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The Mini-ITX Linux PVR Project
An anonymous reader writes "Home theater PCs have taken many shapes and forms, perhaps none more interesting than this Mini-ITX PVR. In part three of its Mini-ITX project, XYZ Computing has turned its Mini-ITX box into a Linux PVR, using Ubuntu and MythTV. This is a lot of computer in a very small package and designing it, putting it together, and then getting it to work was an interesting process. The article is a great guide for people who are interested in their own Mini-ITX Linux PVR, but also goes over the problems and pitfalls of a build like this."
MythTV is very impressive, but not everybody wants to spend their weekend building a box from scratch and installing an OS on it.
Here's a (slightly more expensive) alternative for non-geeks:
1. Buy a Mac Mini
2. Plug a USB2 or Firewire tuner and the Keyspan USB remote sensor into it.
3. Install EyeTV software & Keyspan remote software (both included with the hardware.)
4. Set up your universal remote (your TV and/or receiver remote might be a programmable one. Otherwise there are plenty out there to choose from for about twenty bucks) to control both the TV tuner and all your Mac media apps.
Done.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The only real problem I have with this approach is simply the cost. Even if you can factor out the cost of software by going FOSS, the hardware costs are still pretty high. Right now I can get a used 80GB Tivo for $40. I plug it in and it works, no muss no fuss. Now there is the monthly subscription fee, but the price differential could mean that I can absorb a few years worth of subscription fees before it made a difference. Now, if you also need/want a full featured computer as well as PVR functions, then that makes sense. But if you're just looking to record an hour of the WB every night, turnkey solutions like Tivo still make a lot more sense.
...but aren't Mini-ITX boxes the usual form factor for MythTV implementations? If you're (typically) going to have a PVR in your living room, you'll want something that's low-power, quiet and preferably quite small.
Don't get me wrong, the article's a good one, but it seems like the focus of the summary is "They have MythTV on MiniITX now" - haven't we been doing this for months, if not years?
My, that was a yummy potato!
IMHO all these "multimedia" devices have it wrong. All the heavy lifting should be elsewere, and the "results" should be in front of you. The secret? Fast networking. Note that doesn't necessarily imply TCP/IP. Just a LAN that's fast enough to get the job done. The advantages is that all the "disadvantages" are out of sight, and hearing and you don't have to bend over backwards to solve all the present problems.