Second Generation Homebrew PVR Devices

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the second generation of homebrew PVRs is on its way. Asus recently released their Digimatrix barebones PC which combines a lot of features in a very slim and stylish box. DVD/CD-R, WiFi, HDTV tuner, FM Tuner, memory card reader etc. All for ~$400. The reviews look good, except that the software that comes with it doesn't look all that great... of course this may not be a problem because there has already been significant effort in getting linux to run on it and most features are working. Combine MythTV with this device and you have an almost perfect PVR? I wonder what other hardware companies have in store for the homebrew PVR market?"

Comments

I wonder how much power it draws

[brokeninside]

With a Pentium IV and a fast system bus, I would expect this thing to draw a lot of power. When I went from an Athlon based system to an iMac, my power bill dropped by almost ten bucks a month. I'd hate to see it spike from a set top appliance.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[ciroknight]

Not hard to do the math, but it'll probably average out at about 100-200 watts, as this is what typical PC's will run, and well... for all purposes, it's a fullsized PC, shrank into a smaller box.

This Could Be A Job For.. Pentium M! Using today's latest and greatest SpeedStep Technology, Pentium M offers extreme flexibility and speed, at the low power of an Embedded/Laptop processor. This would be the perfect application for Low Voltage models too.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Daengbo]

Geez, and I was thinking Nehemiah core from VIA. How much do the Pent Ms cost now? I haven't yet seen them in my country (of course, neither have I seen the Epia...) because the Thai IT stores are entirely buzzword compliant.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[ciroknight]

Agreed on the Via chip, but I haven't gotten my hands on one yet to play with ;). Deconstructed a Laptop to play with centrino in a more, traditional, environment. Pentium M's still very expensive (cheapest i've seen is 250$ for a 1.4...), but considering the speed (Outperforms a 2.0 P4, 1.6 athlon), it's worth the investment, except you have to find a board to use with it :(

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[afidel]

Pentium M desktop isn't available, only laptop processors at this point. If you could buy individual Pentium M's they wouldn't be cheap "the slowest Pentium M, a 1.3GHz chip, costs $209 with 1M byte of cache.. That's from Infoworld in January, not sure if there has been a price drop on them yet.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

$10/month ??? What the hell do you pay for power?

Here we pay $0.06 US/KwH. Lets say I had a regular barebones athlon system:
Motherboard
Athlon 2400+
geforce4mx video card
1 hard drive 7200rpm
1 cd-rom or dvd-rom
1 512MB ddr chip

This is going to pull about 200W max and more likely 150W continuous

An IMac takes 130W continuous:
http://www.talktothemac.com.au/Apple_ Folders/imac/ specs.html

200W * 24 * 30 = 144kwh = $8.64 US
130 * 24 * 30 = 93.6kwh = $5.52 US

A savings of $3.02 US/month.

And yeah, I have built the above little cheapie box and actually measured the continuous power.

Either your numbers or off or you are bullshitting...

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[firstadopter.com]

Unfortunately it will be a long while before the software becomes as easy to use and intuitive like Tivo. Although Tivo's slowness is showing it's age these days.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

I run several computers here in California. (The home of the egregiously high energy prices). FUCK YOU PG&E! But I do not fear having several compters running. 1.)SPARCserver 20 2.)p4 1.8GHz desktop 3.)p4 1.6GHz server. also 2 routers 1 wifi and one just regular (for all the other computers in the house too). Also a House fan with a filtrete filter in my room running on high 24/7 courtesy of this slashdot article. Also my lizard's light is always on, infrared at night, basking light during the day.

Let PG&E eat cake!

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Canadian1729]

It's already years beyond TiVo. It doesn't tie you into a subscription model where when the company dies the hardware becomes an overpriced doorstop.

For that reason alone, I'd pay more for this box than the TiVo+lifetime subscription.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[realdpk]

You're forgetting the monitor.

My computer - Athlon XP 2600+, GeForce Ti 4200, 1 7200RPM drive, 1 CD burner, and an LCD monitor NEC 1760BK use a total of 186W of power, idle but display on, according to my UPS. A 17" CRT (Sony) takes about 78W alone (just tested it).

So more likely, your computer will idle close to ~160W, and then you can add ~20W (LCD) or ~75W (CRT). 180W and 235W respectively.

We pay 8 cents per kWh here (4 cents if you're under a certain rediculously low maximum). 180W, $10.40/mo, 230W $13.53. Assuming you just leave it on and don't do anything with it, like surf slashdot or play a game... ;) Then it goes up.

The iMac should cost about $7.48/month to run. It's not quite $10, but it's still a significant drop (almost half if you start with a CRT). Even more of a drop if you use a high wattage chip such as a late model P4.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Endive4Ever]

Does a TiVo really become an overpriced doorstop? It runs Linux, right? So you can probably dig in there and make it a stand-alone recorder/player if you want.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[ratsnapple tea]

I don't know about you, but $12.95 a month is worth it for me not to be annoyed by a piss-poor design every time I pick up the remote. Did you see this article? TiVo paid a lot of attention to the UI of their product, and it shows.

That's just me, of course; YMMV. TiVo probably won't appeal as much to people who lack good taste.

By the way, TiVo's data feed was reverse engineered a long time ago, but the hackers who figured it out aren't releasing the format as a courtesy to TiVo (the company). If TiVo ever goes under, you can bet your box won't become an "overpriced doorstop."

yours

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

It also doesn't report back your viewing habits to advertisers, and deliver ads. That's the true power of open source.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

"Be seeing you!"

Not if we see you first.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

"If both sides are mad at us, we must be doing something right."

Or something so wrong that it's obvious to everybody.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Brian Stretch]

FWIW, my Athlon 64 3200+, three 7200RPM IDE HDs, GeForceFX 5700 Ultra, DVD, several 80mm fans, VG191 flat panel, and printer on standby burn 140W according to my UPS while the CPU is in Cool 'n' Quiet mode. The upcoming CG revision Athlon 64 will do even better. Using a Seasonic Super Tornado high-efficiency power supply helps quite a bit too. My last electric bill was $35, and that's with an Athlon 1700+ two HD box running 24x7 in addition to the workstation running most of the day.

Anyhow, yeah, a P4 makes no sense for that ASUS box, or much of anything else IMHO (grin). A Pentium-M would make sense if someone absolutely must be an Intel fanboy.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[evilad]

From your spec page, the iMac takes 130W maximum continuous.

That means the processor is pegged, the hard drive is grinding, and you are burning a DVD over the network and downloading an ISO over the modem while blasting brit-pop over the builtin speakers. Oh, and running a 3D benchmarking application.

An unlikely scenario.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Zarquon]

Except _you_ forgot this is a thread on PVR boxes. The monitor is your television, and it is only on when you are using it.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[timeOday]

There is already TiVo and ReplayTV, I don't don't think we need another shrinkwrapped "don't look inside" consumer product.

What I want is a cheap, quiet, hackable box that records and replays high-quality audio and video, with all the normal expansion slots (because I'd also like it to replace my "home server" which does a bunch of other stuff).

It's a challenge to do, because the only suitable encoder/decoder is the Hauppauge PVR 350 pci card, which is almost $200 by itself.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[dubiousmike]

So what I get from what you are saying is that it doesn't matter which platform and hardware you run (when considering electricity consumption) but that we should all move from CRTs to LCDs?

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[dnoyeb]

What good will a TiVo protocol be without a TiVo server to connect to?

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[mlrtime]

zap2it via xmltv. If you think zap2it is too slow or unreliable, they are offering a new API that is reliable and fast, but not free.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Canadian1729]

Sure it's worth the $13 a month; I never complained about the price. To me though, it's worth a lot more than that to avoid dealing with a company with a warped producting design. A PVR is a piece of hardware, not a service (unless you *want* to pay for the program data). So for the TiVo to have any value to me, it has to have all the features functional except the program data with no connection back home. Right now, it can't even match the functionality of a VCR on its own.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay for it. Zap2it provides a great, free service, and I often wonder how. When people start integrating it into set-top boxes I think it's only right they get a little bit of money.

I should say, I'd pay for it if I still watched TV - which doesn't seem to be the case any longer. Oh well, I *used* to be a daily Zap2it visitor.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[ivan256]

$0.06? Holy crap!

I pay $0.19.

Makes your math come out a bit different, huh?

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be pretty amazed if a typical LCD iMac ever uses even half that. They're not substantially different from an iBook G4, which pulls a little under 10W ideally, 15W typically, and around 25W max. The iMac has a larger display and somewhat brighter backlight, a 3.5" hard drive, and it does have a DVD burner, but even so I'd guess 50W is a heavy load. The 130W figure is probably more about engineering tolerance than real-world use.

I'd also note that you're unlikely to use some power-hungry subsystems together - burning (or even playing) a DVD or CD while playing a 3D game, for instance. A lot of people do have an iPod charging and/or an external Firewire drive being powered, though (an extra watt or so).

Anyone have one on a UPS and can report?

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

Will all the morons who modded this up please bow your head in shame for thinking people didn't use the TV already connected to the box. Sheesh.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap more moron moderators. Thats like 9 points in one page I've seen wasted by people who don't use their brains. If Tivo goes under then NO decoder will be able to decode the dead signal.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[realdpk]

Yeah, but forget all about the thread's context, where the poster was talking about power use when they swapped their computers.

Might I recommend reading /. in threaded mode, so you can understand the concept of context?

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Anonymous Coward]

"By the way, TiVo's data feed was reverse engineered a long time ago, but the hackers who figured it out aren't releasing the format as a courtesy to TiVo (the company). If TiVo ever goes under, you can bet your box won't become an "overpriced doorstop.""

History Channel. 4:00am.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[ElliotLee]

the slowest Pentium M, a 1.3GHz chip

Actually, there is a 1.2 GHz Pentium M, and it's "low voltage". There's one in my dad's Dell Inspiron 300m laptop.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Qacker]

Transmeta Chips! They will cut down power usage.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[afidel]

Like I said, it was a quote from Infoworld magazine from January, if there's a technical problem with it then it's there's, not mine =)

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[Gumber]

A via isn't going to be able to do some things, like encode MPEG4 real time, at least not at their current clockspeeds, and it isn't going to do much for modern games. I'm also not sure it will handle playback of a HiDef MPEG4 source, or if its up to running something like descaler.

That said, its probably fine if you are just doing playback, or using a hardware MPEG2 encoder.

I'm actually debating whether to use a VIA for my HTPC. My plan is to use tuner cards with hardware MPEG2 encoders, so a Via should be fine, but i'm limited if I want to do anything different.

Re:I wonder how much power it draws

[pmayall]

The important issue here is that the original poster 's comments are written such that the only conclusion that may be drawn is that the iMac is better/less costly to power than his Athlon. The other threads, quite correectly, point out that a number of other significant factors were not addressed.

'Nuff said...

Cheers

Sorry but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!

Re:Sorry but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you are a sorry butt.

I like this whole idea

[www.fuckingdie.com]

It would be a refreshing change from the everyday norm to have all of our "Comsumer Electronics" built on an open platform. If someone built a computer that was the size of a slim DVD player, and could be operated using any operating system I wanted, I would jump on it.

But for now at least we still have to put up with either a rather large Media PC, one that doesn't quite fit in with the other components of your home theater I mean, or whatever PoS companies like Sony want to jam down our throats this model year.

So to make a long story short I would like to see a Computer that looks, and feels, like a super slim DVD player, and Runs Linux. Not too much to ask I think, and then I would be able to do as I please with it.

Disclaimer: If something like this actually exists please let me know about it. I have, after all, been living in the middle of nowhere northern BC for about 19 years.

Re:I like this whole idea

[KingOfBLASH]

You know I am pretty sure creating such a beast shouldn't be a problem. Watch.

Step 1: Get yourself a small form factor PC, like the ThinkGeek Cappucino or The Open Brick or build your own cool looking mini PC.

Step 2: Get yourself a USB DVD drive (brownie points for DVD burners)

Step 3: Get a USB TV Card that runs under Linux (Note: I did a quick google, but I'd bet money you could find one that worked much better. And that page was talking about spotty TV signals in 2002. I bet it's gotten better)

Step 4: Download a copy of MythTV

Bingo! You've now got a PVR which will either look nice in your stereo cabinet (like that ThinkGeek case), or which you can keep hidden, save for the external DVD drive (and since every DVD player has a DVD drive in it, you're not going to find anything with a much smaller footprint). And, it shouldn't be too hard to hide the OpenBrick. And all for under $1500.

Re:I like this whole idea

[enrico_suave]

well, it's not *quite* as thin... but if you have the money there certainly are sexy cases out there for mini-itx EPIA VIA motherboards... throw in a right angle pci riser and a hauppauge wintv PVR 350 and you should be dancing, right?

There are distro's of linux tailored to run on this platform too...

*Shrug*

e.

Re:I like this whole idea

[Polo]

This post is a little simplistic. I've downloaded mythtv and even used knoppixmyth which is even easier to use, but getting things to work are far from easy.

Bingo = between two days and a week of effort.

From what I can tell, all the people who've gotten mythtv to work successfully have used a hauppage pvr-250 or pvr-350. Other brands work, but need considerable tinkering.

I think I'm going to document my entire "journey" to help other people get going faster...

Re:I like this whole idea

[KingOfBLASH]

This post is a little simplistic. I've downloaded mythtv and even used knoppixmyth which is even easier to use, but getting things to work are far from easy.

I made no claims about the time involved -- only the parts and the money. Yes, you would probably need to know what you were doing, and know your way around the Linux command line. However, I wanted to point out that it was possible if you wanted to.

If you're going to shell out $1000 to $1500 to build a PVR when you can buy a Tivo for a couple hundred, it's for the fun / geekiness of it, not because you want a PVR. (And, of course, you could just buy the one featured in this slashdot article to hack if you really want MythTV).

Re:I like this whole idea

[dj245]

I'm scared, Gates. It's that media center convergence circus out there, I'm beginning to enjoy it. Look, any longer out on that slashdot website and I'm one of them, a terminal psychotic, except that I've got this moderator badge that says that I'm one of the good guys.

-Mad Max

Re:I like this whole idea

[The Vulture]

Hell yeah, I have to agree. I could have shelled out a total of $500-$600 for a TiVo with a lifetime subscription, but I like to do things the hard way, it seems. I was seriously considering the TiVo, because it would just work.

Then, I did some investigation into do-it-yourself PVR's, and stumbled onto MythTV and Freevo. I tried Freevo first, and didn't really like it (even before using it to watch TV), but the clincher was that, at that time, it didn't support PVR functionality (rewinding through the live TV stream).

I had (still have to some extent) a bunch of older hardware kicking around, so I decided to give MythTV a shot. The hardware was somewhat under-powered, but if I scaled down the capture resolution (to 320x480, for instance), I was able to get it to work. That was enough for me to start spec'ing out some new hardware and make purchases over a period of time.

It was definitely a learning experience in putting together a MythTV machine, helping find bugs, submitting a small code patch or two. I'd do it again, but that's because I'm usually up for a good challenge. If you want something that just works, seriously, buy a TiVo, that's what they do is make devices that work.

-- Joe

Re:I like this whole idea

[JohnGalt00]

It's been a while since I've seen a USB TV tuner, but you might want to be careful with those things. In college, my roomate had a USB TV tuner, and I had a PCI TV Tuner. There was a very noticable difference in quality. The USB bus is limited to 12 megs a second, while PCI is limited to 33 megs a second. I'm completely speculating that that is the cause of the difference in quality, but you should still be careful with those things.

A Hauppage PVR-350 works great for a MythTV box, and has a built in TV-Out that works in linux. Then you get a TV Tuner + TV out in one PCI slot.

Re:I like this whole idea

[KingOfBLASH]

Hmmmm. Do firewire TV tuners exist? They could definitely have enough bandwidth for good resolution, but a quick search of Buy.com didn't turn up any, and who knows if they would work on Linux even if they existed.

Re:I like this whole idea

[elmegil]

From what I can tell, all the people who've gotten mythtv to work successfully have used a hauppage pvr-250 or pvr-350. Other brands work, but need considerable tinkering.

Not even remotely true. I have an AverMedia TV Stereo, about the most generic software-driven cap card you can find, and Knoppmyth was pretty much a breeze to install. Only glitch was a formatting issue with XMLTV, which really wasn't Myth's fault. The latest KnoppMyth is supposed to have resolved this, or what I did was read the KnoppMyth forums and apply a small change to the XMLTV script. Woo hoo. Done.

Re:I like this whole idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Get yourself a USB DVD drive

Sorry this is just an AC rant.

But USB for high bandwidth devices like DVD drives is a travesty of tech. Such devices should use Firewire! For the love of SHIT put more firewire on PCs for FUCK SAKE.

Re:I like this whole idea

[justMichael]

Here, have a look at these, they are beautiful, but expensive.

I'm just about to pull the trigger on one of these, one more clinet to finish up and I just might be ready.

Re:I like this whole idea

[KingOfBLASH]

They sell those too. :-D

Re:I like this whole idea

[saden1]

Speak for yourself. This thing is garbage and not worth the god damn $400 asking price IMO! Notice that I said IMO. When I want to buy PVR, I don't want a god damn computer with 2 gig of ram and screaming CPU. All I really want is a device that is affordable and does the job, which is to record my TV shows and shit. If it can access my network shared drive and play some of my divx/mpeg files that would be great (actually that is a must nowadays). What I don't want to do is spend $400 on a bare bone box like this digimagica thingy and then buy a CPU, memory, and a hard drive. This will probably push the cost to $700 or more.

Your average Joe wants a device like TiVO that can record their favorite show and be able to play their favorite divx/mpeg files on their shared drive.

Re:I like this whole idea

[The Vulture]

Granted, I now have a PVR-250 and a PVR-350 in my MythTV machine, but I started out with dual BT878 capture cards (a Pinnacle PCTV Rave and a Hauppauge WinTV/Radio).

Although the picture quality of the PVR-x50 cards are better, I would argue that MythTV actually runs better on the BT8x8 cards, only because the ivtv driver is a bit unstable still.

The two main reasons why everybody raves about the PVR-250 cards (and thus tends to go with them) under MythTV are:
1. The graphics quality is SO much better. Even when you crank up the resolution on the BT8x8 cards to 720x480, there's still a noticable difference in picture quality (although, this could be due to the software codecs).
2. While giving this amazing picture quality, the bulk of the work is done on the PVR-x50 card. Thus, the main CPU remains free for other things.

I can speak from first hand experience, trying to do a dual-tuner system using BT8x8 cards really chews up CPU power. If you have the settings set up too high, and you end up recording two things at once (watching Live TV counts as a recording), then you'll end up dropping frames in the second recording (stuttering). The PVR-x50 eliminates all of these worries (assuming you have a motherboard that can handle the DMA traffic).

-- Joe

Re:I like this whole idea

[MrBlue VT]

The only thing I'm really waiting for before launching into building a PVR system is for a windows port of the MythTV frontend. That would kick ass since a lot of my machines happen to run windows.

Re:I like this whole idea

[gabebear]

Those are sweet, but still cost to much. I have yet to track down a sub $500 itx computer that would work for PVR duty.

I realllllly hope the Playstation 3 has a PVR built into it. I would just have to buy one then... It's probably a lot more likely that the PS3 will have a PVR builtin than be able to play PS2 games.

Re:I like this whole idea

[Prof. Reginald]

Has anyone ever considered using the guts of a laptop? that would be a pretty slim computer.

Re:I like this whole idea

[The Vulture]

I feel that I should point out a couple of things for anybody considering getting a PVR-350 for Linux at the moment:
1. Even though the PVR-350 has TV-Out on it, AFAIK, you'll still need a regular video card in your PC (I don't think that motherboard BIOS' will recognize the PVR-350 as a video card, though I may be wrong on that).
2. PVR-350 TV-Out at the moment isn't that great. Last I heard, it's just a framebuffer, so unless you're running specific apps that will use the acceleration, like mplayer, MythTV (for watching MPEG-2 recordings only, I think), and maybe Xine, it's extremely slow. And for applications that require some sort of GL support, well, forget it (people have had numerous troubles with the MythGame module/XMAME)..
3. Apparently there's some issues regarding using the PVR-350 to record, and using the TV-Out at the same time.

However, your advice is still sound. I bought a PVR-350, and at the moment, I'm using it as a PVR-250, using my GeForce 4MX for TV-Out. Once the ivtv driver stabilizes, I'll switch to the PVR-350. There's been a lot of traffic on the ivtv mailing list lately with patches for testing and the like.

-- Joe

Re:I like this whole idea

[toddlg]

My "free" HTPC went from Freevo, to mythTV, to Knoppmyth, to the (gasp!) Windows-based (free for personal use, not open source) myHTPC front end.

The author has not released anything for it since August because he's coming out with a new and improved version sometime real soon.

Despite that, there's an active community writing/tweaking modules for it, and I've got it to do what I want so far (show the TV listings and weather) since I've not got a Hauppauge card yet.

I decided to go with myHTPC because for me the learning curve was not quite as steep re: $distro vs. W2K pro.

I've got a wireless nic in it for the TV/weather updating, use TightVNC to admin it, use it with my StreamZAP remote to control Winamp, etc.

I almost went with a Linux solution, but just getting this box set up (in an Antec Overture case, btw) has tickled my hardware/fiddling bone enough and I'm able to use it now. YMMV

Re:I like this whole idea

[The Vulture]

The way I look at it, to each their own.

I investigated myHTPC, read the forums, checked out the available software, and didn't really find what I was looking for. I would imagine that the situation has since changed.

MythTV in the beginning for me was quite challenging, and I've been using UNIX in some form or another for 10+ years (in fact, I learned UNIX before I learned Windows, turned out to be a fluke in high school computer lab scheduling). There was always documentation for MythTV that evolved, but back when I started using it (MythTV version 0.9 I think), it was still kind of spotty, and there wasn't a straight, easy to follow HOWTO. And compiling, LOTS of compiling, if you wanted everything installed.

That situation has since changed, there's plenty of RPM packages for Fedora Core 1, AptForRPM takes care of the dependences, and Jarod Wilson has written an excellent MythTV HOWTO.

I used to have a wireless NIC in my MythTV machine, but the RealTek driver (binary driver) crashes with Fedora, so I can't use that. I adminster my machine (the rare time I need to) via SSH, and use a universal remote control with the IR receiver on the PVR-250.

I ended up buying a desktop ATX case before the Overture came out (a cheap case), and when it did came out, I was kind of kicking myself. Just out of curiousity, how is it? I've heard both good and bad about it, the main thing is the cooling. Does it run really hot?

-- Joe

Re:I like this whole idea

[Moofie]

Since when was /. read by average Joes?

Dude. This computer is not going to take away your Tivo. Settle down.

Re:I like this whole idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Or spend less time than mythTV (five minute install, and it works)
and less money than Tivo (no subscription charges)
and more compatibility than both, (installs on many different TV-cards)
and get Beyond TV for around ~50-60
http://www.snapstream.com/Products/Product s_PVS3.a sp

Re:I like this whole idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be an idiot. I've installed mythtv on mandrake in 30 minutes. Works great!

Re:I like this whole idea

[Emil Brink]

Um. Your numbers are a bit misleading, although that of course doesn't change the value of your story. USB 1.1, which I assume you were using since you're talking about "the past" and USB 2.0 is rather recent, has a max bandwidth of 12 megabits/second. That's 1.5 megabytes/second, of course. PCI, on the other hand, starts out as a 33 MHz bus that is 32 bits wide, for a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 133 megabytes/second. Thus, "raw PCI" is roughly 90 times faster than USB 1.1. Just wanted to point that out, since factual errors of this nature tend to annou the anal geek within. ;^)

Re:I like this whole idea

[Kent Recal]

the ThinkGeek Cappucino

Isn't the cappucino from the early generation of "mini-PCs" which were loud due to cooling requirements (fan-noise!)?

I want it silent so I'd rather consider a Shuttle XPC Zen or something like that.

Re:I like this whole idea

[saden1]

Slashdotters are tightfisted bastards.

Re:I like this whole idea

[timeOday]

I would be very interested to hear your subjective opinion of ivtv stability. (I've been thinking about getting a PVR350 for quite a while, but I don't want to jump in if it's going to be a constant headache. At the same time I'm not satisfied with the picture or sound quality from my current tuner card.)

Also can the PVR 350's hardware decoder handle input from a DVD drive, and does IVTV support that? It may seem like a small detail, but for me it drives the cpu requirement for the whole box.

Re:I like this whole idea

[LinuxOnEveryDesktop]

I feel that I should point out a couple of things for anybody considering getting a PVR-350 for Linux at the moment:

Kindly allow me to counter those points, as someone who _actually has set up a working MythTV system_ with a PVR350.

1. Even though the PVR-350 has TV-Out on it, AFAIK, you'll still need a regular video card in your PC (I don't think that motherboard BIOS' will recognize the PVR-350 as a video card, though I may be wrong on that).


So? Most motherboards come with a video card built-in nowadays.

2. PVR-350 TV-Out at the moment isn't that great. Last I heard, it's just a framebuffer, so unless you're running specific apps that will use the acceleration, like mplayer, MythTV (for watching MPEG-2 recordings only, I think), and maybe Xine, it's extremely slow. And for applications that require some sort of GL support, well, forget it (people have had numerous troubles with the MythGame module/XMAME)..


I'm sorry, but that's crap. It's not 'extremely slow'. Have you tried recent versions of the ivtv driver with the proper patches? I don't think so.


3. Apparently there's some issues regarding using the PVR-350 to record, and using the TV-Out at the same time.


This is true, there are driver instability issues, particularly on this point. But they are, in my experience, very dependant on hardware (avoid VIA chipsets). I had all the trouble in the world with an older EPIA system and a PVR-350 (though there are plenty of success stories with that combination!) until I switched to an even older PIII system on a decent Abit board, and the latest version of the IVTV driver with some patches by Chris Kennedy. No more DMA issues. It works very stable now.


However, your advice is still sound. I bought a PVR-350, and at the moment, I'm using it as a PVR-250, using my GeForce 4MX for TV-Out. Once the ivtv driver stabilizes, I'll switch to the PVR-350. There's been a lot of traffic on the ivtv mailing list lately with patches for testing and the like.

Now that is true :) Keep an eye on the ivtv list, and don't despair!

Re:I like this whole idea

[alienw]

USB is limited to 12 Mbps, which is ~1.2 megabytes a second. PCI is limited to 33 megabytes a second (over 30 times faster).

Re:I like this whole idea

[Jozer99]

Remember to add the 20000 man hours to recompile your kernel and rewrite MythTV to work, than a lawsuit for throwing your computer at your neighbors head after it does not work after the 20000 hours, then $2000 for therapy for feelings of stupidity because you could have done the same thing with a $200 TiVo and a $300 iPod.

Re:I like this whole idea

[The Vulture]

Right now, it all depends on how much patching you're willing to do.

I build MythTV from the RPMs that are done by Axel Thimm, which are linked to in Jarod's MythTV website. From what I have read on the MythTV mailing list, there are some issues with X/MythTV on the PVR-350 TV-Out. From Jarod's own website (which might be a bit dated):

General notes and observations from my first few days of using the PVR-350's TV-Out:

* mplayer WILL play back movies through the 350's tv-out, but the processor has to do all the decoding and the sound has to go through your sound card. However, even on an Athlon XP 2400 system, video playback isn't entirely smooth (for high-quality divx rips). Better support for the 350 as an output device is slated for a future mplayer release.
* Trying to use MythGallery locked up the frontend, MythDVD suffers from the same problems as mplayer (until you use a patched mplayer, which I haven't yet tried). I haven't yet tried MythGame or MythMusic.
* On many TVs, the picture is heavily overscanned. I haven't yet tried tweaking the XF86Config mode to see if I can reduce it, though I've seen indications on the mythtv-users mailing list that this may not be something one should attempt. For reference, I'm currently having to manually specify a MythTV window size of something like 632x472, 40 pixel X offset, 8 pixel Y offset, to fit it to the screen. This will vary heavily from TV to TV.
* Thus far, I'm not seeing a monstrous difference between the 350's output and a GF4MX's output (both via SVid), but I would say the picture is a bit sharper in scenes with high motion (I see a soft edge to things w/the GF4MX that are very sharp w/the 350).
* I think the 350's picture is a touch sharper than when I'm feeding my HDTV a progressive-scan signal via my VGA->Component video adapter, but not by a huge amount. The adapter wins hands-down for me though, because of my large divx collection (both because of 350 playback issues and resolution), the far superior readability (yes, I occasionally web browse on it, occasionally use the shell on it, etc., and a progressive-scan signal is WORLDS better for that), and stability
* So far as stability, I hadn't had a single crash of my MythTV system in ages until introducing the 350. Generally, it works great, but I've froze up the frontend a number of times in a few days, caused two or three crashes of the backend (which is on an entirely different machine), and completely hard-locked the system twice (I've been hammering on it pretty good though). At the moment, I'm back to using the output on my GeForce 4 MX, because I'll take stability over a slight picture quality improvement any day. The 350 was slaughtering the high WAF (Wife Approval Factor) MythTV had been enjoying for some time. ;-)

Myself, I use the IVTV driver with very few problems, using both the PVR-250 and PVR-350 as hardware encoders (but use a GeForce 4MX for TV-Out). My MythTV machine stays on 24/7, and I don't really run into too many problems. The most annoying problem right now (and I'm not sure if it's IVTV, MythTV or lirc) is that if I was recording something on card 1, and watching TV on card 2, when I change channels on card 2 (after card 1 is finished recording), then I get all sorts of stuttering problems. But, if I exit TV, and restart it, then all is fine.

If I understand things correctly, the "stable" branch of IVTV is being maintained by other developers while the main developer(s) go on with the 0.2 branch, which should fix most of the issues.

For now, my recommendation is go for it, but unless you feel like putting in patches, then use it as a PVR-350, and just wait.

I can't answer the question about DVD playback, because I haven't configured my PVR-350 for DVD playback.

-- Joe

Re:I like this whole idea

[The Vulture]

So? Most motherboards come with a video card built-in nowadays.

Sure, if you go with MicroATX. Most ATX motherboard do NOT come with onboard video (at least not according to looking at the 18 or so motherboards displayed at Fry's).

I'm sorry, but that's crap. It's not 'extremely slow'. Have you tried recent versions of the ivtv driver with the proper patches? I don't think so.

While it may be true that recent patches fix things, I have a stable MythTV machine using the IVTV RPM from Axel's site (ivtv-0.1.9-24.rhfc1.at - not the latest and greatest, but one rev back). I'm not about to apply a bunch of patches just to "maybe" get things working. With the stock ivtv driver (which is what I and many other people use), it has been reported that even on a fast Athlon machine (XP 2400+), DiVX video playback (as an example) is extremely slow.

From what I have read on the MythTV and ivtv mailing lists, the big problem is that the PVR-350 framebuffer driver does not support XVideo extensions, which means that there is no accelerated video playback, unless the video is in a format that the PVR-350 natively handles. So, outside of maybe watching TV in MythTV or watching MPEG-2 videos, the PVR-350 will be slow.

If you feel confident applying patches to get things to work, great. I feel confident as well, but my MythTV machine works for me with it's current configuration, and since already have a TV-Out card that works, I'll continue to use it until there's a new ivtv release that irons out the problems.

This is true, there are driver instability issues, particularly on this point. But they are, in my experience, very dependant on hardware (avoid VIA chipsets). I had all the trouble in the world with an older EPIA system and a PVR-350 (though there are plenty of success stories with that combination!) until I switched to an even older PIII system on a decent Abit board, and the latest version of the IVTV driver with some patches by Chris Kennedy. No more DMA issues. It works very stable now.

Again, because of the above compatibility issues, I haven't been using my PVR-350 for TV-Out, but there have also been reported problems with the OSD (On Screen Display) causing problems and using previews in the Watch Recordings screen on MythTV. While I agree with your assertion that VIA hardware and PVR-x50 cards don't seem to get along under Linux very well (I replaced my KT-400-based board with a SiS748-based board recently, it helped quite a bit), I think that's still a driver issue. Apparently there are patches in testing, but when those will get merged into a new 0.1.10 release of the ivtv driver is unknown.

It's interesting that you switched to an slower CPU and some of your problems went away. There's been some speculation on the ivtv mailing list that there's some timing issues on faster CPUs.

-- Joe

Re:I like this whole idea

[3waygeek]

The new DCT-6200 HDTV cable boxes have firewire outputs. Some people over at AVSforum have been able to record from the 1394 interface on Mac & Linux boxen. A few have even gotten it to work with Windows.

I just got a 6200 this week; I'd planned on putting togther a Shuttle box to capture the 1394 output, but I might try the Asus box now; I've used many Asus boards in the past, and have been very happy with them.

Re:I like this whole idea

[LinuxOnEveryDesktop]

From what I have read on the MythTV and ivtv mailing lists, the big problem is that the PVR-350 framebuffer driver does not support XVideo extensions, which means that there is no accelerated video playback, unless the video is in a format that the PVR-350 natively handles. So, outside of maybe watching TV in MythTV or watching MPEG-2 videos, the PVR-350 will be slow.

Correct, that is also my experience - MPEG-2 is done in hardware and hence snappy, all the rest is problematic. Sorry; I didn't quite get what you meant the first time.


If you feel confident applying patches to get things to work, great. I feel confident as well, but my MythTV machine works for me with it's current configuration, and since already have a TV-Out card that works, I'll continue to use it until there's a new ivtv release that irons out the problems.

Wise. ivtv is a bit in flux; and the problems are race conditions that only seem to plague some people - and not the main driver developer.

While I agree with your assertion that VIA hardware and PVR-x50 cards don't seem to get along under Linux very well (I replaced my KT-400-based board with a SiS748-based board recently, it helped quite a bit), I think that's still a driver issue. Apparently there are patches in testing, but when those will get merged into a new 0.1.10 release of the ivtv driver is unknown.

Oh totally, I'm sure it's a driver issue (though broken VIA chipsets may trigger it ;).

It's interesting that you switched to an slower CPU and some of your problems went away. There's been some speculation on the ivtv mailing list that there's some timing issues on faster CPUs.

Yeah; could be. I switched from a 900Mhz Epia Ezhra to a PIII 550Mhz, which seems to have made all the problems go away... It's also nice because it means that I don't have to recompile MythTV anymore (because that takes _forever_!).

Re:I like this whole idea

[timeOday]

Much thanks for the info. I'm disappointed playback doesn't work better, because I've become convinced that playback on a time-sharing CPU will always have jitter. Also I want to use a cool, cheap CPU and hardware encoding AND decoding is important to that. I'm loathe to shell out $200 for card that I can't fully harness.

Too bad Hauppauge won't release some OSS drivers, or at least assign an engineer to help ivtv. Linux users may not be much of the overall computer market, but I bet they're a huge chunk of the "build my own recording box instead of buying a TiVO" market.

Re:I like this whole idea

[akaihola]

MythTV works like a charm with my Technotrend DVB-C 1.0 Budget digital TV card. It looks like someone is even working on a patch for simultaneous recording of multiple TV channels from the same multiplex.

Too bad MythTV doesn't yet support editing commercials out from MPEG2 digital tv streams without re-encoding. GOPchop is unusable on a low-res TV screen with only a remote control, and avidemux2 can't seem to understand the current MythTV .nuv wrapper.

No HDTV tuner, re-attach jaws

[Chairboy]

There is no HDTV tuner. If you read the article, you'll see that it supports 'HDTV output', eg, VGA (since any HDTV that doesn't have a VGA port on the back can take a VGA signal (at the right rez) using a component adapter.

The rig in the article can only record regular TV.

Re:No HDTV tuner, re-attach jaws

[Anonymous Coward]

so what about this new ATI card?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/35621.ht ml

will it support linux?

Re:No HDTV tuner, re-attach jaws

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.pchdtv.com sells a Linux HDTV tuner card. There is some support for MythTV with this card.

Re:No HDTV tuner, re-attach jaws

[Lumpy]

and the tuner is utter crap.

if it is not almost identical to the PVR-250 then it is garbage.

I can record 4 different channels at the same time on a P-3 400 and not get above 6% system useage. using any of the conextant or bttv solutions is wasting time and making the whole PVR crap.

I looked at the asus machine, nice start, but no cigar. a coolermaster pvr case and a mini atx motherboard with a lower end Athalon (1.0ghz) is more horsepower than needed.. and many people are getting the tiny ITX boards working great.

the rig in the article is overpriced for what it is and does... and it will make a really crappy PVR as you can only run windows on it, and myHTPC is crud right now in the recording department.

Re:No HDTV tuner, re-attach jaws

[Comen]

Thanks for pointing this out, I just got done reading the article and was going to post
the same, but figured someone had noticed this.

There is a big difference betwen being able to output HDTV and having a HD tuner, being able to record HD would be nice and also output it.
Also getting a standard 1080i signal out of a VGA port is not easy and I had never got it to look right on my toshiba using a ATI 8500DV AIW and thier crappy HD Adapter. this might be better with thier newer cards adn drivers.

Re:No HDTV tuner, re-attach jaws

[gabebear]

I feel I must defend BTTV cards a little here.

My Athon XP 2100+ is totally maxxed out when I am encoding 2 MPEG4 streams, however the quality is pretty damn good(I encode at 480x480), and the video eats up less than 240KB/s, which means you can use it over wireless networks without other people on the network even noticing. I also don't have to have my machine re-encode the video afterwards.

That said, I may switch over to using a PVR 350 because I have ended up playing Unreal tournament on this same computer and not being able to play when my shows record sucks ass. Also, having another really nice video-out would be nice.

Re:No HDTV tuner, re-attach jaws

[bfree]

There is an advantage to the bttv style tuners, latency. In fairness this isn't going to effect many situations, but if you want to put a console through it it would be an issue, same if you wanted to listen to a live radio broadcast of what you are watching instead of the live tv audio. I'm sure people can come up with other examples, but whether it's a big deal in general ... probably not.

Also you can run Linux on this thing. There are reports of successful use with MythTV so you can run more than windows on it.

Re:No HDTV tuner, re-attach jaws

[Lumpy]

the PVR250 and the 350 will have NO problems with audio synch. plus with the computer you have I could encode 30 streams at 480X480 and still have CPU left over for UT2004

BTTV cards are great frame grabbers and webcam interfaces. they absolutely suck at TV recording and PVR duty when compared to real hardware like the PVR-250..

I strongly reccomend to everyone I meet, to NEVER EVER use anything but a PVR-250/350 for making a DVR/PVR/WhateverVR box.
and cince you can get the Aver copy for $80.00 it's a no-brainer to get.

really, get one or two.. they will make your BTTV card look really sad.

Re:No HDTV tuner, re-attach jaws

[gabebear]

I haven't seen any sync problems in my setup, but that is nice.

I have an old Matrox G200-TV I'm considering putting back into action as a PVR card, It has a built-in MJPEG encoder for the video, although the file-size is much bigger. It's quality is excellent, I've been using it to get video off tapes to put on DVDs.

I'm wondering is I'll get the same low CPU utilization as those PVR cards.

G200-TV's are cheap, I picked up mine for $50 about a year ago, I was going to use it with MythTv, but there wasn't a transcoder back the. MythTV has such a nice transcoder now, It does seem a shame not to use it.

Centrino

[ciroknight]

I would really love a box like this if it were Centrino instead of Pentium 4. Low power, cool running, and possibly one of the best wireless solutions available, IMO.

Which brings the question back of when Intel will bring the Pentium M back to the desktop. It is a little more AMD-ish look at processessing (Best parts of P3, with merged P4 technology), probably an overclockers dream, but it'd be a great embedded use chip.

Not to mention a centrino board has pretty much everything this would have, minus the tuner, which could be done via PCI.

Re:Centrino

[afidel]

Your opinion on wireless doesn't mean a whole lot then. Centrino's wireless PHY is crap, no one would be using it except Intel only allows companies to use the Centrino brand name (and use Intel marketing dollars) if they include the whole setup. Don't get me wrong, I love the Pentium M, just don't like the fact that Intel is pushing a substandard part on people. Not only that but they are still 9 months away from an A/B/G part, something everyone else has had for some time now.

Re:Centrino

[ciroknight]

No, what Intel has is ease of use. My Dell Centrino book took less than a minute to configure/reconfigure, for anywhere I went, not to mention it was much less obtrusive than the drivers that DLink included, which ran a utility that not only threw up ugly errors if my signal was shit, but had an ugly splash screen and caused this odd hard drive clicking at the weirdest of times (when the card woke up from sleeping is my only guess). No, I feel that Intel did great justice, and with their support in trying to make a linux driver, I see even more reason to be happy where I am.

Looks pretty good

[Nasarius]

Unfortunately, their distributor forces you to buy a copy of Windows XP along with the computer.

Re:Looks pretty good

[Anonymous Coward]

If you google "Digimatrix" you'll see the barebone box at other places.

Re:Looks pretty good

[Debug This]

Well, 'good' for the common public I suppose; your average 21 year old living out of home probably wouldn't have much need for an 'alternative' OS.

Re:Looks pretty good

[ibbey]

Howard Computers isn't the only source for these-- they're just the ones who have paid Asus for the ad space. Do a Google search & you can find it as a barebones system.

Re:Looks pretty good

[Debug This]

But is it really worth it? AFAICS, the barebones rig has no proc, no drives, nor does it have the dvd/cdr mentioned in the article.

Re:Looks pretty good

[ibbey]

But is it really worth it? AFAICS, the barebones rig has no proc, no drives, nor does it have the dvd/cdr mentioned in the article.

Hence the barebones . You add the components of your choice. I'm sure if you did a Google search you could also find a company that offers ready-to-use systems sans-OS as well. So stop complaining & search already.

Re:Looks pretty good

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for Howard Computers and while we do offer the DigiMatrix up as a HTPC, it is not the best thing you can do.

It doesn't have hardware MPEG2 encoding, just a basic TV Tuner card that utilizes a MiniPCI slot. It has a BIOS limitation on the CPU it can utilize so it can only run a P4 2.4 at the moment, which hampers HDTV playback.

We ultimately chose to use the Asus Home Theater software on Windows XP Home since we are not technically a licensed reseller. Shit, you'd be better off ordering from Pricewatch and NewEgg since they generally have better prices than our distro channels.

It's a basic all in one system for Joe Sixpack. If you want something moldable, get the barebones from the Interweb.

Whoops...

[www.fuckingdie.com]

Should have checked the dimensions of this little guy before that last post... it is actually pretty small. Would almost fit into even my home theater setup... that is if my wife would only let me have a computer in the living room.....

Like I said... Middle of nowhere...

My thoughts on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict a much darker, less interesting future.

Advertisers will want to find ways to get their messages in the programs. Right now, the method is to insert the messages in breaks of ever-increasing time which occur at greater and greater frequency. People use PVR's to fight this trend.

The next logical step, then, is to insert the advertising directly into the contents of the programming. This is already happening now to a small extent, but I believe in the future it will get worse.

Here is an example of what I envision: One character, Bob, pulls out his cell phone. A second character, George, sees it.

George: Hey, that's a cool cellphone you got there.

Bob: Yeah. It's a Noksung. I got it with my T-Cingle PCS. It was free! Look, I can take full-motion video with it and uselessly hog screeds of bandwidth with aimless nonsense.

George: Wow! Can I have a look?

Bob: Sure. T-Cingle PCS is running a special right now. 3,000,000 anytime minutes for nine cents a month.

George: Great. I'm going to sign up for that right after we solve this murder. Wait! is that a Taco's Jr. over there. Pull in, they've got a new sushi-cajun burrito on their value menu for 34 cents!.....

etc, etc, etc.

Surprisingly enough, people will probably actually watch this crap.

Re:My thoughts on this...

[Debug This]

I don't exactly understand the point you are trying to make with the dialogue, I assume it is some kind of joke.

In seriousness, I don't see what you are getting at; what you described looks like product placement within television shows and (obviously) advertising - which, as we all know, is controlled by the television station/producers, not whoever designed your box. Client/Server comes to mind.

Re:My thoughts on this...

[VValdo]

I agree with the other reply-- I'm not quite sure what to make of your "scene", but I will say that embedding ads in programming is nothing new. It's slightly more subtle now than it used to be, but in the 1940s-1950s it was common to have the star of a show talk about the benefits of the product for five minutes in the middle of a scene, or right before a commercial.

For a good laugh, go rent "Mac and Me" if you can find it. Some of the best product placement of all time.

W

Re:My thoughts on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

IF people choose to watch programs of that variety, there is still an interesting way to fight that trend: a distributed shared public database where people report segments of programs as "advertising", so that others can just skip these segments.

Re:My thoughts on this...

[telstar]

Where have you been? It's called product placement ... and it's been here for years.

PVRs... for cars?

[Sanksa Wott]

In the spirit of the "second generation of homebrew PVRs", I was wondering...

Since I travel a lot I have recently been thinking about putting together a PVR-type device for my automobile. With ever-shrinking form factors, hiding the device would be no problem. A simple remote control would be fairly easy to integrate. Several fast-booting distro's come to mind to use as starting points. But before I jump in headfirst, I thought I would ask... has this been done before?

(I remember an article a few days abo about a totally "wired" automobile, but that's not my goal. Just a simple mass-storage device with access controlls, integrated with a car stereo. )

-B

Re:PVRs... for cars?

[Debug This]

I remember an article about that too, but i can't recall the address. I know a guy in my street who has a wired vehicle (took out the left passenger seat, installed a kind of desk with a laptop permanately fixed to it). Im in Australia though, so i have no idea as to legality of the whole thing.

Out of curiosity, what would you use it for? The aforementioned guy had no idea why he did it, he just wanted to make his car more "tech" apparently.

Re:PVRs... for cars?

[ciroknight]

Probably has been done, but wouldn't it be awesome to have a wireless system installed in the car *as a stereo*, so that you could bring all of your data where-ever you go? If the iPod ever goes WiFi, you could set up a server in your car to support a cross-exchange of music, data being integrated into your environment even deeper.

It wouldn't be too hard to do what you are saying, hell, I say do it. But it might be a lot healthier on your car to use an old laptop, and find a drive box to put your ultra-large-capacity hard drive into. Would be great to use a device like this, but this is really where SpeedStep and other powersaving archetectures are extremely useful. And with no optical drive to worry about, you could definitely decrease power usage even more.

Re:PVRs... for cars?

[Cyno01]

Mini ITX board, a small lcd display and a bigass hard drive. Bam, car mp3 player. Get a usb hard drive or rig something cool to synch via wi-fi. My friend did this for uner $400 i think, it turned out amazing.

Re:PVRs... for cars?

[Sanksa Wott]

Excellent! It's a go then...

And as an adenndum, the "V" in PVR still applies, although not directly to me, as I have no screens in my car. In a pinch though, a 15-inch LCD, folded up into the ceiling for the backseat would make an excellent in-car video playback device. I've seen it done in showcars. Independent streams for video and audio... this could be fun! Or insanely complicated and frustrating.

--B

Re:PVRs... for cars?

[ibbey]

Lot's of people have built similar systems. DashPC (which runs Linux) comes to mind. Try Googling for "Car PC" or "car mp3 player" and you should find lot's of other examples.

Re:PVRs... for cars?

[afidel]

A friend of mine did something along those lines. He has a PC with GPS in his trunk hooked up to an LCD up front, when he gets near home some scripts fire up the WiFi card, it then connects and authenticates with his home server. The two PC's sync up and then the trunk PC shuts itself down so as not to kill the battery.

Re:PVRs... for cars?

[Hast]

Keep in mind that having a display that is visable for the driver is illegal in some states IIRC. And the same goes for parts of Europe. And rightfully so, if you want to do something else while driving take a train or buss and use a Laptop/PocketPC to watch your shows.

And now, my semi-serious gripe...

[Perdition]

Look at the back of that thing! Look at the back of any computer and you'll sense my rage welling within you. Somebody at SuperPCConnectocorp, inc. is ruining it for all of us! Shouldn't it be SUSB (sometimes universal serial bus)? If there's one thing I'm looking for in the cutting edge of computer technology, it's the truly universal plug for everything. I'd love to look on the back of a PC and see a neat row of identical (yet clearly labeled) ports. I mean, I understand how whiny and insignificant this sounds, but Lordy, think of the possibilities, man! I don't suggest chucking the baby with the bathwater, but at least give the baby a stern looking-over.

Re:And now, my semi-serious gripe...

[Debug This]

I admit, it *is* a bit of a brick.. but you seriosuly wouldn't buy one of these based purely on how the back ports are arranged?

I thought those things were hidden from view anyway, hence the term 'back'

Re:And now, my semi-serious gripe...

[Perdition]

I live behind my rackmount, you insensitive clod!

Okay, touche, I retire the field.

Re:And now, my semi-serious gripe...

[evilviper]

If there's one thing I'm looking for in the cutting edge of computer technology, it's the truly universal plug for everything.

Get a company to build a motherboard with nothing but firewire ports.

Firewire hard drives, firewire keyboards/mice, firewire display (maybe not, let's keep VGA/DVI for a while), firewire DVD drive, firewire EVERYTHING.

Of course, even with that you'd have problems. Your speakers don't have firewire inputs, your satellite/cable doesn't come over firewire, and your TV doesn't take firewire input, so you'll need most of these ports for some time to come.

Where's the $400 coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only seller they link to has it at about US$1,200

Froogling it shows a good number of them at 450, but that's pure bare bones, no proc, no drives (not even the dvd/cdr you mentioned)

Re:Where's the $400 coming from?

[H8X55]

$395 here

includes combo drive.

thanks, pricewatch!

Re:Where's the $400 coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I believe you still need to buy the cpu, memory, and hard drive.

You could build your own with better components for about the same or a little more. The advantage to the asus is you can listen to music with the thing powered off (well, i suppose through the bios?). It also comes with a volume control on the front and audio buttons on the front.

I wonder what the noise level on this thing is... it will need a fan for the power supply and a fan for the cpu. I also wonder how well the small case lets the airflow through to keep things cool.

Not bad

[golfsportila]

Its not bad looking, I would rather build my own though, which i am in the process of doing. I'm either getting the antec overture case or modding something. I dont know how successful this thing will be..

Almost perfect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Combine MythTV with this device and you have an almost perfect PVR?

I have a fair bit of experience with MythTV. I've been using it for around 6 months now with both a Bt878 card and a PVR-350. And I wouldn't say "almost perfect". Pretty nice/cool, yes, but far from perfect. A friend has a TiVo that we use a lot.

Here are some thoughts:

MythTV/PVR can be somewhat cheaper (and big/ugly) or it can be quite a bit more expensive than a TiVo when using a nice case like in this article.

TiVo subscription fees suck.

MythTV and/or the PVR drivers crash or flake out. Some times I get interference bars across the recordings, a reboot fixes it. Not all the time, but sometimes. TiVo don't crash.

MythTV can run multiple tuners. Although not really that great a bonus. I used to run several tuners but I never watched all the crap it recorded anyway. I'm using one tuner now and that's more than enough.

MythTV can be daunting to install and configure. It takes a lot of time. There is KnoppMyth which is pretty easy and preconfigured, but it doesn't always work and still requires some configuration.

MythTV makes it "easy" (if you ignore configuration pain) to use remote frontends so you can watch TV on any computer on the network.

MythTV makes it easy to burn DVD's of your recorded shows or save the video for archival purposes.

Re:Almost perfect?

[prockcore]

TiVo subscription fees suck.

Maybe so, but screenscraping zap2it is NOT a viable option.

Unless MythTV gets support for Guide+, you'll end up having to pay a subscription when zap2it shuts down mythtv scrapers like tvguide did.

Re:Almost perfect?

[KingOfBLASH]

TiVo subscription fees suck.

Maybe so, but screenscraping zap2it is NOT a viable option.

Unless MythTV gets support for Guide+, you'll end up having to pay a subscription when zap2it shuts down mythtv scrapers like tvguide did.

Yahoo! offers free TV listings, they wouldn't notice a huge increase in traffic if MythTV users switched over, and creating a scraper for their site is not really hard. And, for all I know, there are another dozen portals out there that MythTV users could head to if they got shut down.

As a matter of fact, scrapers are pretty easy to create (well, if you're a programmer and you know Perl), and easy to create in such a way that it's not too likely you'll be caught. (Caveat coder! Possible TOS violations lurk, so think through whatever you want to do before you do it.)

Re:Almost perfect?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Caveat coder! Possible TOS violations lurk, so think through whatever you want to do before you do it.)

Like ethics and the law have ever been a concern for people on the net. How many people pirate Windows, or post benchmarks about it thus violating the EULA? (Hint: how many slashdotters who've used windows criticize it?)

Re:Almost perfect?

[elmegil]

MythTV makes it easy to burn DVD's of your recorded shows or save the video for archival purposes.

Not unless this is in the very latest builds. nuvexport isn't difficult, but it's not an official part of Myth either, as of the release I have (to be fair, I haven't updated to r13 or beyond).

Re:Almost perfect?

[prockcore]

(Caveat coder! Possible TOS violations lurk, so think through whatever you want to do before you do it.)

Well that's kinda what I meant when I said screen scraping isn't a viable option. I didn't mean it's impossible (it's what xmltv currently does).

I mean that TiVo replacements won't be viable until there's a better way of getting your TV listings, one that cooperates with the tv listing provider rather than exploiting them.

Re:Almost perfect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scraping is no longer necessary, and should be discouraged. Tribune Media Services (owner of zap2it.com) is now providing a "Data Direct" service, targetted at the open source community. There is already a "grabber" for it (tv_grab_na_dd) in CVS at the XMLTV project, which writes the XMLTV format as used by MythTV and others.
I am using this grabber now and it is 2 orders of magnitude faster than scraping.

Re:Almost perfect?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree nuvexport sucks, but that's not what I was talking about.

If you use a PVR card (like the WinTV PVR-250 or 350) then it creates DVD compatible mpeg2 streams directly from the card.

There is no need to re-encode, export, or anything. You just burn straight to DVD. I do it all the time.

Re:Almost perfect?

[elmegil]

So then it's not Myth that makes it easy, but rather the hardware PVR cards.

Re:Almost perfect?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like Myth facilitates the process. Without MythTV (or similar) you're going to be scheduling your stuff by hand? Something has to record what you're going to burn.

Re:Almost perfect?

[elmegil]

Right, but the point is, there are plenty of things that can replace Myth (if you run Windows for example, or any of 2 or 3 other Linux based app suites), but if you don't have a hardware cap card and instead are using something like my AverMedia TV Stereo, it's still a major PITA even with Myth to have something burnable to VCD or DVD.

Re:Almost perfect?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think in this case he means "easy" as in easier than the hoops you'd have to jump through on a TiVo to get the video off in digital form (are the new TiVo's any better?).

MythTV + Hauppauge PVR disappointing

[Saint Stephen]

The MythTV software was good enough; SageTV is better. (Pro-Myth: Video preview in Channel Guide. Pro-Sage: File-naming format, smarter EPG fetching, better EPG data, smarter file-naming format, smarter interfaces, smarter favorites/don't like, smarter conflict resolution, smarter channel guide).

The IVTV driver would lock up after 12 or 15 hours. That was with Kernel 2.6; probably should have stuck with kernel 2.4.

Plus it was just torturously harder to use. I have switched to Windows 2000 + SageTV for my Hauppauge PVR-250, with the Hauppauge MVP for watching the movies on TV. It is much better than a Tivo or ReplayTV or Myth. It rocks.

Re:MythTV + Hauppauge PVR disappointing

[osobear]

This is a feature of Kernel 2.6.... after 15 hours you need at least the 2 minute break while you restart so you can learn to blink again.

Re:MythTV + Hauppauge PVR disappointing

[evilviper]

I have a setup that might work even better for you.

I didn't like MythTV at all. Skipping forward (or backwards) was very sluggish, the interface was cumbersome and complex, the conflict resolution was really complex, and didn't seem to work right anyhow. It needed plugins to do the most basic tasks that any old file-manager can do, etc. So eventually I've settled with the following setup:

WebVCR+. It gives you an HTML interface to TV listings where you can schedule recordings, and you can set it up to record using any program you like. It uses XMLTV to get the listings. You can use any web browser you like.

Then you just need a filemanager and a video player. I happen to like emelFM and MPlayer, so I just changed a few key-bindings (to match my remote), and it works quite well.

I've also got a handful of scripts that do basic things, like convert MPEG-2 streams into MPEG-4. I re-mapped some keyboard shortcuts in AVIdemux2 so I can edit videos entirely with a remote. I made scripts to automate recording of data/audio/video CD. Etc, etc.

Re:MythTV + Hauppauge PVR disappointing

[ian mills]

Not sure what Mythtv you used, but Mythtv has video preview in the Channel Guide. link

The file names are only used by Mythtv internally. If you have need to use them outside there are several scripts to rename them based on the database. mythname.pl for example. There is also nuvexport. MythTV's conflict resolution is also quite smart, though perhaps somewhat complex.

But yes, MythTV is still in development, so if you're considering commercial software it probably isn't for you.

Re:MythTV + Hauppauge PVR disappointing

[Saint Stephen]

You misread me: I said video preview was a Myth PLUS.

All things being roughly equal, I would have preferred Linux instead of Windows, even though I have a leftover (valid, legal) Win2000 pro license from an MSDN I held legally at my former employer [Microsoft!]. So ethically I'm okay. But that's just luck.

But things aren't remotely equal. The SageTV experience is just light-years beyond Myth, as good as Myth is. The deal breaker was the driver lockups. I expect that's my error.

For operating a PC via a Gyro mouse without much of a keyboard from the couch, Windows is just so much less painful. Don't get my wrong -- myth is spectacular. But Sage is just superlatively excellent.

Volume

[osobear]

As for the noise produced by ASUS DIGIMatrix system, I have to stress that it is very low compared with the level of noise generated by regular desktops or "cubic" mini-systems. Even when the fans rotate at their maximum, the noise level never goes beyond 30dB. For your information: the regular desktop systems generate about 50dB of noise. 50db? That seems pretty loud for a pc... I know mine runs around 40 and it still gets pretty damn annoying during a movie when there is the all-too-pivotal silent scene right at the end. You need some other kind of cooling in there, like water cooling with a no-moving-parts pump. Fan noise is one of the big things that ruins media center PCs now.

Re:Volume

[mp3phish]

Just use slow spinning 120mm, 92mm, and 80mm fans rather than fast spinning 70mm and 40mm fans.

My microATX system runs with a 120mm fan in its ATX power supply. When idle it spins at about 1,000 RPM's. It's maximum rating is 2,000 RPM's. It self adjusts depending on load. That is less than 20db once the case is closed up.

Then I modded that same case for a 120mm fan in the front of it (from the normal 80mm fan) and I run it at 1,200 RPM's (I use a rheostat to adjust its voltage/RPM). Then I use a 92->80mm fan adapter on the cpu heatsink with a large Alpha 8045 (80x80x45mm) heatsink with copper inlay. This fan runs at about 1,000 RPM's, but it has a heat sensor on a wire that I can place anywhere. I chose to tape it to the side of the heatsink and that keeps the fan at about 1,800 RPM's under load and 1,000 RPM's idle. If you tape the thermal sensor for this fan to another area, it will run at a slower or faster rate, depending on how hot that surface gets.

Then I modded the back of the case (click on the "back view" to see it) to allow a 92mm fan in there rather than 80mm. I run it at 1,000 RPM's.

Now, every fan in a normal default factory case runs at about 2,500-4,000 RPM's by default and are only 60-80mm wide. A 120mm fan at 1,000 RPM's pushes the same amount of air (provided there is little restriction in the airflow pathway, and the shape of the finns, but on average...) as an 80mm fan running at 3,000 RPM's.

Also, using the built in fan grill in your case (the ones they just punch out small holes in a pattern the shape of 60 or 80mm fan) is the worst thing you can do, even if you are going to use default sizes. You should always dremel out the built in grill and use a standard wire grill rather than those fancy air restricting/turbulence creating grills.

Then use a 5400RPM Hard drive. If you want to blow money you can even get a heatpipe cooler for your hard drive that screws into a 5.25in bay with rubber washers, and isolates the HDD from the case. Then the heatpipes keep the drive cool. This works up to even with 10krpm drives. But I use 7200RPM's on my desktop systems.

That is the basics. On top of all this you can do even more: Rubber washers between each fan and the case to prevent oscilations. If you use 2 identical fans, don't allow them to both run at the same voltage, as they will give you a beating effect because they will never spin at EXACTLY the same rate (unless you buy expensive computer controlled fan regulators which are only available in servers). Put a rubber washer between the power supply and the back of the case before screwing it in. Then put thin padding on all the joints of the case (like where the side pannel touches the rest of the case). This will dampen the oscillations throughout the case, and regulate all oscillations to be contained in a single pannel, rather than the entire case.

There is much more you can do, but this post is getting long. You handy people should get modding. You don't have to be fancy and rice out your case with glowing lights to be a case modder. I don't, and my mods are what draws the attention when my friends compare computer systems with eachother. They just don't see how I can pack the fastest video card, the fastest CPU, and the best everything in such a small case, overclocked, and still keep it quieter than a Mac G5.

Re:Volume

[Backov]

Good post. Do you use these quiet boxes for media center PCs?

I'd think that you'd want a completely silent (or as near to it as you can get) PC for that kind of application.

Re:Volume

[mp3phish]

I haven't yet, I just make gaming boxes and workstations out of microATX.

I want to do a media center PC but i haven't really been happy with the state of video on linux as of yet. Too buggy to work reliably and I can't stand messing (on a daily basis, no problem if its one time only) with something that should "just work" when it comes to an appliance.

But if I were to do it, I would definately use 5400RPM Drives (honestly i don't know if they make larger capacity 5400RPM's anymore ):, and probably scale down to a slower speed Pentium4 (P4 has the most efficient video encoding of x86 processors so far). But I would still be using 80x80mm heatsinks with 92-> 80mm adapters on it. I would probably want to choose an aluminum desktop case rather than a tower case, as this would allow it to fit in with my set top equipment by my TV.

With a desktop case, I would probably be forced to get rid of the 120mm fans and stick with 80 or 92mm but that wouldn't be a problem considering it won't be the highest end cpu's and video cards in it.

Sorry to burst your bubble..

[Dragonshed]

.. but that slim, stylish Digimaxtrix box costs $1,112.42, starting price point.

Sporting a 2.4B GHz Intel(R) Pentium 4 Processor with 512K Cache and 533 MHz FSB with a SiS(R) 651 Chipset MicroATX and many integrated trimmings, this thing would outperform my current desktop.

No thanks, I think I'll wait for one that doesn't need to run XP and heat my living room.

Re:Sorry to burst your bubble..

[Anonymous Coward]

How about 449.99 barebone. Most of the other parts you should already have.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de sc ription=56-110-011&depa=0

Newegg is the slashdot of shopping.

Re:Sorry to burst your bubble..

[kannibal_klown]

My secondary machine is an Intel P4 2.4B.

It's not that bad cooling-wise. With the stock CPU cooler that came with it, it idle's at around 30 deg C. My case isn't the best ventilated (1 exhaust fan, 1 input fan, 1 PSU with extra fan).

That's a hell of a lot better than my 2200+ Athlon XP got (that thing idled at like 50 deg C). I had to swap that thing out because it was a noisy space heater, and made my life hell during summer.

The B's weren't that bad (as far as heat, noise, and power go). However, they can't compare to my PowerBook G4 (my new primary machine... I just switched).

My next PC (for gaming) will need to run at LEAST as cool as my P4 2.4, or else I'll just stick with what I have.

Re:Sorry to burst your bubble..

[ibbey]

.. but that slim, stylish Digimaxtrix box costs $1,112.42, starting price point.

That's not the price for the box, that's the price for the loaded system with WinXP. Do a Google search & you can find the barebones system for under $450 & add the components you need & probably come in well under $1000 (A quick check at zipzoomfly.com has a fairly basic system, 1.8G/512MB/160GB and a combo DVD player & cd burner (from NewEgg, they didn't have one at zzf) comes in at about $810). Cappuccinopc.com is even cheaper with a barebones price of $349 & similarly configured system at $764.

XBOX ...

[vlad_petric]

An xbox + XBMP provides most of the functionality, and it's only 180$ (in all fairness, you do need a dolby decoder with your speakers, but it has HDTV in it)

Furthermore, by purchasing an XBOX without actually buying games you make MS lose money :) (they're losing money anyway with xbox, but this way they're losing even more)

These days it doesn't even take a screwdriver to hack the XBOX ... The (albeit kludgy) software solution works well.

Re:XBOX ...

[Zach978]

How do you video capture with the XBOX? It's not a PVR unless it can record.

Re:XBOX ...

[stratjakt]

by purchasing an XBOX without actually buying games you make MS lose money

Nope, this is a myth perpetuated by idiots..

Theres a one-time setup cost for production, then eventually you start turning a profit after so many units shipped. The xbox' major components were off the shelf, borderline obsolete parts, so they didnt cost much. Once the one time setup costs for production were made back, they start to operate in the black again.

Even IF Microsoft was selling them at a loss, which they surely arent, which is worse for their bottom line - you buying an xbox and not buying games, or the xbox sitting on a warehouse shelf collecting dust?

They make OK media players. SMB support sucks and I've never gotten that relax crap working from a linux server.

Re:XBOX ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually as a media player (XBMC) the xbox works quite well. SMB support may be a bit flakey at times (it seems to work rather well with actual windows shares), but it works--and the alternative streams work well on other operating systems (running XBMS from OSX works just fine).

I'd have to agree--it's hard to beat as a living room media device, assuming you're willing to spend the time configuring it..and willing to deal with the occational bug if you're using the software exploits rather than a hardmod.

Although I'm not sure it's really an on topic suggestion--since while XBMC may be the king of living room media solutions, but it's no PVR..i still use my ReplayTV (not without its own flaws) for that--though even that has been enhanced by XBMC, which now supports sharing directly from my PVR.

g.

Re:XBOX ...

[Peridriga]

If I'm not mistaken it has USB ports on the front

http://www.hauppauge.com/html/usb_data.htm

Just get the drivers...

Re:XBOX ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Get XBox Media Center. Much, much improved over XBMP. It has Samba 3.0.1 integrated that works perfectly (even with windows SMB). Relax does tend to suck, as you point out. Another option is ccxStream which works nicely with Linux.

Re:My grandfather is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

This joke would be better if they were weed-brownies. It doesn't have to make sence, if you mention weed everyone will hoot and cheer.

What next?

[myownkidney]

The reviews look good, except that the software that comes with it doesn't look all that great... of course this may not be a problem because there has already been significant effort in getting linux to run on it and most features are working.

Can't people just STOP trying to run Linux on everything?

Re:What next?

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be new here. the answer is NO

Re:What next?

[ciroknight]

No.

:-P, but seriously, why would we want to? Sure it's not the best for every job, but it _defintely_ shows off the flexibility/portability of the operating sytem. portability is getting more important these days, especially where we are looking at a massive archetecture shift in the next 2 years or so (most likely AMD64/IA32e/x86-64, possibly the new G5/PPC970 *prays*), It's quite important that old code can be moved to new systems, cleaned up and beautified, and re-optimized in the least amount of time. This being said, I actually enjoy the "But can it run Linux" joke ;)

Re:What next?

[CoolMoDee]

Did that a long time ago. Now days we put NetBSD on everything, such as my toaster.

Replay and DVD player just plain work, now.

[Beebos]

While I understand the geek lust for such a device, my two Replays (refubs bought from the Replay site with lifetime subscriptions included) and a DVD player covers all of my entertainment purposes flawlessly. The Replays are networked and can stream video from my PC. The DVD player can play DVDs, CDs, and MP3s. I rarely need to play anyother type of media, which I can already play on regular PC hooked up to my stereo system. It seems unecessary (and maybe more expensive and time consuming) to replace these devices that do their job very well, with a PC that can do it all.

Re:Replay and DVD player just plain work, now.

[evilviper]

Not only can a PC do it all, it can do much more.

How good are your ReplayTVs at editing out commercials? How good are they at playing T2 Extreme Edition? How good are they at recording/playing back HDTV?

If you don't want to use a computer, that's fine. Just because a computer isn't for you, doesn't mean you need t complain on slashdot that this is "unnecessary".

Re:Replay and DVD player just plain work, now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Replay does fine and skipping commercials and if u want to burn a show just copy it to your computer and edit out the commercials.

I guess it all depends on the geek factor and if u have money to burn.

I think ReplayTvs blow the doors off tivo. Go attack the tivo lovers.

Re:Replay and DVD player just plain work, now.

[bungeejumper]

I agree with you...I paid 140$ for my 5040 ReplayTV, and have been paying 9.95$ a month...but for that price, I got all the same hardware, a TV tuner which works great, a TV-out which works just great, a super-silent hard drive, I have all their developers developing new features for automatically downloading to my ReplayTV, I get a pre-processed TV guide - I admit I've always built my own desktop systems, but this is an appliance, and it should work like one...without needing time consuming configuration, maintenance, reboots because of crashes, or settling for sub-standard TV tuner cards with that high-pitched whine in the background...or the high pitched whine of the Western Digital "el-cheapo special" drives. I think there are a lot of features I wish I had in it, but it does it's job very well...and the price - I think I'm now up to around 200$ (140 + 6 months worth of fees).

Re:Replay and DVD player just plain work, now.

[Beebos]

>> Just because a computer isn't for you, doesn't mean you need t complain on slashdot that this is "unnecessary".

erm, forgive me, but I thought Slashdot was a place for people to post their opinions. I'll just go bash my head into cement wall.

Re:Replay and DVD player just plain work, now.

[evilviper]

Are you saying, in your opinion, that absolutely nobody would have any possible uses for this?

If so, I believe any rational person would think you are wrong. Alternatively, if you believe there are uses for this, but don't have a use for it yourself, you should have stated it as such, rather than dismissing this as completely "unnecessary".

Re:Replay and DVD player just plain work, now.

[evilviper]

if u want to burn a show just copy it to your computer and edit out the commercials.
[...]
I guess it all depends on [...] if u have money to burn.

Absolutely right! If you have a lot of money to burn, you do it all the Replay TV way.

First you are playing for the Replay unit, second, you are paying for the TV listings subscription, third you are also paying for the computer. Not to mention that you are also paying for a DVD player.

With a computer, all you have to pay is an additional $40 for a TV-Tuner card, instead of hundreds for the Replay unit, and the subscription.

But more than that, I like having far more flexibility in my entertainment unit. I can hook-up this unit to a computer monitor, and watch TV/DVDs/SVCDs on a monitor rather than a low-res TV... or a projector... or an LCD...

Once HDTV programming is more redily available in my area, I'll buy a (curently $200) pci HDTV tuner, and hookup my videocard to an HDTV, or a large computer monitor. You'll have to buy a whole new Replay unit, if they are still in business, and a subscription to go along with it.

Re:Replay and DVD player just plain work, now.

[evilviper]

I also forgot to mention what a huge chunk of time you would waste copying a lot of shows over the network. And add to that the fact that your replayTV and your DVD player aren't going to allow you to make copies of your DVDs, so you need to pay even more to add a DVD-ROM drive in your computer.

More money, more money, more money. Replay TV (or Tivo) is the expensive way.

Re:Replay and DVD player just plain work, now.

[Beebos]

Idiot, I was simply relaying my experience and my opinion. I didn't say anything about the applicabilty to other people. If you can't live with other people giving their opinion, fuck off.

Ahanix

[Kaliban923]

I've got an Ahanix case for my mythtv setup and while its a bit big, it fits well in my AV rack. With the right motherboard I get quality AC3 audio on DVDs and overall it works pretty well. However, as a poster above noted, myth still has a few(minor) kinks to work out especially with a Hauppauge PVR 250/350 setup(which I have) but the driver code has been getting better and I am happy to report that other than a memory leaking LCDproc process, my machine has been rock solid for over a month since I upgraded to 0.14 release and the latest Hauppauge drivers.

Personally, the integrated Music Player, TV recorder/viewer, web interface(and this is the killer app for me) for scheduling recordings make the hassles worth it. Even bought myself a JP1 remote that I reprogrammed so it controls everything seemlessly so my girlfriend faction has increased greatly in the past month or so.

Getting back to the Ahanix cases, they have several different models with different sizes most with a LCD display(HD44870) that can be used by mythtv if you have lcdproc installed. If you are looking for a HTPC, check them out.

Where's the "barebones" coming from?

[Atario]

It comes with all that stuff, and it's "barebones"?

Apparently, I've been out while the definition of barebones was changed.

set-top PCs on deck..

[stratjakt]

This looks promising.. Apex makes cheap stuff of decent quality, and the specs on this look promising.

Basically what the Phantom plans to be (which is why I dont doubt the Phantom will exist). I predict tons of dvd-form-factor PCs marketed as PC/Console/PVR/etc...

Only supports interlaced HDTV formats?

[Kaldaien]

What's the deal with that? 1080i, 720i, 525i (what the hell is that anyway?!)... 1080i's pretty common, but I can't remember the last time
I've ever seen a 720i source or 525i for that matter.

I'd really like to see a device with DVI/Component INPUTS so you can use the tuner most cable companies provide with their HDTV service.
It's a cold day in hell when you can pick up a decent HDTV signal with just an antenna around here.

If I recall at CES this year there were at least 2 HDTV sets with built-in PVR capabilities, and they could record HDTV content.
Now that really tickles my fancy, unfortunately your options for getting the recorded content off your TV's PVR are limited :-\

$999 for an HDTV-VHS recorder (i.e. JVC HM-DH30000 ) is a little high. Seems the PC hardware approach might not be a bad idea,
ATI has new HDTV tuner hardware on the horizon. If you couple that with a huge hard drive, I'm sure you could potentially beat the over-priced JVC product by a long shot.
I know I'd certainly jump at the opportunity to buy such a device.

Unfortunately, this device isn't quite there yet. But it looks like a step in the right direction (given a decent non-proprietary PVR software environment).

But how long do we really have before TiVo and Replay embrace HDTV recording? Replay already has S/PDIF and Component OUTPUTs (even though they only have analog inputs)...

Re:Only supports interlaced HDTV formats?

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually supports 1080i, 720p (yes, p), 480i and 480p (what the SiS folks call "525p" and "525i" respectively.)

Re:Only supports interlaced HDTV formats?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree, I want component/DVI RECORDING capability in a card. Anyone know of one?

Re:Only supports interlaced HDTV formats?

[Quest171]

525i is standard NTSC video. Not HDTV, so you've probably seen it once or twice that you can remember. Like the last time you plugged in an S-Video cable.

Re:Only supports interlaced HDTV formats?

[Jozer99]

525i and p are the same as 480i and p. The extra 45 lines are used for the electron gun in a crt to reset itself after doing an interlaced frame. Since all you see is 480 lines, most people call it that, but it is actually 525. I am not sure, but the extra 45 lines may also be used to carry data such as parental control data, closed captioning, and VCR+ data on newer TVs.

Upgradability an issue.

[Craggles]

As I'm sure we all know, upgradability is a big issue with computer hardware. My MythTV box is using a Cooler Master case (but in black), with this motherboard.

I've already added a DVB-T (HDTV in the US) card, which you can't do with this box (i.e. you will never get digital TV with this box).

My box is a bit bigger, but looks like a stereo component (brushed steel). I'm also planning on adding an extra analogue capture card (bringing my capture sources up to three). This will fill the PCI slots on the Micro-ATX board, so I'm damn glad I didn't buy a smaller box!

I've got a DVD-ROM drive, DVD burner and currently one 160GB hard disk. Planning on adding another much bigger hard drive (waiting, waiting, I want 1TB)

If you are thinking of building a PVR (it's a fun project), you really should think about expandability and upgradability.

Also check Jarod's PVR Hardware Database, and his excellent Install Guides page.

Also, don't forget MythTV is a very nice client/server architecture, so you can run your "backend" on some beefy ugly PC in a cupboard, and us anything (including an XBox) as a frontend.

--
"Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
-- Henry Mencken

My blog: http://yi.org/blog, Latest entry : Muscle powered microrobot's

Re:Upgradability an issue.

[gmanic]

Why not put the PVR in a different room and just run the tv-cable to the TV? Lan cables are a no-go due to installation requirements, wifi's not fast enough to have the necessary data transferred over the needed distance and a box in living room is prohibited by wife.

That's what I'm doing here: mythtv (debian sid) on a rather aged dual pIII-1G with 2x160+40G, which gives you plenty of space and power for a PVR solution using the PVR350 from hauppauge.

Connecting the incoming tv-cable with the box, putting a VCR as HF-converter on the output side of the PVR350 (using the fb-device of the hauppauge) and feeding the HF-out of the VCR back into the tv-cable.

Voila! You have a PVR available in all rooms you have tv-cable. And you can still use the workstation. And you can still upgrade it. You could even use the old second VCR to feed another channel in your home-tv-network...

Make an IR-connection with these nasty small transmitter/receiver combos (aprox. EUR 40), and get some learning remotes.

Drawback: you need to have proper tv-cable wiring in your house, as the pvr-box needs to be connected as early to the tv-cable as possible, your tv-cable needs to feed the rooms serially (is there any such word?).

Only thing I'm not really happy about is 2.6 and ivtv at the moment...

Re:Upgradability an issue.

[Craggles]

Why not put the PVR in a different room and just run the tv-cable to the TV? Lan cables are a no-go due to installation requirements, wifi's not fast enough to have the necessary data transferred over the needed distance and a box in living room is prohibited by wife.

There are people running myth over 802.11b, although if I was going to go wireless, I'd go 802.11g or 802.11a, which should be plenty of bandwidth.

Make an IR-connection with these nasty small transmitter/receiver combos (aprox. EUR 40), and get some learning remotes.

I have a 2.4GHz spread spectrum one of these that does A/V one way, and IR the other, so I can control all my equipement from the bedroom, and don't need anything but a TV and one of these transceivers. Apparently you can get use multiple "receivers" (the ones that receive audio/video, and transmit IR).

This would be a nicer solution than TV cable, put your myth box in a cupboard (combined front and backend), with one of these to receive the IR, and transmit (to multiple receivers) the A/V.

Being pure digital, the picture quality is perfect, and it doesn't seem to interfere with my 802.11b stuff despite using the same spectrum.

Here are a couple of examples of the transceiver hardware I mean. I paid about AUD $100 for my set.
--

"Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the
incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."
-- G. B. Shaw

My blog: http://yi.org/blog, Latest entry : Muscle powered microrobot's

HDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

As the above mentioned computer doesn't seem to actually have HDTV capabilites I'd like to point out this site.

http://www.pchdtv.com/

Linux HDTV cards for under $200. Sweet.

--Greg

Re:HDTV

[nonmaskable]

AFAIK, they only handle over-the-air HDTV.

Firewire TV Tuner

[The Phantom Mensch]

This is the only one I know of: Formac Studio TVR . It outputs a standard DV stream, but it may only work with Mac OS X for tuner control/channel selection.

Re:Firewire TV Tuner

[Gondorian Warrior]

I guess its no good to the Linux geeks (maybe it is who knows what you guys can crack) but Elgato have produced a firewire TV card/Tivo(ish) box for the Mac. http://www.elgato.com/products/index.html GW

Mr Mackey says...

[Anonymous Coward]

Second Generation Homebrew PVR Devices are bad mmmkay children

Not an HDTV tuner

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on people, when reviewing a piece of hardware, get the story straight. This box does NOT have an hdtv tuner, it has a plain old analog tv tuner but can output to an HDTV. Those are two very different things. Now, if someone can show me a box that includes an HDTV tuner as well I would be highly interested.
On that note -- I seem to remember WinTV having a WinTV-D product out a while ago. Does anyone know what happened to it ? It could to Digital TV (not quite HDTV but better than ATSC)

Your idea does not work. out so easily

[yudan]

First, the ASUS box has HDTV output, you cannot get a HDTV tuner with whatever box under 400 USD. Check it by yourself.

Second, Using MythTV with USB TV Card is a pain in the ass.

Third, Do you really want to stack many USB boxes on top of your box? Is it a CLEAN solution? Besides, these USB DVD/TV may require their own external power supply.

Don't always assume DIY is the best. I think ASUS is quite impressive, building the whole thing around 400 USD>

Re:Your idea does not work. out so easily

[yomegaman]

Are there any USB capture devices at all that work with MythTV? I have a PC hooked up the TV/stereo for watching videos and listening to music, and if I could turn it into a PVR that would be fantastic, but it has no PCI slots (bummer). If anyone knows of a USB device that supports enough of the video4linux protocol to work with MythTV please tell me!

Keep the tuner give me an IR Blaster

[Anonymous Coward]

Geeze how much longer do I have to hear about video cards with TV Tuners. All I need is channel 4 since all channel selection HAS TO BE through either a sat or cable box.

A agood IR blaster would turn my PC into a programmable "universal remote".

When will ATI and NVIDIA get a clue?

There's a third option:

[barryfandango]

Use a little creative cabling and your existing computer. With two 50-foot lengths of shielded coaxial cable i've got my secondary video out now common on many video cards (modulated from s-video to RF), running alongside a digital audio cable up to my home theatre where it's controlled by an RF remote that can be used anywhere in the house. No noise since the computer's in another room, no cost of picking up a second machine.

Re:There's a third option:

[Moofie]

Yeah, now you can't HEAR the noise, you can SEE it! Wooo!

Re:There's a third option:

[barryfandango]

It's true, you might think the RF video would be sub-standard. I could, for a slightly higher price, have run a shielded s-video cable instead but when I compared the two directly in my living room the difference was not even noticeable on my 27" television. It's no DVI to a plasma screen but I'm quite pleased with it actually.

Re:There's a third option:

[Moofie]

Fair enough, but the joke was far too good to pass up.

: )

GBPVR

[IanBevan]

If you are a Windows user, check out GBPVR. Really very good indeed, puts some of the commercial stuff to shame. Free at the moment, although the author has started taking donations.

I did it for ~ $650 US complete

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently put together a homebuilt PVR based on MythTV in a Knopp-Myth distribution for about $650, much less than the $400 barebones gear cited in the article.

The CoolerMaster ATX-620 fits nicely in my audio rack. Relatively quiet, one discrete blue LED indicator, black brushed aluminum.

The breakdown:

• CoolerMaster ATX-620 $139 US
• Biostar M7V1G motherboard $69
• Athlon XP 2100 $69
• 1GB RAM $140
• PVR-250 capture card $139
• nVidia MX440 $69
• NIC $15 (no luck with the onload Rhine VT6102)
• CD/DVD driver $29

$99 TiVO through DirecTV

[AvantLegion]

DirecTV users can get a combo DTV box/TiVO for $99 right now. I know because I just ordered one.

35 hours might not be as much as what most people get from shoving a big drive in their homebrew DVRs, but damn, $99. It'll take a LONG time before the subscription fees push it up to the cost of some of these homebrew ones, and by then, DVRs may be even better and I will want to move on to another device.

Cost savings? (or "It is the energy, stupid.")

[Noksagt]

I don't think HTPCs are a cheaper alternative. TiVos and ReplayTVs use significantly less power than a PC. Energy costs are quite significant over the lifetime of a unit.

Lifetime subscription fees are fairly reasonable compared to the cost of new hardware for a HTPC.

There are also hacks to create program guides for the PVR to read. This is useful to overseas users. I frown on this for those in the states--you should obey the TOS and the PVR manufacturers make money on the subscriptions & their products are of high enough quality that they should be supported.

I have setup MythTV boxes. But it wasn't for the price. My workhorse is a refurbed ReplayTV 5040 with lifetime subscription that I picked up for much less than the cost of a new HTPC.

Re:Cost savings? (or "It is the energy, stupid.")

[Anonymous Coward]

Energy costs are quite significant over the lifetime of a unit.

How much does electricy cost where you live?

A standard MythTV PC consists of a ~400 Mhz proc (or less even), motherboard, PVR card, power supply, and maybe 1 or 2 drives. Much like a TiVo there is no monitor, video card, sound card or anything else. You're talking around 100 watts of power or less. And that's with 250-500+ (hours) GB of storage.

Lets see, my power bill says the yearly average is $0.04/kWh. That comes out to a monthly cost of less than $3.

Assuming someone has not added drives to a TiVo, it uses approximately half the PC so they save a whole $1.5 per month and have much less storage. Now lets talk about that subscription fee...

I don't know how much power a ReplayTV consumes. Can you look on the back panel?

Re:Cost savings? (or "It is the energy, stupid.")

[Anonymous Coward]

And many people use VIA mini-itx boards.

All in all power consumption is no different than a TiVo/Replay.

Industry does not get it. Again...

[amix]

Again a blatant try of the industry to catch up to something they did not invent: The HTPC.

Have you seen the specs of this Asus thingy ?

In 2004 it has no DVD-Burner !!
And a "power off" mode is really archaic. Such a system should be either "power on", then functional or "power off" then disfunctional.

If they would start to build a system, that goes STR and then into standby with a good PSU (not using much energy in standby), that would be interesting. As long it has all the features, like DVD+/-RW.

This is just a waste of money and resources. It sucks.

building a pvr

[fat32]

Before I was serious about building this box, I decided to see how much of a task it would be to implement it. I picked up a very cheap, no-name video capture card at a local computer show. The box said it used the Brooktree 878 chipset -- one I remembered was well supported by the Video4Linux project. And the price was right for experimentation at US$40. I took it home and installed it on a crappy Pentium 166 I had lying around. I installed the card and Mandrake 8.2 and started playing with the card using XawTV. The I/O and speed limitations of that system kept it from being overly useful as a recorder, but it proved to me that the project was viable and that the equivalent of a second generation Pentium processor could probably do the job adequately.

As someone who has spent more time on eBay than I care to remember, I naturally started looking for viable hardware there. I found this strange little Hewlett Packard "built for Unisys" PC which is about 1 foot square and about 3.5 inches tall. It features a Sahara-II motherboard and had most of the hardware I needed built into the standard box. I added a mouse and keyboard and the TV capture card and I was ready to start building a solution. It started out as a 300 MHz Celeron with 32 MB of memory, but I decided to fork over another US$30 or so and make it 400 Mhz and 96 MB. It actually worked before the upgrade, but the CPU seemed to be at its edge and I didn't want to use KDE with so little memory.

I set up the system to autologin to a passwordless user called (appropriately) "tv." I capture the programs into a subdirectory called (strangely enough) "shows."

The recording rate of the TV capture card appears to max out at 15 frames per second. If I were intending to archive these programs forever, I'd probably invest in a better card. But for timeshifting shows like the evening news from France (for my wife) and The Red Green Show (for me), 15 fps is adequate.

Re:building a pvr

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, that text looks familiar. [rummages on Google]

Read the "process" section here - a direct lift.

http://www.linuxprofessionalsolutions.com/pavlic ek /tv.html

Apologies if you are the original author.

client/server solution

[Demon of the fall]

One thing that shouldn't be forgotten when comparing MythTV with TiVo is the cool possibility of a client-server system with MythTV.

You can have a noisy ugly backend server with lots of TV tuners and storage space stuffed away in your closet, and then have small, noiseless/quiet frontends in every room of the house.

The advantage is obvious - people can watch live TV (different channels, only limited by the number of TV tuners) or recordings in every room of the house, and the overall noise level and power consumption is lower since you only need to power up the front ends when you actually want to watch something.

The only thing running 24/7 is the backend server, and if you're using hardware MPEG cards, the load is very low, meaning MythTV can co-exist with any other services you might be running on your server...

Or you could just get a Tivo for $99

[Moderation abuser]

And spend the rest on beer, or a lifetime subscription.

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/imagine/TIVO.dsp

And hey, you'll have something that "just works" from the word go, instead of having to fuck about for 3 weeks and still not be up to scratch. Face it, the tivo guys did a better job than you can.

Re:Or you could just get a Tivo for $99

[Anonymous Coward]

But then you're locked in to the hardware.

Much better to design your own, and send a message to Tivo that free TV listings aren't something worth paying for.

I use Beyond TV, and it "just works" from the minute I installed it. Picture quality using a PVR-250 is every bit as good as a Tivo and I have the satisfaction of using a box I designed myself.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a p/ 20040304/ap_on_hi_te/tech_test_beyond_tv_1

http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/products/story/0 ,2 3008,3635177,00.html

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTG AM .20040129.gtrevsnapjan29/BNStory/TechReviews/

Re:Or you could just get a Tivo for $99

[Anonymous Coward]

And, all you have to do is take a second drive, pless it with a bootable Linux ISO that has the excellent Hinsdale tools on it, and add it to your DirecTiVo. It will automagically be added as a RAID 0 stripe.

I have two 40GB drives in mine (added when >40GB drives were expensive) and 75 hours with overhead is fine for me. Shows stay around for over a month if I do nothing.

DirecTiVo will change your life. I didn't have cable or satellite before I got my DirecTiVo. Now, it is the hub of my home theater, and I love it.

NewEgg

[MsGeek]

Here it is at NewEgg.Com. You can't go wrong dealing with NewEgg. I live in California and gladly pay the sales tax on stuff I buy from them because they are just so damn good.

Almost On Topic

[Anonymous Coward]

You can also run a windows remote frontend:

http://winmyth.sourceforge.net

Needs two things to be "perfect".

[blair1q]

There are two features every PVR must have:

1. No fan or other noisemaking moving parts.

2. Noiseless disk drives.

It's humiliating to spend $450 on a piece of geek gear and then realize it's keeping you awake at night.

The worst offender is the ReplayTV 5040, which has a *stepper* motor in its fan, which is kept at a very low speed by the mobo to stop ordinary fan noise - white noise - but instead produces a fluttering rumble.

I had to disconnect the fan and leave the cover off the unit (or it shuts itself down). And I get to live with persistent "Fan error" messages when I turn the TV on...

SnapStream?

[zcasper]

It seems that one of these boxes would be a great candidate for SnapStream's Beyond TV. It's Windows based, but sounds a lot better than MythTV or some of the other software PVRs.

Has anyone tried SnapStream with one of these boxes?

Hebrew?

[spacemky]

Did anybody else read the story subject as "Second Generation Hebrew PVR Devices"?

Oy vey!

Replacing WiFi with modem

[scorilo]

If I were to buy this, I would not have much of a need for the WiFi module. After all, the unit is not really meant to be moved around, and all the rooms in my house are Ethernet wired anyway. So, unless I ever want to use it as a WAP, I don't need it. Looking at what's available in MiniPCI, I found this on other MiniPCI offerings. There are about 3 modem cards, but no info on whether they support Caller ID. Wouldn't it be nice to have the Caller ID on your screen everytime the phone rings (some digital TV boxes implement this). And once this is done, you could add a bluetooth or infrared USB adapter so you can do the same with your "docked" cell phone! yupeeee

I JUST had to. Really, I did.

[cardshark2001]

the software that comes with it doesn't look all that great... of course this may not be a problem because there has already been significant effort in getting linux to run on it

I found myself laughing heartily at this. It doesn't really function well as a DVR, which is what you bought it for, but LINUX runs on it! That makes it worth the expense!

Only on /.

Can I be on your list?

[lorcha]

I used a Hauggpage WinTV model 401. "Considerable tinkering" consisted of:

echo 'btaudio' >> /etc/modules
echo 'bttv' >> /etc/modules

All in all, not so bad, IMHO.

Mobile Athlon XP is for you

[egghat]

Pros:

* Draws less power than normal Athlons (due to reduced core voltage)

* Rather cheap (premium to a normal athlon is ~ 50 USD (or 200 MHz ---> price of Athlon 2200 is similiar to a Mobile Athlon 2000)

* runs in many normal socket-A-mainboards

Cons:

* not available at every corner

* not running in every mainboard

* no guarantie whatsoever that it will work

* no support for PowerNow! (no *dynamic* frequence scaling)

There are at least two very cool software solutions for running your Athlon at lower voltages:

8rdavcore: A programm to dynamically adjust your FSB and core voltages. I have my Epox 8RDA3+ running between 866 MHz @ 66 MHZ FSB & 1,15 volt and 1466 MHz @ 133 MHz FSB & 1,3 volt. Energy consumption should be less than half of the normal usage at the lowest speed (btw. available for linux too and (for me) rock stable). You can try this with your normal Athlon too.

CPUMSR: A programm, that can adjust your multiplier and core voltage. Needs a Mobile Athlon and one of the supported mainboards. Doesn't work on my Epox board, so I can't tell you much more. There's a guide how to transform your normal Athlon into a Mobile one (a method similiar to unlocking the max speed of your Athlon).

A fast AND power saving computer IS possible. And the premium for this is low (100 USD).

Bye egghat.