Build Your Own DVR 267
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.)
The guy is not so dumb as to waste $70 (Score:5, Informative)
When I read this, I thought, why would someone who is smart enough to build a PVR waste money unnecessarily on software?
From RTFA, it appears that because the software is bundled, he didn't pay the $70. It was "free as in beer".
The author actually spent (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah I admit it, I rtfa.
Re:The guy is not so dumb as to waste $70 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting but pointless (Score:4, Informative)
Re:If you can spare the time to get MythTV to work (Score:3, Informative)
Problems solved.
And for $99... (Score:2, Informative)
EFF shameless plug (Score:5, Informative)
GOPchop for removing commercials? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting but pointless (Score:3, Informative)
Re:probably better to just get the real thing (Score:4, Informative)
I know that I'm going to sound like a total ass for saying this, but... You need to do some research.
If you read the mythtv-users mailing list, you'll find that the PVR-250 seems to be the best supported card (unfortunately, unless you have one of the newer ones). PVR-150 support is iffy, but I have a PVR-500 and a PVR-250 (one of the first generation ones) working fine, with a driver that is listed as "testing" in ATrpms.
I have absolutely no problems setting up MythTV, in fact, it's basically copy/paste. Why?
1. I use supported hardware
2. I use ATrpms for the RPMS (on Fedora Core 3)
3. I follow Jarod Wilson's MythTV HOWTO at http://www.wilsonet.com/mythtv/ [wilsonet.com], which the community contributes to in order to keep it up to date
4. I read the mythtv-users mailing list (and the -dev list, and ivtv and atrpms-devel as well, but most users don't need to do that).
-- Joe
In my experience... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, just don't buy a TV card (or AGP card with TV tuner) made by ATI. You'll have nightmares with drivers and ATI software like the rest of us ATI users do.
Re:PC-based DVRs have massive drawbacks... (Score:3, Informative)
My DVR is on a dedicated IBM NetVista desktop box (P4-1.4Ghz, 256MB ram) I got refurbished for $200. It has a 180watt power supply which is whisper quiet and has more than enough to juice for the components I have inside. It's currently got a 200GB hard drive I picked up for about $100, an Asus E616 DVD rom drive for $40 (the quietest region-free DVD drive made I think) and a low end ATI radeon card with TV-out for about $50. For capture, I use the Plextor m402U, which cost me $129, also in Canadian funds. Last but not least since I have a satellite dish, I picked up an IR blaster for about $20. Grand total about $400 Canadian. Then I threw MythTV on there and now I have a DVR that is better than anything sold on the market today. Best of all since the Plextor divx encoder does it all in hardware over USB2, I can add a second or third with almost zero extra load on the machine.
Re:More than $70... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The author actually spent (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, it would be nice if the article wasn't misleading. In this case, "bundled" does not mean "free as in beer."
Hauppauge's PVR-250 comes bundled with both BeyondTV and SageTV -- TRIAL VERSIONS! Both have 30 day trial periods.
I have 3 of the PVR-250 cards and I chose SageTV for my Home Theater PC [terrystockdale.com]
Re:Interesting but pointless (Score:4, Informative)
Re:PC-based DVRs have massive drawbacks... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Make that $398 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You missed one big drawback (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, yeah, it does. Five seconds with google just proved it.
Re:In my experience... (Score:5, Informative)
I've never seen a DVD burner without buffer underrun protection, but whenever I've ever burned something to fast and actually made use of that protection the DVD that it makes is either really picky about what drives it will work in or it will be a coaster. I've noticed the same thing with CDRs/CDRWs.
Buffer underrun is nice, but it definately has serious drawbacks.
Re:In my experience... (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah man. I bought an ATI Radeon 8500DV because it had a reasonable chip, TV encoder, real-time h/w mpeg encodering, teletext, firewire, etc. What a POS it is. I get rhythmic static coming through on all Nicam Stereo channels (using a roof aerial even) which makes the TV unwatchable. The problem is not there all the time, occasionally it will be fine. No logical cause that I can locate though.
Their MMC software is flakey at best. Locks up, poor setup, etc, etc. Upgrading your drivers even to the latest WHQL drivers cause major nightmares. NEVER again will I buy ATI, or another TV tuner card. A box-top DVR with HD will be the go.
I wrote a long rant at ati.com but the session timed out before I could submit and now I'm all pissed off and now am seesawing between trying to help write the driver and just jacking out 150 on a different card.
Yes! Yes! I know the frustration. It happened to me. I had a couple of tickets open at ati.com. One issue was with their 98SE drivers which could not install properly. After frustration I upgraded to XP. They closed the ticket as being solved, yet upgrading OS when they should've fixed their software is not a solution for everyone.
Re:i recall... (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.mytv.free.fr/ [mytv.free.fr]