Has anyone built a PVR?

Printable View

09-19-2005, 01:58 AM
colonblow87

Has anyone built a PVR?

I'm thinking seriously about building a PVR. I am doing this on the cheap. I have an old PIII 550 laying around doing nothing. It has a 120gb drive. I'm also looking for an inexpensive capture/TV tuner card. The least expensive mpeg2 hardware encoder I have found is the Avermedia M150 (about $60). From what I've read this should get me into the lower end of PVRs. Of course, I would use the open source MythTv that runs in a Linux environment. In fact I have discovered Knopp/Myth as a marriage of MythTv and Linux that is set up to make the installation of both fairly easy. Anyone think I'm going off in the wrong direction?
09-19-2005, 02:13 AM
clocker

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

What's a PVR?
09-19-2005, 02:17 AM
Skiz

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

I forget what it stands for, but it's like a TiVo. Personal Video Recorder maybe?
09-19-2005, 02:23 AM
colonblow87

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

Yes, It is a personal video recorder. You hook up your cable tv and record directly to you pc for playback. It is like Tivo but no monthly bill.
09-19-2005, 02:49 AM
clocker

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

Quote:

Originally Posted by colonblow87

Yes, It is a personal video recorder. You hook up your cable tv and record directly to you pc for playback. It is like Tivo but no monthly bill.

Ah so.

I've always wondered....
If you don't have time to watch a show when it's broadcast, how do you find the time later?
09-19-2005, 02:52 AM
zapjb

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

You record the time. Then you can use the time for anything you want.
09-19-2005, 02:58 AM
Skiz

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

Quote:

Originally Posted by clocker

Quote:

Originally Posted by colonblow87

Yes, It is a personal video recorder. You hook up your cable tv and record directly to you pc for playback. It is like Tivo but no monthly bill.

Ah so.

I've always wondered....
If you don't have time to watch a show when it's broadcast, how do you find the time later?

Well for me, I work until about 9pm mon-fri so I miss all the good prime-time shows. I just watch them when I get home. :)
09-19-2005, 03:01 AM
colonblow87

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

I really want it for recording LOST and older movies. Once I have it in mpeg2 I can share it on the web. I DL'ed all of the LOST episodes this last summer and watched them w/o commercials.
09-19-2005, 04:14 AM
Darth Sushi

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/prods_pvrs.html
09-19-2005, 10:18 AM
GepperRankins

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

if you used windows, i'd advise you to get DScaler. it improves the picture quality quite a bit on my miro PCTV over the official programs and can record to any codec you want. it also has timeshift but i'm scared to use it because apparently it can break your hard-drive :fear:
09-19-2005, 03:16 PM
clocker

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

Quote:

Originally Posted by GepperRankins

it also has timeshift but i'm scared to use it because apparently it can break your hard-drive :fear:

Now that is some powerful software.
Did Microsoft develop it?
09-19-2005, 04:59 PM
GepperRankins

Re: Has anyone built a PVR?

are you saying that it cant?

it gives the warning when you set recording options up. i thought maybe it can create bad sectors if your PC crashes while recording or something, is this possible?