PVR box for my family??? Any suggestions?

[skyking]

My niece wants to get a TIVo unit, and her husband has converted a great deal of his music to MP3's. They have a big screen, and have ready and cheap access to wireless keyboards, mice.
Can I build them a reliable and relatively easy to use PVR/surf/MP3 box? They are young, computer savvy, easily trainable. My main concern is functionality, ease of use, reliability. I have an original radeon AIW to start out with, and I can set up a test bed with an XP2100+ machine.
I just want to know if it is worth doing at all, or just let them get a Tivo and be done with it?
They already have a wireless network and broadband, and a roaming laptop.

 

[sirfergy]

I highly suggest TiVo. It's super easy to use, incredibly reliable, and the image quality is amazing.

 

[sirfergy]

Plus none of the free PVR software program can compete at all with the user friendlyness of TiVo or the features.

 

[skyking]

Thanks,
Maybe I'll build them an MP3 box, and leave the tivo to tivo
Anyone else?

 

[flashbacck]

at the moment, the whole htpc/pvr scene is still growing. I use showshifter (www.showshifter.com) and it works great. The only problem I really have is that the programming guide is NOT integrated, it's accessed via a web browser (titantv.com). On the other hand, since showshifter gets its programming from titantv, there is no monthly fee.

Personally, the reason I like having built my own PVR/HTPC, is that it can have much more features than a tivo. for example:

- play mp3s
- record tv
- play dvds/vcds/divx (with progressive scan output at almost any resolution you could want)
- expandabe

it does cost more, and setup time is longer. So if your relatives don't want to bother with that, then a more consumer oriented product like tivo is probably the way to go.

 

[Karaktu]

I've been going through the throes of building the "perfect" PVR/MP3 box. My "problem" is that I have a 55" HDTV. :0

Currently, I'm using a Dell Dimension 2350 P4 2.2GHz w/512 megs of PC2100. My PVR card is a $50 Creative Labs Digital VCR and I'm using a Mad Dog GeForce4 MX 440 PCI with S-Video out. I'm just using two-channel sound out directly to the TV.

Everything I've read says that the ATI AIW 8500DV card (or a the even better AIW 9000) is the one to get for PVR, and ATI sells a component video out box for $29 (plus $15 shipping!) so you can get up to 1080i resolution on a HDTV. This will be my next shot, but I'm waiting for the card price ($170ish) to come down.

The second problem I've had is heat. I bought the Dell 'cuz it was cheap, fast and quiet. The only downside to it is that it doesn't have an AGP slot, or it would be perfect for this particular setup (ATI only makes AGP cards, and I definitely want the better video quality of the component video).

Anyway, I have this case from Newegg with a Biostar M7VIQ motherboard in it and an XP 1600+ that I was using before the Dell. In order to keep things even remotely cool, it's way too noisy. I got the case because it pretty much could pass as an A/V component on my rack.

So, I'm going to try a 1.5v Thoroughbred A 1700+ CPU and a Zalman heatsink and see how that works. If I can keep the temperature reasonable, I'll move back to this setup with the AIW 9000 and the Dell will go in another room. Oh, and I'm using a 160 gig WD 2 meg cache HDD with 3 partitions: 4 gigs for WinXP, 90 gigs for MP3s and the rest for PVR.

I had Dish Network's PVR receiver before, and the quality I'm getting from the equipment I have now is better than that was. I will grant you that the lack of a program guide is annoying, but since I have DirectTV, all I have to do is set a timer for the shows I want on the satellite box, and then just program the Creative PVR to start recording at those times. I understand ATI actually has a guide, but I don't see how that will make life any easier for me since I still have to have the satellite box programmed.

The main downside is that it's a bit more cumbersome using a PC as your PVR box. Once you get past the initial setup, I think it's the way to go. Especially if you're going to also serve up MP3s from it (I ripped all our CDs and put them on the drive, so anyone can listen to anything anywhere in the house/garage/deck). And there's no monthly fee for doing it this way.

Also, the machines just don't want to go into Standy/Hibernate on their own (which is annoying). I've gotten around that by changing the power button being pushed to put the machine in Standby (if anyone has a real solution, please LMK!).

Hope this helps!

Joe

 

[skyking]

OK, so comparable PVR quality, that is cool. The people who want this do not have satellite or digital cable, so tuning will be conventional. the problem arises if they want two different shows on the same time slot. Tivo does that, this rig will not.

 

[Karaktu]

I think TIVO does that only if you have dual inputs. I haven't tried it, but I imagine you could probably have two cards in the same machine for recording (though they'd probably have to be different brands or the software would freak out).

Joe

 

[skyking]

my first attempts at recording Mpeg-2 have been dismal. If I select medium quality, I get a bunch of stutter, completely unacceptable. High quality, the clip plays about 1 second and then the file player closes.
AVI is beautiful, but hogs disk space like a bloated Redmond Operating System.
I grabbed the latest catalysts, but I may have some fragments of bad driver from days gone by. Right now, I am listen ing to TV audio, that I cannot shut off. TV player froze up when I tried to record mpeg 2, I closed it with task manager-Almost

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: sirfergy
Plus none of the free PVR software program can compete at all with the user friendlyness of TiVo or the features.

Never seen FreeVo, have you?

Skyking, if you are linux-savvy, or are capable enough to get around while following howtos, I'd recommend you look into Freevo, it's basically designed to do exactly what you're talking about. I was contemplating using a Shuttle XPC and turning it into a Media Centre using Linux + FreeVo. Using lirc it can support and learn most (if not all) standard remotes, so you can set that all up for them. It'd be fun to do, and when I have the cash for a hardware TV capture board that provides me with hardware MPEG2 encoding, I will definitely be turning one of my boxes into a Media Centre system.

 

[skyking]

I think I'm out of luck with the AIW radeon for freevo, but I will check. I am somewhat linux-savvy, have a freebsd firewall, a web dev box, and a production webserver.
My big fear of using Linux is not my understanding, but theirs. They want a GUI for everything, and would like to surf also.
I am sure I can get a GUI for the mp3's, but I might have a hard time weaning them from IE.

Edit: from the freevo wiki page;

4.3.2 ATI All-in-Wonder Models
need someone to fill this in.

May be looking at other alternatives, but Iwanted to do a quick windows-based proof of function box.

 

[tranceport]

Originally posted by: chsh1ca

Originally posted by: sirfergy
Plus none of the free PVR software program can compete at all with the user friendlyness of TiVo or the features.

Never seen FreeVo, have you?

Skyking, if you are linux-savvy, or are capable enough to get around while following howtos, I'd recommend you look into Freevo, it's basically designed to do exactly what you're talking about. I was contemplating using a Shuttle XPC and turning it into a Media Centre using Linux + FreeVo. Using lirc it can support and learn most (if not all) standard remotes, so you can set that all up for them. It'd be fun to do, and when I have the cash for a hardware TV capture board that provides me with hardware MPEG2 encoding, I will definitely be turning one of my boxes into a Media Centre system.

been working on this for a few days..

 

[chsh1ca]

I'd appreciate hearing how it goes. If you could contact me via email or post your results in the forum, I'd be very interested.

My email address is chsh1ca@yahoo.ca