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Build Your Own PVR
An anonymous reader submits: "One geek's trials and tribulations of buying a ReplayTV, hating it, and deciding to build his own Linux PVR from nothing. The first try sinks into the swamp (hardware problems). The second try sinks into the swamp (more hardware problems). The third try... you get the idea. But success, finally, based on SageTV, a Windows PVR client. Makes you wonder if current Linux PVR apps are just too much of a pain to get working well?"
www.mythtv.org the best PVR ever... it does everything, great UI, great support (pchdtv card, HARDWARE MPEG2 encoder/tuner cards.) Absolutley great functionality and pretty to boot! I think this answers this articles question!
Home Sweet Home Linux
There was an Ask Slashdot on this very topic not so long ago:
Building A Low-Budget TiVo Substitute?
Sattinger's Law: It works better if you plug it in.
After looking around at alternatives to Tivo, I settled on MythTV [MythTV.org]. Lots of plugins (DVD, Video, etc) and surprisingly stable.
I run an Epia Nehemiah 1Ghz w/512 MB RAM with a Hauppauge PVR 350. The web front end makes all my Tivo using coworkers drool. Yes, it was a pain in the rear to get everything working, but in the end, I gained some knowledge and have one neat little system.
I tried building my own "Tivo"-like box too in Linux. It eventually cost a bit more than buying a Tivo, but I use it as my DVD burning and mp3 jukebox in addition to MythTV.
Installed Debian on it with similar hardware as the author of the article had. I had no problems whatsoever, though I've been using Linux since '98.
If you want just a Tivo box for cheap, I don't suggest doing it unless you want shady quality. Get a damned good TV Card (like the PVR-250 which does encoding on the hardware - this is around $120 alone), and a huge hard drive, and a good amount of memory. If you have the PVR-250, you don't need such a powerful CPU as the MPEG encoding is handled by the PVR.
All in all, it was worth the time. I never have to look back and it's simply an amazing solution. I've been using Myth for about 8 months and it never stops to amaze me.
Anyone who can't properly hook up an IDE disk (check the jumpers BEFORE you install it) shouldn't be attempting to both build a computer and install an OS they've never tried before under a deadline.
He also did a horrible job on research and homework. He could have probably slapped a KnoppMyth CD in the drive and been done in record time.
I'd say -- this guy simply didn't have the basic computer and Linux skills to do anything but install pre-packaged software. He ended up with the solution that fit that skillset the best.
No offense, but he wasn't ready to try a do-it-yourself solution. A consumer solution *is* the best for someone with the limited time he had available (self-imposed deadlines) and knowledge level.
+++OK ATH
6. Conclusions
This is only my second day as a PVR equipped husband and already my wife has forgotten about TiVo. She watches episodes of Charmed and the Gilmore Girls and grins as she fast forwards through commercials. As for me, I have been spending quality time with John Stewart - his show on the Iowa Caucases was not to be missed.
Yes, this little project ended up being a little more pricey than I had expected, about $800 total, but I am left with an expandable and powerful system capable of doing a lot more than any TiVo can do. Perhaps the whole thing was silly. After all, VCR's basically do the same thing right?
Hey, kudos to him for getting it working. Most of the stories I've read in this genre end up with the author buying a ReplayTV or TiVO because his creation failed the spouse test. Or just wouldn't work reliably. According to the conclusion, wifey is as happy as a clam.
But:
Soon the sound started falling behind the movement of his lips. That was no good. Plus his body blurred when he moved. My hero, John Stewart was jittery and smeared. The wife grumbled.
So, we have $800 for a TiVO with a relatively unreliable guide with less info, no auto-commercial skip (as in 50XX series ReplayTV's), lots of fans and noise, 3x the power use, and picture quality issues that will be fixed Real Soon Now:
After all of this, the picture was better, but John Stewart still looked unintentionally silly.
Apparently, the next version (2) of Sage will be available in early February 2004, and these picture adjustment issues will be much easier to grapple with.
In my experience, SageTV always has image quality and sync problems (and they always blame the OS, or the video card, or cosmic radiation, etc. -- I got a refund). I really do want to make my own PVR one day, but I'm afraid the time is not yet right. Almost, but not quite.
everything in moderation
Both TiVo and Replay run on the Linux operating system
TiVo does run Linux, but Replay uses some embedded realtime OS. Definitely not Linux.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
Do what TiVO does with cable boxes -- get an IR blaster. Program the PVR with the codes to change channels on your Sky TV box, and let it change the channels on the STB for you. Any good PVR app will have support for this.
As a side note, TiVO has recently (within the past 6 months or so) started supporting certain cable boxes via the serial port, and they do support many satellite boxes via the serial port as well (just in case you had a TiVO before you got on DirecTV, and didn't want to get the DirecTiVO). However, the IR blaster approach is still required for a lot of cable boxes, and it works.
Quack, quack.
I built my own PVR last year, but even with MyHTPC it failed the spouse test badly. So when I saw those $150 ReplayTVs for sale in Radio Shack I pounced on them. I bought two. At $150 they deliver amazingly good MPEG-2 capture so for the same price as a PVR-250 I get free guide and streaming.
Contrary to the experiences described in this article, my ReplayTVs work flawlessly. Plugged in to the home network, DHCP served them up IPs, they downloaded their info and updated their software. They use uPnP to auto-discover other ReplayTVs on the network and integrate them very well in their on-screen UI.
In fact the UI is a big win - it passes the spouse test easily. Browsing material on the base machine, from another ReplayTV, or from the PC file server is takes a single button push. The ReplayTVs handle program contention intelligently, offering to offload a conflicted recording slot to a "spare" ReplayTV on the network.
The clever Java program DVArchive uses uPnP to imitate a ReplayTV and enables you to upload, stream, or move recorded content from the auto-discovered ReplayTVs. In effect, each ReplayTV acts like a big, external MPEG-2 capture card with lots of ports and functionality.
All ReplayTVs on the network can, of course, stream from any DVArchive-equipped file server to any ReplayTV.
You can even schedule DVArchive to automatically grab recorded material from the ReplayTVs on a batch basis, providing an easy way to create large archives. I have set up some watched folders where new material gets automatically batch encoded to MPEG-4 (xvid) for archiving.
There's a big user community associated with DVArchive.
All in all I am very satisfied with my ReplayTV setup. It is totally integrated into my home media setup (1 TB RAID-5 file server) and works effortlessly. The ReplayTVs automatically skip adverts (works pretty well) and there's an active between ReplayTV units. Useful if you want to pick up a season half-way through.
I avoided Tivo, partly because of cost, but mainly because of its incipient DRM. I was afraid I would have to expend significant effort to create a spouse-friendly PVR system but thankfully my networked ReplayTVs have obviated this requirement for a while.
Da Blog
ExtremeTech has a good recent article on building your own home theater PC (basically, a high end PC-based PVR). Nice configuration they got there. I'm thinking of doing something similar, but with the Antec Overture case.
Hmm. If you just wait until a special, you can get a PVR w/ dual tuners for free by switching your video provider (CAT/SAT).. There's always some special going on by one of the major companies. Yeah, you'll get a 12 month contract, but whoopee-do.
$29/mo x 12mo = $348.00. That's for a year of basic satellite service (~125 channels) with a 40 hour unit for 'free'. As the PVR prices continue to tumble, you'll find that PVR units will become standard-with-service in a couple of years.
Sure, "hacking" is fun, but only when it's improving something and learning in the process. I know Linux/BSD as well as I ever care to, so there's nothing new to learn by typing 'rpm -i Myth' or 'make install' and edit a conf file, or two, after building a new box. I've seen too many people refer to this as hacking, thus my mention of it. Don't call it that unless you are writing your own code or have either utilized a soldering gun or dremmel in your project.
Don't get me wrong, I am not critizing people's efforts. I think it's great that folks are using this to learn something new. But, it hardly replaces a set-top PVR or saves any money.
Here's the reasons, as I see them:
Multiple tuners - lets you record one show while watching another, record two shows while watching another previously recorded one. This issue has only ever been responded to with "You watch too much TV" cracks, but I watch about 4 hours a week and have two series with over-lapping schedules. If I had one tuner, I would miss one of them.
Realtime encoding/decoding - This goes with the multiple tuners issue. My unit can encode two shows at once while playing a third one back. This is all done without any slowdowns on a dinky CPU.
Remotes - A task specific remote. VCR style controls, never have to touch a keyboard. No dead buttons. No extra buttons.
Wife/child friendly - If it crashes, the most you ever do is pull the card and power cycle. Boots in 15 seconds and picks up where it left off (recording or playing back), no loss in material except for the off-time. I don't want them having to worry about ever having to see a console or have any bugs surface that can't be fixed by a power cycle or press of a button on the remote.
No fuss in the event of a failure - If a lease or in warranty: Call your SAT/CAT provider and they will Fed Ex you a whole new unit in the even of a failure. If it's old and you own it, then simply take advantage of the market and switch providers for 12 months, get a free new one.
I know some folks are very dependant or faithful to one provider. Don't be. They all just want your money, just because one has a cooler name and you like blue icons better, that doesn't mean you need to not play the market. There's plenty of money to be saved and the tactic of branding is just that, a marketing tactic. Shop around, get cool stuff for nothing, enjoy!