I've built a MythTV box, and although I am happy with what I built, the next time around I would build something similar to the SolarPVR: http://www.solarpc.com/20.htm
It has:
Via Epia-M mother board -- This is the best mother board for building a Linux PVR because it is small, cheap, and when combined with Via's low powered processor can run completely fanless due to its low power consumption. Noise and size are more important than you'd think.
PVR-250 (or 350) -- Because the Via Epia motheboard includes a onboard mpeg decoder you don't really nead the PVR-350 for mpeg decoding, but the few extra dolars for the 350 couldn't hurt. (If you get a regular motherboard with a 2+ Ghz processor you can make due with a regular bttv based software encoding card, but the PVR-250/350 cards are really cool and the relatively stable ivtv drivers seem to be working great on my machine). Plus the remote they come with works great.
120+ Gig hardrive (Wester Digital 8mb buffer) For the hardrive, you basically want something big, especially if your going to use the kickass PVR250/350 card which defaults to DVD quality encoding. You can lower the encoding bitrate on the 350/250, but once you get used the higher quality you'll find it is well worth the space. At this highest bitrate level they take up about 3.7 Gigs for an hour. So 120 Gig machine will give you about 30 hours. (I have actually set mine to record at a lower bitrate, so they take about 2.2 Gigs per hour. And the quality is still way better than what you'd get at maximum quality on a crapy little Tivo).
A plain black aluminum case -- because it will look more like a Tivo. You won't have to explain to hot chicks why you have a stupid looking plastic putty-toned computer sitting next to your TV.
Those are the bare neccesities if your just going to be cheap. I am cheap/poor too, so that is all I have. Someday I'll get a nice DVD burner so I can archive stuff I might want to see again somday. I also want a wireless keybaord.
For further info check out the PVR Hardware Database: http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-view_art icles.php
They have a page with some nice installation guides: http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?p ageName=i nstall_guides
As you can see I am all for building a MythTV box, but having built one, I have to warn you that the software isn't perfect yet. It really kicks Tivo's ass in terms of functionality (I love the MythWeb interface, and you can set it too completely cut out commercials, which it does surprisingly accurately), but it still can be a little buggy sometimes and should only be used by people who like to tinker.
How did you get the sound to work on the SK41G box? My friend was trying to build the exact same thing, but we couldn't get the onboard sound to work with Linux.
Okay, so isn't China, at least nominally, supposed to be a communist society? Why in the hell would they want to cooperate with the world's most capitalist monopoly? Not that I am a big fan of communism or anything, but I kind of wish China could see the irony here. I don't know, maybe it isn't all that ironic. Maybe a monopoly is a lot closer to communism than one might originally assume.
I just don't get why China would even bother with Microsoft. My guess is that, like most governments, money and lobbying are the only things that make sense to the politicians in control. They have no idea what the difference is between operating systems; why Linux would, of course, be a better option. They probably don't even care about the political/economic consequences of their country being dependent on an American import. I guess politics as usual has answered this question. No, it is not the year of Linux in Asia.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.solarpc.com/20.htm
It has:
Those are the bare neccesities if your just going to be cheap. I am cheap/poor too, so that is all I have. Someday I'll get a nice DVD burner so I can archive stuff I might want to see again somday. I also want a wireless keybaord.
For further info check out the PVR Hardware Database:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-view_ar
They have a page with some nice installation guides:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?
As you can see I am all for building a MythTV box, but having built one, I have to warn you that the software isn't perfect yet. It really kicks Tivo's ass in terms of functionality (I love the MythWeb interface, and you can set it too completely cut out commercials, which it does surprisingly accurately), but it still can be a little buggy sometimes and should only be used by people who like to tinker.
How did you get the sound to work on the SK41G box? My friend was trying to build the exact same thing, but we couldn't get the onboard sound to work with Linux.
I just don't get why China would even bother with Microsoft. My guess is that, like most governments, money and lobbying are the only things that make sense to the politicians in control. They have no idea what the difference is between operating systems; why Linux would, of course, be a better option. They probably don't even care about the political/economic consequences of their country being dependent on an American import. I guess politics as usual has answered this question. No, it is not the year of Linux in Asia.