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Step By Step: Building a MythTV PVR for $635
hesby writes "Anandtech has just published the first half of a two-part article on building a MythTV PVR that they will ultimately compare with Microsoft's Windows Media Center Edition on very similar hardware. As a result, they selected some components that the average user might not choose, just to keep things fair in the second part, where they pit the two PVRs head to head."
You can buy a TiVo for $99.
So just for comparison, a low end brand new TiVo is $99 after rebates. A lifetime service contract is $299. The total is there for about $400. That's still about $250 under what the box in the article is. For that extra money you could get a 140 hour TiVo and still have $50 to spend on something else.
Or, if you have DirecTV, you can buy a DirecTiVo for about $100 and monthly service is $5 on top of your DirecTV bill. So that $650 will buy you the lowest end DirecTiVo and 110 months of service (about 9 years). DirecTiVos are wonderful machies, and can record two things at once, and it's all pure digital. I don't know the prices, but for $650 you could probably get a HD-DirecTiVo and a few months of HD/TiVo at least.
All that said, check out MythTV. If you already have parts on hand, it would be cheaper. It's a fun little project that can do tons of stuff, and there is no DRM (always a /. favorite). It was facinating watching the development list when I did. At that time they were discussing (and testing) ways of automaticaly skipping commercials, and it was very interesting to read. They talked about blank frame detecting (but you have to be careful so you don't miss a Simpsons's "eyeball" scene), using time (commercials come at fairly regular intervals), "bug" detection (the logo in the corner), etc.
MythTV can also show you weather, they were working on DVD and video playing as I remember, and MP3 playback. Plus you can have different frontend and backend boxes which would allow for very cool things.
All that said, if you just want a DVR, a TiVo is probably better. If you want your own Home Theater PC that can do all sorts of stuff and you want to be able to extend it yourself, check out MythTV.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
TiVo is actually Linux based. So this isn't the First Linux DVR.
you can get TiVo source code at:
http://tivo.com/linux/linux.asp
The sempron is just a fancy new duron with a new name. It's cheap as hell already and not really a powerhouse processor.
This P.I.G. will walk on the water, This P.I.G. will walk on the sea, This P.I.G. will walk whereever he wants.
if you're interested in building your own PVR, you should take a look at EFF's broadcast flag page:
http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/
in less than a year, it will no longer be possible to buy a PC/HDTV decoder that is free of broadcast flag restrictions.
something to think about...
http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/
Revolutions are never about freedom or justice. They're about who's going to be top dog. -- Kilgore Trout
The pvr-250 encodes the video to mpeg2 on the fly and uses very little processing power (less than 5% cpu per pvr-250 on my machine).
Mythtv can re-encode the mpeg2 files into other formats in the background once a recording has completed. Mythtv nices the re-encoding processes down so they don't impact much of anything else on the box.
I have a 700MHz duron w/ 2 pvr-250's and have no trouble at all recording two programs at a time while re-encoding in the background.
If your antenna reception is poor, you need to use higher bitrates. All of that fuzz is going to compete with the actual show for bits, so you need to provide more.
When the signal is nice and clean, you can lower the bitrate.
The PVR-250 dumps straight MPEG2 so you're kind of limited there. It can be postprocessed later but coming off of the card it's already an MPEG2. Just cat /dev/video0 > some_show.mpg. It kind of sucks because you can't have it auto-splice the commercials out, though it does skip them automatically when watching on MythTV.
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
For example, good luck using a Mac to record a digital HDTV broadcast to Xvid with a mu-law soundtrack and subtitles in Farsi, storing it to a network file server attached via IP-over-1394.
Good luck? It would be easier to do on a mac than a Linux box. Anything you can't find a native OS X app for, you can usually grab the unix tools and install to fill in the gaps. And you never have to recompile the kernel to get your hardware to work.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Or... you could just buy an ethernet-ready, autoconfiguring ReplayTV for around $400 (lifetime) or less from eBay, boot up the free software Java-based DVArchive (works on Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/Xp, Linux, Mac OSX 10.2.3 or later, Solaris, etc), and schedule, share, and distribute your content over your LAN or across the Internet at will. In this context, the ReplayTV box works like as a really very loosely coupled capture device with its own extensive on-board command set that can be driven remotely by the DVArchive program, either at a console or using a web browser. And unlike the Tivo's inferior HMO option, the DVArchive system costs nothing and is unemcumbered by DRM. Some select ReplayTV models even feature automatic commercial skipping (using associated XML content metatags) and let you download content from a library of several tens of thousands of shows stored on a wide distributed ReplayTV network. More info here or here.
Da Blog
Why do people always talk smack... o.k. pvr on the mac...l p ag e=gallery&model=tve ctions/computers/mac tv.html
http://www.elgato.com/
I believe there's another service/hardware, but I don't remember the name.... But I do remember this....
http://www.lowendmac.com/500/mactv.shtm
http://www.apple-history.com/noframes/body.php?
http://applemuseum.bott.org/s
Very interesting reading... now don the tinfoil and tell us why the tech isn't really pervasive...
Oh yeah, meant to add... I think it's cool, but too much trouble for passive entertainment for me. When I'm lazy, I'm really lazy. Just hide your remote and watch how long people will watch one channel until it turns up.
Like this. In fact, these are the guys that Aussie home brew MythTV builders get the programming info from.
I have used all three: Tivo, ReplayTV, and Myth. For my money, I choose ReplayTV hands down. I currently own 2 of them.
Replay TV is about the same price as a Tivo. And unless I haven't seen the latest version of Tivo yet, you still can't easily get the vids off of your Tivo and onto a PC. With Replay TV, it is easy. Use a piece of software called DVArchive.
And yes, you can share recordings with other ReplayTV's of the same (or similar) model. Yes, you can program it over the web (my.replaytv.com I think it is, I never use it personally)
You can buy a good ReplayTV 5040 unit on Ebay for about $300 last I checked. This model has automatic commercial skip, and 30 second skip if you prefer to do it manually. I have one of these models and it kicks the crap out of my cousin's Tivo simply because I can network it with the 10/100 port on the back and get stuff off of it and onto my PC.
Lastly, if you want a bigger hard drive, there are instructions for installing dual 160 GB drives out there on the internet. I personally have plenty of room on my 40GB drive since I can archive to my PC.
Tivo I give a 7/10, Myth I give a 6/10 (mostly because it is more tedious to set up and lacks the all around neatness in the entertainment center) and I give ReplayTV 9/10. I do wish they had the thumbs up/down type thing Tivo has.
There are good reasons for having many distros. This is one of them.
The point was that the TiVo is a simple to use device that is based on Linux, and is widely used by the unwashed masses. The parent concluded that Linux isn't ready for the mainstream by citing parts of an article about custom building a machine from scratch, while ignoring the counterexample of consumer-oriented products already using Linux.
Well, my bad for not reading your comment a bit closer before posting. One would think though that on a story about custom buiding a Linux PVR system, you'd comment on, well, a custom-built Linux PVR system.
We all know TiVos are easy to use and based on Linux, but that's not the subject of this story or what the original poster was commenting on.
The fact remains that if you want to achieve what the story is concerned with, and build a custom solution, you have to go through a lot of needlessly complex configuration that should really be automated in some fashion by now.
Look, I admit I use a MCE and I love it, I have another computer with a PVR card that I will probably convert to a linux pvr of some flavor this month. This article is great but damnit if they dont get something wrong. Recorded TV can be played on any MS pc with media player, it does not have to be a media center pc. Third party utilities (free, third party utilities) have been around to re-encode the dvr-ms format into other formats (mpeg and wm9 available etc.) This whole linux pvr vs MCE is like bush vs Kerry. Neither are perfect and both sides like to sling mud, but really i'm seeing a lot more crap flying from the linux side, indeed this is the place for "news for nerds", "not fair and balanced".
Does it have a DVD burner?
Although I do have a couple of TB of storage on the LAN, I do of course run out of space and some burning is required. Personally, I convert most everything to DIVX and burn to CD - stil working through an odd thousand or so free-after-rebate blanks. But I hear you can get DVD burners for basically free these days.
Da Blog
Having both a ReplayTV 4040->120GB and a MythTV setup, I think that there are some things that aren't easily quantified that lend themselves to MythTv.
Yes, MythTV is a PITA to setup. Especially if you are using a Via M10000 w/ PVR-250 like I am. I started out with a Matrox G200 back when that was the only hardware solution supported. With the crappy via video drivers, getting hardware mpeg2 acceleration is hit or miss. Then lirc for IR Remote work is a pain too. I have it but don't even use it, just use my wireless keyboard w/ built in mouse instead ($30).
But thosen that say replay+dvarchive is better:
Annoying Replay problem #1: It reboots itself every day. Press pause while watching something that's already recorded, and the next thing you know you have to wait 4 minutes for it to reboot.
Annoying ReplayTV Problem #2: You aren't watching anything, the guide is showing, whatever. A show starts recording. Replay decides that it should start playing the show immediately, scaring the bejeezus out of me. Who wants that?
Problem #3: Who would want to burn the crap video bitrate that ReplayTV generates? Fine, it looks okay most of the time, but if you're using 480p component out, and for example watching a game with crowd shots, artifacts everywhere, even on the highest setting. I would much rather find someone else's 350MB HDTV rip on BT(which can be integrated into MythTV) than deal with a 2.5GB fullscreen version that RTV generates.
The main thing about ReplayTV that's great, that shouldn't be discounted, is the sheer numer of settings if you set it up that way. Being able to find a show that I want in under 20 seconds is worth $10-20 to me over the life of the product. Being able to record that NOVA/NAture special at 8000 kbs is worth $10-20. Being able to play all of my mp3 collection (250GB on a separate mp3 server across the network) with an easy to use interface is worth $50-100. Playing DVDs: $20. Playing pr0n and the avi's I DL: $30. Being able to set up to record something when I'm not at home for that day, using MythWeb or TightVNC: $30. Knowing that if ReplayTV goes bankrupt again, or Tivo does so, that I'm still covered: $priceless.
Don't get me wrong, I do like my replay. It just doesn't do what I want it to do, I have to do what it wants me to do...
Yikes, are they trying to make it difficult? There's no need to compile ivtv and myth, and they send you different places for documentation. This site is a complete guide to installing Myth TV on Fedora Core 1. apt-get is used heavily, and most of the config files are available for download. I went from a clean box to a PVR in 5 hours, and that was without reading the documentation beforehand. The funny thing is, Tivo has to use a phone line the first time it runs, so it actually didn't take much longer to build a Myth box.
Myth does so much more than Tivo: dvd, dvd ripping, music, web browser, rss, weather, pictures. Maybe some people aren't interested in those things, but I sure am. But even as a PVR Myth has already surpassed Tivo. There are more options, and it's much easier to resolve conflicts (the main problem I've had with Tivo). Then you have the fact that you can do anything you want with the hardware: dual tuner cards, RAID, etc. Yeah, it's more expensive, and a BMW is more expensive than a Civic. Go figure.
This is what I used:
- PVR-350 - $180
- My old 800 Mhz P3 computer from years ago - "Free"
- Newer, quieter power supply - $50
- 400 GB worth of hard-drives bought over the course of a few months with CompUSA rebates - $230
Then MythTV + Zap2It datadirect.
So for $460 I have a 400 hour PVR. Of course it would be a lot cheaper for just a 120 hour machine (substract about $180).
It's better than TiVo for a number of reasons:
- I can watch the recorded shows from any computer in the house from the web interface. The web interface lets me do things like schedule shows, see the program guide, and watch recordings.
- I can easily burn anything I record to DVD because everything from the PVR-350 is recorded in standard MPEG2 DVD format. I don't even need to re-encode, I just burn straight to DVD (fast).
- MythTV is way more configurable than TiVo. I mean, there are settings for doing all sorts of things.
- Things like MythVideo let me watch stuff that wasn't recorded on the machine (like downloaded items or whatever; stuff recorded from your old VHS tapes, etc.)
And probably other stuff I'm forgetting.
With the PVR-350 you absolutely do not need a powerful computer. I ran MythTV on a 200 Mhz Celeron system with PVR-350 for over a year. MythTV itself is kinda slow but there are a lot of people working on making it better. The video quality is excellent though. Even the "low quality" (1GB per hour) is way better than what TiVo encodes.
The ratio of people to cake is too big