Has anyone built a PVR?

[colonblow87]

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?

[clocker]

What's a PVR?

[Skiz]

I forget what it stands for, but it's like a TiVo. Personal Video Recorder maybe?

[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.

[clocker]

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?

[zapjb]

You record the time. Then you can use the time for anything you want.

[Skiz]

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.

[colonblow87]

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.

[Darth Sushi]

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/prods_pvrs.html

[GepperRankins]

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