How Do You Build a DVR?

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dantonic

Member
Nov 8, 2006
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Just looking for some resources on how to build your own DVR system.

If you have any links I'd appreciate it
thanks
 
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Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
21,983
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Why can't I just buy a dvr? I don't want tivo, I just want to record a little tv and play it back later. I don't understand why there are none to be had for any kind of reasonable price.
 
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nullpointerus

Golden Member
Apr 17, 2003
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Originally posted by: Greenman
Why can't I just buy a dvr? I don't want tivo, I just want to record a little tv and play it back later. I don't understand why there are none to be had for any kind of reasonable price.
Click to expand...

I wanted to build and sell PC DVRs on eBay for a profit, but ended up spending two months with BeyondTV technical support and never got it working reliably. People are probably not selling this stuff because providing support is difficult. Browse the DVR software forums and note the problems people are having with common hardware.

Here in the U.S., hardware support is also in massive flux and will be for quite some time. Cable/satellite companies have their DVR business locked up in exhorbitant rental costs by using proprietary encryption on many of their digital channels. Some cable companies encrypt all their HD channels. Satellite companies don't even have a standardized signal format!

Consequently, there's simply no do-everything-even-all-encrypted-HDTV-stuff card out there to plug into a PC, and there's no easy way to build a trouble-free end user product.
 
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dkvamme

Member
Jul 15, 2001
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Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
21,983
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I don't need or want anything elaborate, I just want something like a VCR that records to a hard drive. And it looks like thats a tivo or nothing.
 
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almach1

Senior member
Sep 3, 2005
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so no menus, no advanced recording?

the easiest way is to i think is a cheap PC, and put in xpMCE.
 
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dantonic

Member
Nov 8, 2006
176
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Originally posted by: dkvamme
I built a simple mythtv dvr out of a simple Asrock mb and 2500 barton with 512 mb ram a Hauppage pvr 150 card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116620. Installed Fedora Core 6 and followed these instructions http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php#sw

It is nothing fancy but it works well. Only thing I had wished I had purchased a pvr 350 for the dual tuners so that you can watch a channel and record a different channel at the same time.
Click to expand...

Wow, I looked at those instructions... It seemes a little complicated. I must say I am not really a linux user, I've installed Ubuntu before, but havent used it too much. Do you think that installation is something a linux beginner would be able to get through? Do you think I could use Ubuntu or do I have to use Fedora 6?

Thanks
 
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nullpointerus

Golden Member
Apr 17, 2003
1,326
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0
Originally posted by: Greenman
I don't need or want anything elaborate, I just want something like a VCR that records to a hard drive. And it looks like thats a tivo or nothing.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean to discourage you. There's a big difference between you being able to set up your own PVR and small vendors being able to sell you a prepackaged one. All sorts of technical, economical, and legal problems with the latter. The former just needs a TV card and either BeyondTV, SageTV, or one of the free media center software programs.

You'll want either a dedicated computer or at least a hard drive to do the recording. With modern TV cards, there's next to zero CPU usage during recording, so I've got a PVR-150 w/ a 120 GB drive (got for $35 on eBay) in my main rig. I can barely notice when the system is recording.

Or if you're putting together a new computer, Linux + MythTV can save a lot of money, as another poster suggested. If that doesn't work, you can just get Windows MCE.
 
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