Cheap PVR Build

[xanis]

I have a few parts sitting around my house and I was thinking about using them to build a cheap PVR box. I have some things, but will need others. It's obvious that I will need a TV Tuner Card and liberal storage space, but beyond that, I require some help.

WHAT I HAVE
-Case (Mid-Tower)
-Motherboard
-P4 2.8GHz
-1GB PC2100 RAM

WHAT I NEED
-TV Tuner Card [Need Suggestions]
-Hard Drive(s)
-Software [Need Suggestions]
-Cables [Do I need any special ones?]

Basically, I want to keep this thing as cheap as possible. That's why I was planning on running this with Linux, but I need to know which distro would be best for this application. Thanks.

 

[xanis]

bump

 

[Elcs]

TV Tuner - Hauppage PVR-150. Single tuner, hardware encoding (takes strain off the processor, could help keep temps down also). I have the older version, the PVR-250 and its excellent... works well and PQ is very good. One of the best, if not the best analogue tuner going

For Digital, you'll need to ask someone else.

HDD's: Samsung Spinpoints for silence or Seagate for very good quietness levels and 5 year warranty. Both brands should offer large capacity drives.

Software: The bundled Hauppage software isnt great. GB-PVR is another free program available to download from the net but its not great. Both programs are definately sufficient to keep you going until you find a classy program. IMO not a point to worry about, spend your time researching and buy one when your ready.

Cables: The only special thing I can think of is hooking your TV Aerial into the back of the card itself. I dont think any special cables are necessary.

 

[Zepper]

There have been a couple of articles over on the Anandtech side about building a PVR and/or media center using Linux. Perhaps you could pick up a couple of ideas there - hardware is just as applicable to Win as to Linux.

.bh.