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Step By Step: Building a MythTV PVR for $635

Posted by michael on from the longest-march dept.

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."

6 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Or by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    $99 + $299 lifetime fee = still cheaper. Heck, you can replace the hard drive with a bigger one and still come out ahead.

  2. Re:Or by typhoonius · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can buy a TiVo for $99.

    The article argues that you'll save money by not having to pay TiVo a monthly fee. Besides, for some of us, building a cool machine is an end in and of itself.

    Anyway, I tried pricing a MythTV box a couple of days ago with a goal of keeping it under $500, and this is what I ended up with (copied right out of the link above):

    • CD/DVD drive ($52)--Combo CD and DVD-writer. DVD-recording isn't essential, so I might downgrade this to a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive.
    • Hard disk drive ($99)--160 GB, S-ATA, very quiet. A P-ATA drive with the same buffer is nearly the same price.
    • Video card ($109)--CATV in, composite out, works with Linux and FreeBSD. The only people who dislike it seem to be kids who want to play Doom III on it.
    • Sound card--Onboard might be good enough for now with a $5 3.5"-headphone-to-composite-audio cable from Radio Shack.
    • Processor ($65)--Athlon XP 2000+, cheap, adequate. Retail instead of OEM so I don't have to get a heatsink/fan separately.
    • Motherboard ($53)--Micro-ATX, S-ATA, AGP 8x. Committed to MSI because a motherboard without Engrish just isn't a motherboard. Three PCI slots for wireless adapter, eventually a sound card, and I dunno, 1394?
    • Memory ($76)--512 MB DDR333, cheaper than DDR266. Screw dual-channel.
    • Case/power supply--Needs something that can fit the video card (guess that entails finding a mobo that horizontally orients expansion cards if I don't want a lame-o tower).
    • Wireless adapter ($30)--802.11g, cheap, works with Linux and FreeBSD. Going wireless so it isn't stuck in the same room as the router (and no way I'm running cat-5 everywhere in 20-mother-fucking-04).

    Subtotal: $484.

    Still need a case--certainly won't be paying $100+ for one like the article did--and probably a sound card that isn't onboard crap. It probably won't make the $500 goal, but it looks alright (barring any major oversights on my part).

  3. Just For Comparison by MBCook · · Score: 5, Informative
    I messed around with MythTV about a year ago. From what I could tell it was nice, but it wasn't usable for me (my computer was WAY underpowered for video encoding, which I knew going in). That said I've since gotten a DirecTiVo and I LOVE it.

    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.
  4. TiVo = A linux distro by KB1GHC · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  5. Personal experience. by mindstrm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To all the "Just buy a tivo " people - yes, if that works for you, go for it.

    Unfortunately, in many countries, Tivo is not an option.

    Tivo is also not quite as flexible.

    - Use a PVR-250 for encoding.. heck, get two. The onboard mpeg encoder is definately worth it.

    Think of it as a general purpose home PC.... I built a mythtv box for my folks.. it has xvids, records tv shows, does the weather, lets them browse photo albums (which is great when they have friends over).. it's accessible over SSH so I can upload new shows / videos / pictures to them, as well as record some of my favorite shows and download them (I live in another country.)

    They use it to listen to streaming mp3 over the stereo when they have friends over playing poker...

    Now, sure you can do all that with a PC.. yup. The point is to have this PC that's geared towards your home entertainment center rather than your desktop.. with an interface so simple an adult can use it, and a geek can tinker behind the scenes endlessly.

  6. They don't.... by AllenChristopher · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It's about instant gratification and control.

    Want to watch that Seinfeld episode with the toothbrush? You can pull it up only if you have all 100 or so hours of Seinfeld stored.

    You probably don't want to watch it yourself. You probably want to show it to someone else. "There was this great episode of such and such the other day, man, you should have seen it."

    Call it an extension of memory. It's well worth reading what C.S. Lewis said about this in "Perelandra", and of course if the text were online I could link you to the right bit.

    These sorts of people used to download a lot more music before the iTunes music store for the same reason. They want to be able to have any song, any time. Now you don't have to download the song until you want to hear it because you know the download will work.

    The music packratting is starting to fall off... you don't stockpile every kind of snack just in case you have a craving because you trust 7-11. The video packratting is just getting started.