board was recommended to me by an ALSA developer. It's also got SATA, LAN, USB and Firewire and, as a nice bonus, both coax and optical digital sound outputs.
Samsung...didn't matter much as long as it had DVD and CD-RW capabilities, black front was a nice touch though.
WAG311GE, one of few cards that support A, B and G wireless networking. Supported in Linux by the MadWifi drivers, unfortunately not truly open source, but neither are any other ABG card drivers.
Intel processor, I usually like Athlons but temperature (and thereby cooling requirements) is much more important in this box than speed.
Hauppage, well supported by MythTV and able to do MPEG2 recording and playback in hardware.
MSI GeForce, has VGA, DVI and TV-Out, also fanless and really cheap. Closed drivers but that's kinda hard to avoid.
Maxtor drive, I really wanted a more quiet Seagate but the SATA models were kind of impossible to find in any nearby store for decent prices. Also most stores seemed to have the ones with the least storage capacity.
Coolermaster, the case isn't "designed" to be a HTPC case (such as this one) which means it doesn't have the same silly price tag. It was also the exact same width as my stereo components (well, 3mm wider) and similar color.
Now all I have to do is wait...
Slightly off topic, but...
This is exactly the reason people should take an interest in mini-itx motherboards for home servers. A 60W power supply could feed one of the fanless 600MHz mini-itx boards at load. I don't have the means to measure, but I suspect at idle it runs around 15W (assuming the hard drive gets spun down during idle, which is not good for the lifetime of the drive, but good for power savings).
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
If you have any intent on building up a legal and huge collection of movies by capturing them off of cable TV, and you want to be able to play those movies on a standard consumer DVD player, then you must get a hardware MPEG-2 encoder.
The general rule about software MPEG-2 encoders is this: quality, low-CPU, realtime; pick any two.
If you don't care about being able record to DVD, and/or you want to record to DiVX and envision a house where all of your DVD players are DiVX-capable, then a $30 stereo tuner card will suffice for now.
I have two AverTV Stereo cards that are going up on eBay, because I decided that I really do want to record good quality MPEG-2 to DVD. I need to be able to hand my wife/kids a DVD of the favorite shows that she missed because I made them leave the house. I will be getting a PVR-250 like everybody else.
Note also that this advice applies to Windows people just as much as it does for Linux people. There are no software, high-quality, realtime MPEG-2 coders that don't require an overclocked cryogenically cooled CPU, regardless of what OS you run.
-Rick
The things I see in your list that MythTV doesn't do is recording shows based on your viewing habits which is one of the things I find repulsive about TiVo, and Myth only supports a few codecs... see nuvexport/mencoder.
:)
- Record two standard (...) Check... in fact, the recording devices can be on different machines.
- Record standard TV to MPEG-2, MPEG-1, (...) OK, Myth's codecs are wrapped up in hybrid nupplevideo and require a touch of effort to convert.
- Playback using Dscalar to deinterlace the video. Check, optional deinterlacing built it.
- Play DVDs Check
- Play DivX Check
- Record shows as favorites (...) or based on my past viewing habits You can set up season-pass like sitations using the number of recording options and its priority system. I've already stated my opinion of guesswork recording
- Do all of the above with an integrated schedule, which is free. Check
- Play and manage my MP3 library Check
- Stream video and audio to another PC over my LAN. Check... as well as my X-Box
In addition, you get MythWeather which supplies weather reports to your screen, MythGallery for photos, MythGame which integrates with a number of emulators including MAME and NES emulators, MythWeb to set up recording over the internet. And you can theme it, it's free and runs on a free OS, the developers are fairly responsive and development is constantly moving forward. Go ahead and list your favorite features of SageTV and wait for them to be integrated into MythTV.
All that said, Sage does look like the most complete package for Windows (I used ShowShifter back in the day).
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Knoppmyth is a fully installable Knoppix(debian) distro with mythtv. Knoppmyth is a pvr, has tv with a guide to your local cable/sat provider, weather, news, a dvd playing, an mp3 player (and indexing, by group and album, with visualizations), cd ripper with artist and title lookup, emulator frontend, and vcd player.
You can burn the iso, assemble your pvr/media machine, boot of the iso, provide a few usernames and passwords and Knoppmyth will partition and install everything you need to get MythTV running on your system including mysql, xmltv, mythtv. As a bonus you get the magic of apt-get to install almost anything else you might want. The fontend program is very nicely done and it supports remote controls and external channel changers too.
-dameron
No doubt the techno-geek-hobbyist in us all longs for a custom, home-grown PVR, but the reason I haven't gone the "roll-your-own" route yet is simple: The "Wife Factor". Plain and simple, the absolute LAST thing I need to deal with is my wife trying to get a less-than-100%-stable system to work.
[Obligatory_ReplayTV_comment]Our ReplayTV systems have been very stable and reliable. They are basically "appliances" that simply work. No muss, no fuss. And the wife is very happy with them.[/Obligatory_ReplayTV_comment]
Trust me, after you've heard the line "So, how do I turn on the TV?" coming from a very pissed-off wife, you won't regret your buying decision...
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Problems with a VCR:
1) Management. If you've recorded a season's worth of show, you have to make sure that they are all recorded in order with no repeats. Rewinding and forwarding is a pain in the butt. Since tapes are only 8 hours, you have to manage the tapes as well as the content.
2) Sharing. You can't watch a recorded show on your computer in the bedroom when your spouse is using the TV in the living room. Most of these machines can be networked so that you can at least transfer files.
3) VCRs cannot function as DVD or media centers
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Not all time is billable. Putting together a MythTV is _fun_, not _work_. If you can build one for $400, and assemble it in your spare time for fun, it only cost $400. If you build MythTV's to sell for a living, I guess it's fair including your time as a cost... :-)
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
I started looking into a replacement PVR solution when my DishNetwork sub ran up. My wife and I were hooked on the Dish501 PVR and hadn't watched TV bound to a schedule in more than a year. Our local cable provider (TW-Rochester) gave us a great deal on all the digital offerings with HBO @ 25.99 /mo for 12 months. Sounded like a good idea. I went on board with their PVR "solution", the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000.
Has anyone else used one of these clearly beta units? Ack!
That lasted about 3 weeks. So I sat down and looked at our needs and our options:
- Two tuners (the only nice feature of the SA8000)
- Intelligent recording options (record once/series/all)
- Sufficient storage (enough to fit the entire Tour De France: 20 stages x 3hrs. That was our unit of measurement. YMMV)
- Ability to record network channels (NBC/ABC/CBS/Fox)
- HighDef is a nice-to-have
Options:
- DirectTV with DirectTivo (No Rochester locals then) (~$550 for Series2 unit with big HD)
- DishNetwork with the Dish921 (High Def! Have to lie to get Plattsburgh locals) ($1000+)
- DishNetwork with the Dish721 (Have to lie to get Plattsburgh locals) ($500)
- Time Warner with SA8000 (Ack!) ($5 + $9 rental/mo)
- DIY box (???)
Wife gave the project a green light, and I bought the parts to build it. Motherboard with integrated LAN and VGA, $100; AthlonXP 1800+, $50; PVR250 Tuner cards, $130 x2; Wireless mouse & keyboard, $40. I already had a case and 120Gb drive.
It took a bit of work and a weekend to get it running the first time (Myth 0.11). Thanks so much to Jarod's guide. I tweaked it and broke some stuff about 3 weeks later, and rebuilt it. Only took 8 hrs that time.
Tweaked stuff again and broke it again. I should realize that it's a TV device, not a playtoy. This time I rebuilt it in 3 hrs. (That included restoring a backup of the programs saved on the HD.) ATRPMS with apt-get (thanks Axel) makes it a breeze.
It's been fine for the last month. It sits quietly mounted between floor joists in the basement crawlspace storage, where it is keep quite cool. As a bonus over Tivo, it has a picture gallery viewer of all the PCs in our house, it runs MAME and ZSnes, plays MP3s and shows the weather.
Thanks Issac and all the developers who put so much hardwork into a great project. Your efforts are very appreciated.
By the way: The best part about this being an open source, Linux based project? When there's a problem with the app and I'm not at home, I can ssh to it and fix it remotely. No more trying to explain things over the phone!
I use Snapstream PVS for my media center needs.
:)
My HTPC is an Athlon 2800, 1GB of RAM, an all-in-wonder 9600 Pro and a 3ware Escalade 7506-12 with 12 200GB Maxtor drives (two RAID10s of 600GB each) and 2 160GB Samsungs. It's in a 4U rackmount case with a 550 Watt PC Power and Cooling PSU. I use an Asus A7N8X Deluxe for a motherboard, with its support for Dolby Digital 5.1 on digital outputs. The PC is connected to an Integra DTR-8.2 receiver (that's its name, not how many speakers it supports) which itself can be controlled with its own radio frequency remote, and whose video switching and AV zone support I make full use of.
The whole thing is sitting in 19" rack in a closet, so I don't have to listen to it be all noisy.
It runs 2000 Server, mostly because, at the start of its life, I was working with 2000's soft-RAID features, and "Pro" versions of Windows don't do redundant RAID.
I use Snapstream PVS for TV-watching and recording, primarily because it integrates nicely with my ATI RF remote, and because it supports tuning my DirectTV receiver via a serial connection.
The PROBLEM with Snapstream is that it's not the paragon of stability that it should be. Every few days it flies off the deep end and takes my poor HTPC with it. I have a 35-hour DirectTivo for a back up and second video source, just in case.
I also have three 400-disc DVD carousels of varying ages that I use to house my collection of movies. The DVPCX985V is the newest of those, and the one I appreciate the most, since it support SACDs. The 3 jukeboxes are connected to each other and operate as a single logical unit.
Regular daily viewing is done on a 32" 16x9 Princeton display. It can handle HDTV signals but I haven't coughed up the cash for DirectTV HDTV reception or a video capture solution that works with HDTV. I also have an ancient, 800lumen, 800x600 Sony projector that I plan to replace when its bulb dies, probably with an NEC HT1000 (3000:1 contrast ratio).
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
With urpmi and Easy Urpmi and Thac's configured properly (follow instructions). You can install it in a few minute, with no compiling.
urpmi mythtv
Thats xmltv and everything.
Quack, quack.
"Funny," perhaps. But "insightful?" I've wiped more insightful commentary from the bottom of my shoe.
Now, if "How can I pirate TiVo's service to use on my non-TiVo box without paying for it, I could see where this comment would be appropriate. But just because TiVo is Linux-based, anyone who looks for another solution is somehow a hypocrite?
For shame, Mr. Coward, for shame. And you wonder why mom always liked me best?
The way I see it, TiVo has three components: The hardware, the software, and the subscriber information stream. The hardware is basically a small computer with a big hard drive, and its primary advantage over a beige box is a quality I like to call "Media center friendliness." Oh, and it comes with a remote rather than a cron daemon.
The software consists of the Linux kernel and some schnazzy proprietary interface software. The latter is what adds value to the product for most users.
The subscription information is the final piece of the whole TiVo experience, because it gives the box the ability to find stuff for you even when you didn't know it was on, and make recommendations.
So let's get this straight: TiVo provides a certain experience, but not everyone wants precisely that experience. There are plenty of reasons someone might want to build a computer with some of the capabilities of a TiVo. For example, they might want the PVR capabilities but not the features that rely on the subscription stream. Or they may want to be able to back up shows onto DVD, or rip DVDs to the box, or use the box as an all-in-one PVR/DVD player/router/firewall/webserver/gaming platform, just so that they can turn the whole thing into a flaming pile of silicon by getting it Slashdotted while it's trying to record "The Simpsons."
That's what I'd do, anyways.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I have a MythTV box so I speak from experience.
You *SHOULD* build a MythTV box IF:
- You are an experienced Linux user, have some extra hardware lying around (or money is no object), and are looking for a fun and interesting project to mess around with.
- You are an inexperienced Linux user, have some extra hardware lying around (or money is no object), and are looking for a fun and interesting project to learn Linux with.
- You are not one of the above, but absolutely must have the single best Multimedia Convergence box you can possibly have at all costs.
You should *NOT* build a MythTV box IF:
- You are an inexperienced Linux, user and have no money and no hardware lying around.
- You have no interest in learning Linux.
- You are an experienced Linux user, have no money and no extra hardware lying around.
- You want something that works now, not something that is sorta great now, but will be absolutely great later.
This exactly what I've been telling my friends when they get jealous of my MythTV box. I suspect in about a year or so, building a MythTV box will be a LOT simpler. Until then, follow my guideline above.
Bryan
At least the pubes are blurred out, in order to prevent the image from being obscene.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
And at the end of a month, he will probably know a thing or two about managing video streams, caching, fs tuning, how TiVo works in the first place, and probably a thing or two about building small databases with large BLOBs attached, and maybe start figuring out how to network the FreeVo together with the rest of his LAN so he can watch CNN from his laptop on the porch.
At the end of the same month, however, one who just buys a TiVo will probably know how to watch television.
Whatever happened to taking on a challenge just because it's there?
This is not my sandwich.
Then here's a response to you:
Problems with SageTV:
--Matthew