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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.)

2 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Free pvr software by Dzimas · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Don't forget that one can get excellent free PVR software, too. In fact, I'm surprised that Make Mazazine didn't go this route -- far more the DIY style. I run GB-PVR (www.gbpvr.com), which can handle DivX, audio, etc. and has plugins for weather, cartoons, and is skinnable. It enables you to select free tv listing from zap2it which cover Canada and the USA, and also supports various XML listing feeds for elsewhere on the planet.

    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!

  2. Re:PC-based DVRs have massive drawbacks... by kfhickel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    wrong, wrong, wrong.

    The power of a PC based DVR (I use BeyondTV myself even though I have a linux server in the house too), is not that you put one next to every TV. That would be "stupid". Instead, you put one in the basement where you don't care if it's noisy, then you put a $90 MediaMVP box from Hauppage on each TV, and wire it to a switch.

    Compare that to putting a TIVO on 4 TV's, even if you get the box for free, it's $1200 for the lifetime guide access (which is free with BeyondTV), and then more money if you want the home networking option so that you can move programs from one TIVO to another.

    Now, my setup cost more than $1200 (but not that much more), but then my BeyondTV machine is also my X-10 house controller machine, is a 3.2ghz p4 hyperthreaded with 1gb of 800mhz dual channel ram, a 100gb 7200rpm disk for the OS and 4 seagate ata133 7200rpm 300gb drives in a stripe set for the data volume. It's also my backup server. And I can watch any program from any TV in the house.

    I've got right aroun $1500 in the machine, including the OS and software licenses and 4 MediaMVP boxes for a total cost (not including network switches, etc) of $1820 (I got a deal on the MVPs) for 4 TVs, and I could have another TV for free if I put the server next to a TV.

    4 TIVOs would cost more like $2000 (200/box plus 300 guide fee) and would have a lot fewer features and much less storage, and some amount more for the networking option.

    So....