Build Your Own PVR

An anonymous reader submits: "One geek's trials and tribulations of buying a ReplayTV, hating it, and deciding to build his own Linux PVR from nothing. The first try sinks into the swamp (hardware problems). The second try sinks into the swamp (more hardware problems). The third try... you get the idea. But success, finally, based on SageTV, a Windows PVR client. Makes you wonder if current Linux PVR apps are just too much of a pain to get working well?"

pushy

[Scrameustache]

Build Your Own PVR

I don't have the time! Stop pressuring me!

MythTV?

[adamshelley]

Excuse me, but I don't think MythTV [mythtv.org] is that hard to get working. Try harder next time. Maybe you didn't *click* hard0enough.

TiVo

[511pf]

So the writer spent dozens upon dozens of hours building, tearing down, rebuilding and troubleshooting something that's going to be less reliable and more expensive than a TiVo? DirecTV with TiVo is $100 plus $5 a month, not $600 I can just hear his wife now, "Matt! I JUST want to watch American Idol! Can I PLEASE watch American Idol? Why is there no sound? How come the picture looks bad? Why do I have to reboot the computer just to watch TV? What's a General Protection Fault? Wait! Something just popped up on the TV that says 'NIMDA' what's NIMDA? The TV said 'C: drive full' while I was watching the Trading Spaces Marathon! MATTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!" Dude - just buy the TiVo and you're done. Seriously.

His ability lacks a bit...

[autophile]

Tivo costs about $250. Plus another $299 for a lifetime service subscription. That is $600 beans. Not cheap.

If that's his math skill, no wonder he kept failing...

--Rob

Re:Nah

[HogynCymraeg]

The DVD ripping on the Linux side was much nicer.

That's because we all know linux hackers are bloody communist hippies who spend spare CPU cycles wearing patches, shouting "oo arr!!" and riding the high seas in search of copyright bounty!

Jerk

[Scrameustache]

In any event, you might want to remove that sand from your vagina.


Reaaaaaaaal mature

No offense but user compatibility problem?

[iamhassi]

The guy makes building a PC sound like pulling teeth:
"When I booted up the unit, I found that neither my CD/DVD Drive, nor my Hard Disk were recognized...Two hours later God spoke to me...look at the back of the hard drive and compare the jumper positions...Jumpers are little brackets that must be moved to tell a piece of hardware what role it will play as part of your computer."

to make a long story short, brain surgeon guy had the hd set to slave so it wouldn't boot. Like, duh. Course it took him 2 hours to realize it and God had to tell him too.

No offense guy, but MythTV wasn't designed for you. Get a Tivo. You'll be happier. It's simple. Pretty buttons.

Re:Linux apps too hard to configure?

[seanvaandering]

It took me a day of compiling and configuring on gentoo

Whoa, stop the presses right there. Okay, I might not be the linux guru around here, but I KNOW I have better things to do with my life then sit infront of a/babysit a computer waiting for a program to compile? Ugh.

A few more days of tinkering

What your still not done after a day of tinkering? Wow.

Not hard, but then I'm not an idiot.

Well that all depends on what point of view your looking from. Have a nice day!

Re:Coulda, Shoulda, Didn't...

[juhaz]

I don't think its worthy to mention he had his jumpers wrong... everyone makes a jumper mistake and it is fairly easy to diagnose.

Well, that's kind of the point. It's easy (and fast) to diagnose. It's the first thing you check if hard drive or CD-ROM isn't working.

This guy spent two hours wondering about it, and needed God to intervene before getting it right.