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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."
It works, it's cool, just kind of a pain to build and more expensive than he wanted, but the DIY attraction and avoidance of fees make this an overall posititve experience for him. I'm still waiting for a distro that "just works" with a default PC you can buy, after throwing in a Haupage TV card. Plug in, boot from cdrom, try it out, like it, install it on HD...done. Is there such a thing yet, or should I wait for PVRuntu?
fak3r.com
Otherwise it's a pretty neat little thing, and seems to work well w/o much hassle. I'm still skeptical of those slimline DVD drives in media computers, though...
"The 1Ghz processor in the mini ITX board would not be able to handle one large aspect of what makes mythtv better than Tivo - Games."
Why not? Many games can run just fine on a 1Ghz Processor. Maybe not the latest and greatest FPS but throw Mame, an NES emulator, SNES emulator, a Sega Emulator, a Commodore 64 Emulator and maybe an Amiga Emulator and you have a LOT of very fun casual games that you can play.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
With Digital Cable - Dominating in my area, all these PVRs are "useless" (for the typical home user) . TWC in my area mirrors EVERY single analog channel on to their digital tier. Channel 4 - 804 Channel 9 - 809 etc etc. They are also limiting HBO (no longer available on ANALOG) - they require you to get a dig box. So Untill CableCard support is implemented, its just a waste of time, no?. (Again TWC in my area Leases CableCards for 1.95/month each. (if i recall corretly). I DONT work for them. They also offer a DUAL Tunner DVR for $9 (cheaper then tivo - digital support etc) ITS NOT A TIVO... not even close, but it works great for your DVR functions. Ofcourse if you want to start throwing in the aspect of DRM,Ripping,and streaming correct, its not possible... But its a dvr. Records 2 Channels while playing back a 3rd.
For Discussion sake, when Analog goes away, so do these homebrew pvrs? As on the MINI's theres no ROOM to stick a CableCard reader?
Again, Just my 2 cents... Worth the investment for 1/2 TV? (no dig) - You can Loop it through your DIG box, but you loose some cool aspects of direct feeds, slow channel turning etc etc. no?
-- I Dont Deserve A Sig I Have Bad Karma
Bingo. This is what I have set up in my house.
The cute little box that serves as my MythTV front-end is real quiet because there is no:
a) Hard drive
b) Fan
c) Optical drive
It *does* have a GbE connection to a noisier box in a closet. This one has room for lots of large hard drives and a DVD-RW. The little box boots via PXE (only because I wanted the experience), but has a 1 Gb USB 2.0 thumb drive for "local" storage or caching, just in case.
The down side? The little box is almost useless without the network connection to the big box. This can be fixed by booting from the USB flash drive, if you want.
The up side? I have over 300 DVDs and 100 CDs all ripped to the big box. Movies, recorded TV and music is all available at any PC in the house. I have room for a couple hundred more movies and CDs before having to buy more hard drives. It is super-silent since there are no moving parts.
[Note to the MPAA/RIAA: I have the originals of ALL of those DVDs and CDs boxed away nicely, in storage, to avoid scratches and deterioration.]
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Now I have a long benchtop across one wall of the den, which I can easily see from kitchen, den, or dining room (the places my spouse and I spend most of our time at home), with a couple of computers and a printer on it.
One of the computers is a laptop with a docking station (they used to both be, but laptop video isn't burly enough for my son's games) so the computer can be removed and taken somewhere quieter for typing up homework or whatever. BUT the network connection is to the dock, so no hiding in the room for hours experimenting with the Internet without parental knowledge! The wife and I have wireless-enabled laptops for work, and I have a wireless AP I can turn on, but we rarely use them in the house.
See, when the kids are on the Internet, if they are in a communal family area they are still interacting with the family, and they can have a fundamentally more educational interaction with the networked world. I pass through, busy with other things, and if I see something on-screen that I'm not sure about, or that I disaprove of, I can stop and have a conversation with the kids about why I have a problem with that image or connection, and give them a more useful experience and better guidance than I can by reviewing logs later or simply blocking things.
It's better for kids to know why you feel the way you do about things, and it's easier to guide their on-line experience, when you are real-time evaluating that experience as frequently as possible. It also puts you in a default role of mentor rather than as controller or prohibitor. You can deviate from that default model if you feel you must, obviously.
You will need to work with the architecture of your house, your computer equipment, and your family life, but I strongly recommend not putting PCs in the kids rooms. I tried it, and (for my family at least) having computer use out in the open was a better idea.