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Build Your Own DVR
prostoalex writes "If you have an old computer that had been laying around for a while and are ready to spend a bit on hardware to make into a Digital Video Recorder, this article from Make magazine contains a step-by-step guide on building one. The author spent $150 on TV card and $70 on BeyondTV PVR software." (And with a Linux-friendly capture card, MythTV would save the builder $70.)
The author's description implies the guy could have saved money if he'd used free software.
When I read this, I thought, why would someone who is smart enough to build a PVR waste money unnecessarily on software?
From RTFA, it appears that because the software is bundled, he didn't pay the $70. It was "free as in beer".
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
The author spent $150 on TV card and $70 on BeyondTV PVR software." (And with a Linux-friendly capture card, MythTV would save the builder $70.)
Lets not forget the license fee for Windows XP -- that's significantly more than $70, I'm sure.
Yeah I admit it, I rtfa.
1. an old computer is going to be a big hulking mess compared to a DVR
2. the DVR will use much less wattage
3. the DVR doesn't cost much more anyway
My local cable provider carries only plain channels on analog cable. If I want specialty channels, I gotta get the digital set top box. It becomes impossible to DVR with a PC. Their solution is to get their set top box with DVR functions. The do-it-yourself DVR is a great idea if you like having 70 channels to pick and choose programming from.
I also recommend checking out the Hauppage (www.hauppage.com) PVR-150 through PVR-350 series, as well as their MediaMVP box, which allows streaming your tv across ethernet to your television. I suspect you could create a very useable system with free software for well under $100. Just be warned that you'll chew through about 2GB per hour of HD space. The old 30GB drive that's serving as my PVR storage doesn't really cut it in the modern world!
Reliably?
Myth has a long way to go yet.
And some really awkward assumptions for defaults.
"No, you should not see the cursor, that would be too easy to use"
Free does not necessarily mean "best"
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Mythtv would have saved him 70 bucks, and not having paid windows tax on the machine in the first place would have saved even more. I've been a completely happy mythtv user for about 1.5 years, and I am just blown away at it's quality and reliability. Good job isaac and company! Dave Hofstra
You can buy a TiVo that works out of the box...
In honor of Broadcast flag becoming law on July 1st, EFF hosts a Broadcast flag awareness and PVR building page with many resources on how to build you own. A good starting place to see many solutions and find many links
badness 10000
-noisy
-unable to record more than one digital channel at once, and you'll still need a cable/satellite receiver to record digital at all
-terrible form factor
-clunky user interface
-limited epg (electronic program guide)
I'm usually all for tinkering and rolling your own, but in this case I would suggest just getting a Tivo, or better yet a DirectTivo or a DVR through your cable company (usually an extra $10/month). Everything will just work, you can record multiple digital channels at once (even multiple HD in many areas), and some DVR's even have music/games/pictures software built in.
http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html
Assuming you have the right hardware, etc.
If not, prepare to spend a couple hours finding drivers / recompiling / all that fun stuff.
Maybe it is just me, but I don't feel like installing 3 distros and spending hours trying to get some hardware to work, sometimes "just fucking works" is nice.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
$150 is way, way, way too much. I got a fully functional TV tuner card that I use with mplayer as a DVR and it only cost me $6 (I got a good deal). But www.pricewatch.com puts capture cards around $20.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
1. an old computer is going to be a big hulking mess compared to a DVR
2. the DVR will use much less wattage
3. the DVR doesn't cost much more anyway
Amen, thank you.
If I could get a DVR for the price of TV card + the software, and no more hassle, I'd buy one.
In fact, it would solve the problem of getting digitised programs off a standalone DVR. However, as this would require leaving my computer all the time (wattage, noise), and more importantly, restrict what I can do with it (bad enough if you use Windows and want decent recording quality- means you can't run game X when your favorite program is on; I run Linux, and not being able to boot into that at will is a killer, straight off, for me).
The 'old computer' is, as you say, still going to be bulky and noisy (and ugly), and quite honestly, if you want analog recording, you're going to need a pretty decent machine to capture at full resolution. The only machine I can dedicate to this (I use my laptop as a wireless X server for my main machine) is my old Pentium-233. *Way* too slow...
So, buy a new PC. Cheap one? Still noisy, bulky, and power hungry; and no cheaper than a standalone box, if slightly more flexible.
Shuttle-type case (nano-ATX where the *hell* are you?); getting expensive, and I'd have to start questioning the merit of not just getting a standalone DVR.
For me, the latter are likely to come down in price to mass-market breakthrough price by the end of the year; the main problem is getting the video off them. But that in itself isn't enough to persuade me to spend more on the 'cheap' option of a new PC.
On the other hand, maybe I just don't care enough about TV to consider the ultimate flexibility that a new nano-PC based solution would give to be worth the money. I'll wait for my cheap off-the-shelf box and use my VHS recorder in the meantime.
There are around 4 shows a week our household likes to watch. If we miss one, I get it off of bittorrent. I'm sure they are fun and convenient, but just not worth it for the limited use. You know, if I really gave it enough thought, we would just do away with cable at $20/month and get our shows from the the 'net.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Since this uses the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR, I wonder if GOPchop can be used to delete out the commercials? GOPchop 1.1.6 just came out, adding a bunch of patches, and it sounds like the 1.2.0 release is around the corner. Also planned is adding some commandline operation mode, so in theory if you had a way to detect commercial breaks, maybe it could be set up to auto-skip? That'd be a neat trick.
Call current provider and say, "I'm thinking of switching to another provider because they will give me a free dvr. If you can match that I will stay with you." That's how we got our Dish netowork DVR. Which does 2 tvs. Recently talked to comcast about switching to them but said we want dvrs for 4 rooms. They said yes. (we want on demand feature from comcast) So will probably switch to Comcast when our dish contract is up in a month. Only reservation is that we hear comcast dvr sucks. Dish's is pretty nice.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
Fine until the people who make the content find out how easy and cheap it is to copy then clamp down with digital rights management included in the broadcast.
"...and yet, I blame society" Duke - Repo Man
The geek community knows they exist thankyouverymuch
can i run mythtv on freebsd? never bothered to look, never used freebsd for such an application.
also, does it defeat the broadcast flag bs thats supposed to go down in june(july?)?
There is currently no PVR software that allows capture to DVD. The ones that offer DVD burning, do it after the capture. Time consuming, not convenient. You still can't get close to the convenience of a box-top DVD recorder.
Also, just don't buy a TV card (or AGP card with TV tuner) made by ATI. You'll have nightmares with drivers and ATI software like the rest of us ATI users do.
I use a 3rd party capture card for DVR just so I can make funny edits to clips from the shows that my friends watch. Can't do that with Tivo.
People should not fear what they do not understand; people should fear because they do not understand.
Before building your own PC-DVR, you should take a long look at Tivo or ReplayTV.
For example. A 40GB ReplayTV unit is $99 + $299 activation. From there you can upgrade hard drive to a huge capacity for the cost of a bare drive. It takes 5 minutes to set up. The interface is serviceable. The GUI is adequate. Video quality is good. There are programs to get files from the Replay unit to your PC.
It just works. And for god sakes it is just TV. You might save some money but you gotta ask yourself if it is really worth the time and energy.
-w
It should be "If you have an old computer that had been lying around"
It's probably still worth it, though.
-- $SIGNATURE
Unless I'm mistaken, all set top boxes that can record as they go- can't fit nearly the same length of video on a DVD as a PC can that encodes after the fact, for the simple reason that they can't pick the VBR
(this was at least the case for some first gen machine I looked at)
I'd rather have 2 hours & 10 mins of DVD that took 2-4 to encode, than 60 minutes recorded in real time...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
First it was repetitive "imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!" posts.
Then the BYO DVR posts.
For a while, it appeared reposts of hackaday would take the top repetitive post topic.
Well, it sure looks like the BYO DVR/MythTV/My-time-is-worthless posts are back in the top slot.
Next up, make your own printer paper. It's "free" because your time is worthless.
Bah! Why does this junk keep getting posted? Make a BYO-DVR-MythTV-my-time-is-worthless section to Slashdot and keep these out of the main page.
I am not much of a TV watcher, but if I could set a DVR to search for and grab old movies I want when they're on and tuck them away for a rainy day, then I'd be interested. But "pausing live TV" and such have little interest for me...
So without a guide, your remaining option is to search the TV Guide or whatever yourself...right?
Advice: on VPS providers
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition considers "to lay" as an intransitive verb nonstandard usage. So let's let the
"old computer that had been laying around" lie around instead.
Source: http://www.answers.com/lay&r=67
Just some friendly pedantry...
There's Freevo, an open-source PVR software. There's another way you could save even more money.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Since I (finally!) got a broadband connection, I've been using BitTorrent to grab stuff I've missed. Despite the *AA's efforts, a few sites still provide torrents for TV shows. And I figure I'm not violating copyright if I download a show, watch it, and then trash it. The shows I really like, I'll buy the DVD later...
That $299 Dell server is sounding better by the minute
-Palal
I put together a mythtv system from an old computer; it was a way for me to learn more about linux.
But, then after the motherboard went bad (bad caps.) I bought a new motherboard, processor, and memory ($159.) It wasn't "pretty" enough (girl friend didn't like the case next to the TV.) So I bought a silver stone case and power supply ($190.)
Can't forget the two tuners; pvr-250 ($120) pvr-150 ($60.)
Total $529...
My ReplayTV, refurbished 5040, $350/with lifetime service.
I paid $179 more for a homemade pvr and some linux experience. Not to mention a fun and frustrating hobby.
I think it was worth it, but my girl friend prefers the replay.
you can do with the PC is hooke another PC/PS2/xbox and the likes and make what i call "Worlds greatest moments in gaming: A Snapshot of history"
Does this work with a digital cable box? Can you use it to view the channels on digital cable (e.g. HBO, etc.)?
Any info about it working with the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 3200 would be appreciated.
Forget about DVD players; do any DVRs have DVD burners? If you're enough of a TV fan to want a DVR in the first place, odds are there are at least a couple TV shows you enjoy enough to want to archive indefinitely or take to friends' houses. MythTV doesn't do DVD or DVD-ROM burning itself yet, but if you're willing to go outside the Myth interface there's other free software capable of doing the rest.
Can anyone recommend a good hdtv tv card? I'm curious about building one of these and have several questions about it.
How much hard drive spaces does and hd feed take up per hour?
What software is compatible with HD (I'm flexible with windows or linux)?
Thanks
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
You could just go to http://btefnet.net/
---southpaw
You have to pay them each month.
It would not handle our Sat receivers (dish UHF).
You either but the TIVO with the Sat recv, or in the room with the TV. If with the Sat Recv. IR doesn't work with the TIVO. IF with the TV the Tivo can't control the sat recv.
Great machine other than that.
the Hauppauge PVR-250 that the guy uses is well supported under mythtv...but he did want "off the shelf" and mythtv is pretty far from OTS (approaching...RSN)
For most people I would recommend just buying a tivo or something off the shelf like that, but if you're a true geek you're going to want a mythtv system. I spent about ~$1,000 total on mine, but it's the nicest PVR me or my friends have ever come across. It's actually more of a media center than just a PVR. Here's the basic setup..
:P) It server as my fileserver and mp3 jukebox, and can stream all of it's data (video,tv,music) to any other PC in my house. I can browse tv listings and schedule show recordings through a web interface from anywhere.
First I didnt want some clunky beige case sitting beside my TV looking akward, so I opted for a home theater PC case, specifically this one.
I've got two Hauppauge PVR-500's, which are dual tuner cards, so I have a total of 4 tuners (this way I can record 4 different shows at once if they happen to be broadcast simultaneosly. This comes in handy durin g prime time when you would otherwise be forced to pick between different shows.
The rest of the hardware is nothing special, a soyo kt400 mb, 512M ram, athlon 2100+, and a geForce fx 5200. Not a top of the line system by any means, but not bad at all. Probably overkill for doing the PVR stuff, but I do alot more with it than just that.
The software is where it really gets interesting. I use gentoo on most of my machines, and this one was no different, mythtv as well as several plugins are already in portage and installed hassle free. MythTV acts as my front end to TV, weather, DVD's/Movies, Games, etc. I scripted a little GTK frontend to all my emulators and roms, so my PVR is also a NES, SNES, SMS, N64, PSX, etc. (now you see why I needed that GeForce
So all in all I spent about 4 times more than a Tivo and got about 20 times more out of it. Not a bad deal I'd say...
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Its important to maintain proper grammer.
is Non of the doit yourself DVR's support DirectTV due to the fact no TV card decodes the dish signal. (MAKE A DIRECTTV card reader TV CARD) that would be the only reason to go back to comcast
While a PVR has been just out of reach for me in the past couple months, I have a great desire in building one. I was assuming that when I clicked on this thread I would see all kinds of people telling all the different creative solutions they had to making PVRs and the ways to do it. Instead there is a big discussion on whether a PVR or a TIVO or cable provider solution is better. I thought that most of the Slashdot users were all about bringing down "the man". So most people sided with TIVO? I've seen plenty of Google criticism here on Slashdot, but no one mentioned in this thread anything about Google and TIVOs potential partnership. I also assumed most Slashdot readers would have an older 1Ghz machine lying around doing nothing that they could devote to being a TIVO. Not to mention the option of having the all sacred open source software that is so loved her on Slashdot.
Your choice.
Tivo is a good choice for some, but it's not for everyone. I don't like monthly fees. I'd rather pay up front and own (and control!) a solution tailored to my needs. So now I have a MythTV box that records and plays HDTV and standard analog TV, plays and burns DVDs, plays music, and is as flexible as I want it to be. I've programmed it from 2500 miles away via ssh. But it's the wrong solution for my brother. He has different needs.
Everyone knows about Tivo by now. You don't need to remind them anymore. People choose other solutions because they don't want a Tivo.
See my post above re: the HD DVR. I'm intending to take a feed from the Y,Cb,Cr (or R,G,B) signals that are the end-result *after* all the decoding by the encrypted cable/dish network/whatever. Digitise, compress, store, and play, all in hardware :-)
The Analog Devices input chip I'm planning on using has up to 3 (non-simultaneous) HD inputs of Y,Cb,Cr as well as various SD options. The encoder chip has colourspace conversion of RGB->Y,Cb,Cr and has an RGB overlay input - you'd think they'd designed it for a DVR [grin]
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Hey folks, To cap this off I thought I would mention a site called byopvr.com that helps the general community find their way into selecting hardware, software and configs with Windows and Linux PVR solutions. I've been at it with my own PVR for a bit over 6mo now and thanks to the byopvr.com site I got the setup supporting all the features I wanted from my PVR (weather, web site scheduling, comskip, mp3 support, DVD support) using SageTV with custom plugins (Thanks Cayars and nielm). Check out the site if you are interested in getting your own PVR together, I am sure you'll find there are lots of solutions, some even for free (MythTV, GB-PVR, media portal). Enjoy, RedR
I havent seen a reasonably priced DVR that lets you network it and play your own videos through it. Even one that lets you mount nfs/smb/etc would be cool. Or, even a hackable DVR! Under $200 of course!
I'm a registered (paid) BeyondTv user. I still run version 3.4 (Build 1334) as it is the latest version to support the writing to divx encoded avis internally. Its buggy. Every 2 weeks the .NET routines die, and it won't update the guide. This means that shows don't get recorded.
Sure I could update to the 3.5x to solve this problem, but Snapstream removed divx support internally in that and all versions to date. That leaves users to throw a bunch of batch files together, hunt down 3rd party apps to do a function that was IN the software when it was sold.
Sure MPEG 2 is nice, but not all of us write to DVDs. And the alternative, WMV, truly bites.
Before you buy, I would STRONGLY suggest that you visit their support groups.
Some functionality only works with hardware based encoders and other functions only work with software based encoders.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
" is Non of the doit yourself DVR's support DirectTV due to the fact no TV card decodes the dish signal. (MAKE A DIRECTTV card reader TV CARD) that would be the only reason to go back to comcast"
well this is true, if you're doing SDTV and can stomach going from Digital -> Analog -> Digital... you can certainly hook up a direcTV STB with a homebrew PVR. Run the video/audio out to the video/audio in on the tuner/encoder card, use a serial/low speed port cable (or IR blaster) to change the set top box channels and Voila!
*Shrug*
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I built a MythTV box using an Asus Pundit.i ew.htm
http://www.asus.com/products/desktop/pundit/overv
The Pundit is a small form factor all in one that looks a lot like any other home theatre component when turned on its side and is quiet too. While it can be a nuisance to set up MythTV, once it is working, it will continue to work well. You just have to make sure all your hardware is linux compatible and works together well.
There are a lot of nice things you can do with it. Watching any movies or music is simple as they can just be transferred over via a wireless network. SAMBA can be used to share stuff. Emulators for lots of different systems can be used. You also don't have to pay for any service like you do with TiVo or the other companies. Of course, it will record TV as well.
The main complaints I saw were it would be noisy, unable to record more than one channel at once, ugly form factor, bad UI, and bad tv listings. The pundit isn't noisy or ugly. MythTV will record more than one show at a time, you just need another tuner. MythTV also has a very nice UI, MUCH better than the regular cable DVRs I have seen. Listings come from Zap2It and are very reliable.
I think the notion is that you just build a DVR out of the scrap that is in your closet. If you do that, sure, it will be ugly and loud. But if you spend a little more for a pundit or similar system it will work out very well.
A big problem is HD recording though. I will be getting a DVR from my cable company to record HD now because getting HD recording to work with Myth looks scary and expensive. So if anyone wants to buy a slighty used MythTV box, email me at QwQw at earthlink doot net!
I'd love to be able to run some type of PVR software on here. I tried BeyondTV however after registering for a trial account it never lets me log in so I can never download the programming for my area.
As far as MythTV. It looks great...too bad my TV tuner is on a windows box.
I'm looking at the various cards on the hauppauge website. The three main PCI cards(150, 250 and the 350) boast identical feature lists. So what is the difference between these cards?
I want to build my own motherboard!
And I want it to support one P4 Extreme edition, one Athlon 64, and one Ultrasparc. And I need to use all these 72 pin simms I have laying around.. So, I will need about 81 SIMM slots. Yes, 81. Oh, xga graphics, too.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
MythTv is ok and all, I mean it works.
But if you have a XP licence lying around I would go for Media Portal.
The guy's on this project are serieusly building a xbox media center like system that can record from 7 channels at once without a problem.
It uses xmltv and takes about 10 min. to set up.
I does need a pretty hefty videocard and I would not run it without 512 megs of memory but it's got everything I wanted from a dvr.
Get yourself a MCE 2005 remote (MP has support for this out of the box) and a MCE150 hauppauge card.
MP can use the dscaler codecs and can even use ffd post processing if your cpu has the grunt for it.
stefan
It costs me $71.40 to rent the DVR on top of my usual cable subscription... (yes, which subsidizes the DVR cost...) but at $71.40 a year, HDTV capability and no up front or program listing costs... It's worth the money. Now if I wanted an extra DVR for just grabbing regular television you bet I'd tinker with a homebuilt solution. It's a great learning exercise, but not for everyone.
I'm surprised there is not more talk about GBPVR (www.gbpvr.com). I use it on my everyday workstation with a Hauppauge PVR-250 in conjunction with a networked Hauppauge MediaMVP connected to my TV. From my couch I can pull up the GBPVR server on the MediaMVP, select what to record or watch, check the weather, read Slashdot headlines, listen to Net radio stations, and more. Free (as in beer) software with great support and lots of additional development community plug-ins. When I was looking at building my own PVR this software was the only package that had it all. I don't need a dedicated box, doesn't slow down my system, is feature rich and works seemlessly with the MediaMVP...what more can you ask?
Unfortunately, homebrew DVRs are not much good for using with digital satellite in the UK... the main reason being that Sky (the satellite company) does not produce or allow any other company to produce CAMs to allow third party products to decrypt their service. So if you want an all-digital DVR, you have to sign up for their Sky+ service and pay £199 (or whatever ridiculous amount they're charging now) for a Sky+ box.
Digital terrestrial on the other hand is another matter, though currently the number of channels available on it is pitiful compared to Sky. TopUpTV do appear to produce CAMs for their service, so it should theoretically be possible to homebrew a DVR capable of running off it. Pity there's not anything any good on...
The DVD playback is region free. I picked up Kung Fu Hustle on DVD months ago (Region 3), but it plays just fine on my MythTV setup.
The reason people get confused about this is that there are two verbs 'to lie', each with different inflected forms.
In present tense, the two verbs are conjugated the same:
1a.) Bush lies about weapons of mass destruction.
1b.) My dog lies in her own excrement.
In past tense, the conjugated forms differ:
2a.) Clinton lied about taking advantage of a woman half his age.
2b.) Her tender bosom heaving, the young intern lay upon the hallowed floor of the Oval Office.
"And with a Linux-friendly capture card, MythTV would save the builder $70.) "
Yeah, and it would also be a much bigger pain in the ass for the average person to use.
If your time is so valuable, why are you watching tv? The time spent geeking around learning how to make stuff work so that you can record tv is subtracted from the time spent watching crap tv because you haven't got perfect timeshifting. You aren't suggesting there is more good content than you have time to watch, are you?
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I did this for several months, but the sound of the PC's fans in many cases interfered with the overall quality of the 5.1 theater. To really do this properly, you'd need a watercooled system, or one of these: http://www.logicsupply.com/product_info.php/cPath/ 49/products_id/166?referrer=googleAd
Other factors to consider:
The position I'm in right now is that US $1820 is still a lot of money that (a) I do have, but can't really afford to spend on that sort of thing, and (b) Amn't into TV enough to want to spend that sort of time and money on it.
There's a fair chance I'll be moving several times in the next few years; the basement isn't necessarily an option (though I could shut it in a closet or something).
*More importantly*... no offence, but what you described, value-for-money or not (that depends on what you want- in your case it probably is, in mine, probably not) is EXPENSIVE considering that the nature of the original article was a CHEAP DVR.
My argument was really with that original article. Of course, if you are into it enough, and willing to spend the money, you can get a PC-based solution that is *way* better than an off-the-shelf DVR. But if all you want is something fairly cheap, the PC isn't really the ideal solution some may consider it to be unless you happen to have a small, quiet, decently-powered box lying idle. (And if cheap is your aim, those 4 MediaMVP boxes add up to way more than I can get a cheap standalone DVR for. So it *will* have to go beside the TV).
About 3 or 4 years ago. A great investment. It just worked out of the box and apart from upgrading the disks to 250Gb soon after I got it I haven't had to touch it. Much more useful than a video recorder.
It's single best feature though which none of the others seem to have is the auto recording of stuff it thinks I might like. It searches through all the crap on all the channels and does a fairly good job of picking out the gems.
The next best feature, again of which the others only seem to have a limited subset is the "season pass", tell it to record an entire season of a show and it goes and does it.
Is it the cheapest? Well maybe, maybe not, it certainly isn't expensive compared to the competition. But super size you if all you know is McDonalds.
Deleted
"Lay" takes an object: "Lay down your hammer."
"Lie" doesn't: "Come, lie down."
So dogs and old computers can by lying around, not laying around.
http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/
For those who have parts to an extra pc øying around doing nothing, this was an nice idea for building your own PVR for personal use. :)
-- Kimme Utsi
a freeware dvr system for windows that had a name very similar to mythtv...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Hi, do not forget VDR is't far better than most other solutions regarding DVB. my 0.2 cent
While I've done some completely pointless projects, I've got to say don't waste your time on this one. Its not like its technically challenging to build your own system. Its not geeky, its still just following pre-written instructions. Buy a damn TiVo and work on something more interesting...
http://www.brentcastle.com
...and that's the Freedom and openness of a linux-based DVR system. Upgradeable kernel, upgradeable DVR software (including future codecs), upgradeable hardware, and reliable online tech. support.
If you just want something that plays your DVRs for a few years until it hits the end of it's product lifecycle, then yes: there's probably no benefit in a custom-built solution. However, when you factor in those things above, a Linux based DVR starts to look pretty good.
Having spent about 100 hours trying to get KnoppMyth and MythTV working on my system, my advice to everyone is this: don't!
KnoppMyth has bugs(*), MythTV has bugs(*), the drivers have bugs(*), the hardware has bugs(*), the documentation is contradictory, the right documentation is hard to find, and the people on the mailing lists are generally unresponsive and unhelpful even when they do respond.
I did all the research, looked at all the reports of how people had done it, for months. I bought the best supported TV card (PVR 350), had a reasonably fast system (900 mhz), and used the most up-to-date versions of everything.
My system is currently workable: it only crashes about once a week and it doesn't play DVD's yet (more hours to spend...) but for the pricetag and the number of hours I spent, I would have been far happier paying $200 for a TIVO and $300 for the lifetime subscription.
My recommendation: do NOT build your own PVR. You could be very lucky, or it could turn into the most time consuming, annoying hobby you have.
*) KnoppMyth didn't work with my network card (other Linux distros do, I still don't know what the problem was). This is not a biggie, except that the distro *halted on install*, forcing me to spend hours trying to figure out the problem. A simple "this card doesn't seem to work with this distro" would have been wayyyy too helpful.
*) Some of the MythTV setup pages plot the "next/prev" buttons below the bottom of the screen... where you can't see them. Only happens on some of the pages, but it makes navigating the setup screens a challenge.
*) Newer hauppage PVR cards come with new version tuners (type 42 et. al.). There's a driver that detects the tuner type, and another that takes "tuner type" as an argument. These drivers don't work together - I had to recompile the 2nd driver and force the tuner type in code. There's tons of messageboard entries from people who are having trouble with this. (Do *you* know how to debug driver modules in the kernel? You will...)
*) Getting TV-Out working is relatively easy, only had to spend 4 hours figuring this one out. Requires knowledge of lspci, pasting obscure numbers into obscure X-windows config files. Oh, and there was confusion as to whether the obscure X-window file wanted hex or decimal.
*) The VIA chip on my motherboard will hang the system when run at close to top DMA speed. This is apparently a common problem, as the VIA chip in question is common. Nothing I can do but accept the fact that the system will lock up occasionally, and hope that the people at VIA technology will spend any time looking into this (they don't have to - no one else but PVR people are reporting this problem). The messageboards show a lot of people having this problem as well.
*) Google "IVTV" and you'll find the official page and the wiki. Which one is current, and which one has outdated information that will cause grief and aggravation? The answer is, as always, left as an exercise to the reader.
*) Google "MythTV setup" or "KnoppMyth setup" and the like and you'll find many pages of people telling you how they managed to get their system up and running. Unfortunately, all of these pages refer to out of date versions of the software, and the software has changed so much in the last 3 to 6 months that the information is no longer valid. (Note: The correct information is contained in a messageboard post on one of the Wiki's somewhere. Good luck finding it!)
I am currently trying to get MythTV to work and am having problems (but that is beside the point, I'm learning as I go). My eventual goal is to build another computer to set in the living room for watching and recording TV (as well as playing DVDs). I have already purchased 2 pcHDTV HD-3000 cards to that end. (I plan to have an all-digital dual-tuner setup).
I have also been working on a Basic Stamp project to turn the computer on by remote control and at set times (using a dsPocketWatch module). I had the computer-on-by-remote working within an hour of receiving the parts. I am still trying to figure out the best way to synchronize the dsPocketWatch module (via the Stamp) with the computer's real-time clock (I may wind up doing this on power-down). I'll probably have to hack into MythTV to figure out a way of sending the programmed time to the dsPocketWatch (also via the Stamp) as well (probably to turn the computer on several minutes before a scheduled recording).
I'll probably begin the build in June. (After spending over $300 on the HD-3000 cards and another $300 on the Basic Stamp and assorted parts, I'm hesistant to spend the extra on the computer parts right away.)
Who the hell are these people?
"Oh, I just happened to scrape together a 2.5GHz Athlon, 1GB of RAM, and 4 300GB drives for this. I mean, they were just lying around...."
or, from that guy who put together the digital window:
"Yeah, I had eight 15" LCDs, so I put a wood frame over them, and had them simulate a window on an interior wall."
Don't get me wrong. Some of these ideas are great, but I don't know how one gets the hardware. At my WORST hardware hoarding stage, the best I could've come up with was multiple monitor support. I had a lot of RageIIs hanging around.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Are you able to do vaguely TiVo-like recording (I haven't used mplayer, and only briefly looked at the docs, so I don't know how much it can do besides "start recording/playing now".) Are there data feeds that let you do things like "Record every show of Boston Legal", or only "Record channel 7 every Sunday night at 10pm"?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sounds like GOPchop is just like what we need around here :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sure, if everybody just buys things and doesn't make things, we'll be couch potatoes who spend all our time in front of the TV. I suppose that making a DVR is good because it makes you spend some number of hours hassling with stupid device drivers from cretinous closed-source manufacturers instead of spending those hours watching television, but you'll probably get finished with that in a few days and be back in front of your TV again :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"KnoppMyth has bugs(*), MythTV has bugs(*), the drivers have bugs(*), the hardware has bugs(*), the documentation is contradictory, the right documentation is hard to find, and the people on the mailing lists are generally unresponsive and unhelpful even when they do respond.
I did all the research, looked at all the reports of how people had done it, for months. I bought the best supported TV card (PVR 350), had a reasonably fast system (900 mhz), and used the most up-to-date versions of everything. "
I'm sorry you had such a horrible experience...
But a few points of contention... the pvr350 is NOT the most well supported card, the pvr250 is. Ironically, the hardest part of the install (dealing with the pvr350's TV out) was the easiest for you.
You've got a good point about the coherency/cohesiveness of the documentation out there. Although the best guide I've seen is jarod's fedora core mythtv guides
I can't speak for the mailing lists, but in general I try to cultivate a helpful community in the byopvr forum, I lurk/search the mailing lists and seemed pretty helpful IMHO.
What 900mhz system? is it a mini-itx EPIA board? I know recent knoppmyth builds have gotten better at supporting those boards.
Building a DVR isn't for everyone, and sometimes with some combinations of hardware and software you can fall into a crack like the above poster...
Would it be blasphemy to suggest that you consider a windoze solution, perhaps GBPVR (which is free as in beer)?
Good luck, and my condolences on your fustrating experience...
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
"Lie and lay are two words that seem to cause some of the greatest confusion, even among those versed in English grammar. Lie means to recline; lay, on the other hand, means to put or place something. Lay is a transitive verb, meaning that there is always an object after it. (Lay the book on the shelf. Book is the object.) The principle parts of lie and lay are listed below."
My five seconds with Google came up with pages showing you how to burn MythTV files to DVD using avidemux2, nuvexport, transcode, or a few other programs.
/dev/video0" just got me funny looks.
Are all of these pages out of date? Because, you see, the reason they were written is that there was no way to burn DVDs directly from MythTV itself, thus forcing us to use third-party programs to convert MythTV's files into something a DVD player might understand. I'm not saying this is impossible (I use avidemux2 myself), just that it's not part of MythTV and so not integrated into the user interface. It's hard to run transcode from a remote control. Maybe ease of use isn't a problem for you, but it's important for a lot of people - that's why showing people MythTV even impresses Tivo owners, whereas explaining how I could record TV shows with cron and "cat
But hey, maybe I just haven't explored MythTV's menus enough yet. Which entry gets me to the DVD burner interface?
I just converted my old Dell P3-800 to a MythTV backend server. There are two components to the MythTV setup. You can run the backend, which handles all the scheduling, recording and media management, requiring you to setup a frontend system somewhere, that can be a Mac (works great on my ibook, streamed live television on my 802.11g) or PC, or even XBox (xbmcmythv project on SF.net).
I setup the box purely as a backend system recording with a Hauppauge PVR-150MCE capture card, and then use my XBox running XBox Media Center as the viewing end.
I particularly like the feature of auto-skipping commercials. After MythTV is done recording, it scans the recording and flags all the commercials, allowing you to skip right by them with out ever picking up the remote. I didn't have that on my last PVR. Plus, now I'm not bound by how I get my television (Antenna, Cable, Digital Cable, Sat) since the MythTV setup will work with any of those.
There is a nice packaged install out there for Fedora Core 3 users. Plus this handy walkthrough, for installing FC3 and MythTV http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/
Helped me out a lot, and made life really easy.
From the article:
... [snip diatribe about new mobo] ... After getting the PC back up and running with this hardware, I had a pretty decent machine with a 1.8 GHz P4 processor, 256MB DDR2100 RAM, and a 20GB HD. Not bad for a resurrected PC.
I started with an old PC
I'm sorry, but ANY P4 system doesn't really qualify as an old computer in my book. Some of us don't have unlimited ca$h and hence do not have P4 'puters kicking around like scrap paper.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai