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Build Your Own DVR

Posted by timothy on from the no-build-mine dept.

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.)

12 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. The guy is not so dumb as to waste $70 by putko · · Score: 4, Informative

    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_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html
    1. Re:The guy is not so dumb as to waste $70 by bdc0 · · Score: 3, Informative

      An the author does has his act together. There are various common problems such as automation that he explains work-arounds to. Sounds like he actually used the stuff.

  2. The author actually spent by Mantorp · · Score: 3, Informative
    $150 on the capture card and didn't have to spend $70 on the software because it came with the card.

    Yeah I admit it, I rtfa.

  3. Re:Interesting but pointless by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, MythTV (for one) supports infrared control of an existing cable box, so you get all the channels on the PVR you just use the set top box's tuner.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  4. EFF shameless plug by NotoriousQ · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  5. Re:probably better to just get the real thing by The+Vulture · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, MythTV can be a bit of a pain to setup, and yes, driver support for some cards is bad.

    I know that I'm going to sound like a total ass for saying this, but... You need to do some research.

    If you read the mythtv-users mailing list, you'll find that the PVR-250 seems to be the best supported card (unfortunately, unless you have one of the newer ones). PVR-150 support is iffy, but I have a PVR-500 and a PVR-250 (one of the first generation ones) working fine, with a driver that is listed as "testing" in ATrpms.

    I have absolutely no problems setting up MythTV, in fact, it's basically copy/paste. Why?
    1. I use supported hardware
    2. I use ATrpms for the RPMS (on Fedora Core 3)
    3. I follow Jarod Wilson's MythTV HOWTO at http://www.wilsonet.com/mythtv/, which the community contributes to in order to keep it up to date
    4. I read the mythtv-users mailing list (and the -dev list, and ivtv and atrpms-devel as well, but most users don't need to do that).

    -- Joe

  6. In my experience... by grolschie · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:In my experience... by gabebear · · Score: 4, Informative

      All modern DVD burners have burn overrun protection

      I've never seen a DVD burner without buffer underrun protection, but whenever I've ever burned something to fast and actually made use of that protection the DVD that it makes is either really picky about what drives it will work in or it will be a coaster. I've noticed the same thing with CDRs/CDRWs.

      Buffer underrun is nice, but it definately has serious drawbacks.

    2. Re:In my experience... by grolschie · · Score: 3, Informative

      Geez I wish I'd read this 3 days ago. I bought an ATI tv wonder pro thinking it had ok driver support but in my haste, I didn't realize the "pro" part of the name implied it had a completely different chip inside, the os driver is barely a hello world program, and of course ati driver support is shit.

      Yeah man. I bought an ATI Radeon 8500DV because it had a reasonable chip, TV encoder, real-time h/w mpeg encodering, teletext, firewire, etc. What a POS it is. I get rhythmic static coming through on all Nicam Stereo channels (using a roof aerial even) which makes the TV unwatchable. The problem is not there all the time, occasionally it will be fine. No logical cause that I can locate though.

      Their MMC software is flakey at best. Locks up, poor setup, etc, etc. Upgrading your drivers even to the latest WHQL drivers cause major nightmares. NEVER again will I buy ATI, or another TV tuner card. A box-top DVR with HD will be the go.

      I wrote a long rant at ati.com but the session timed out before I could submit and now I'm all pissed off and now am seesawing between trying to help write the driver and just jacking out 150 on a different card.

      Yes! Yes! I know the frustration. It happened to me. I had a couple of tickets open at ati.com. One issue was with their 98SE drivers which could not install properly. After frustration I upgraded to XP. They closed the ticket as being solved, yet upgrading OS when they should've fixed their software is not a solution for everyone.

  7. Re:PC-based DVRs have massive drawbacks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    (all prices in Canadian $$$'s)

    My DVR is on a dedicated IBM NetVista desktop box (P4-1.4Ghz, 256MB ram) I got refurbished for $200. It has a 180watt power supply which is whisper quiet and has more than enough to juice for the components I have inside. It's currently got a 200GB hard drive I picked up for about $100, an Asus E616 DVD rom drive for $40 (the quietest region-free DVD drive made I think) and a low end ATI radeon card with TV-out for about $50. For capture, I use the Plextor m402U, which cost me $129, also in Canadian funds. Last but not least since I have a satellite dish, I picked up an IR blaster for about $20. Grand total about $400 Canadian. Then I threw MythTV on there and now I have a DVR that is better than anything sold on the market today. Best of all since the Plextor divx encoder does it all in hardware over USB2, I can add a second or third with almost zero extra load on the machine.

  8. Re:More than $70... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Had you read the article, you would have learned that he had an "extra" license for Win 2000, and that is what he used. He mentioned upgrading to XP, but said that he didn't.

  9. Re:Interesting but pointless by g8way · · Score: 4, Informative

    MythTV now supports capturing TV from a set-top box through Firewire-which would also save you the expense of a TV tuner card.