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Wanting to make a PC TiVO box...

M

mdoak

Senior member
I have a MicroATX Board, case, HD all picked out. What i really need are two things:
#1)A PCI video card that supports Co-ax in w/TV tuner and Component Video out, as well as the standard TiVO recording (Time Shifting, Pause live commercials, etc)
#2)An OS that is stable and can support File sharing over a network and/or mapping of a network drive. By default i was gonna use XP, but i am curious is to if there are any alternates out there.
#3)Also, a remote would be nice.
 
I doubt you'll find a PCI card that will do co-ax in, as well as component out, may need to go for seperates.

As for timeshifting/recording etc, take a look at Snapstream 🙂



Confused
 
Originally posted by: Confused
I doubt you'll find a PCI card that will do co-ax in, as well as component out, may need to go for seperates.

As for timeshifting/recording etc, take a look at Snapstream 🙂



Confused
Click to expand...

A few questions: #1) What exactly does snapstream do. #2)Any suggestions for a Good Component out card. I am looking for a true NTSC signal so that, when full screen, it looks just like a TV.
 
Originally posted by: Confused
I doubt you'll find a PCI card that will do co-ax in, as well as component out, may need to go for seperates.

As for timeshifting/recording etc, take a look at Snapstream 🙂



Confused
Click to expand...

Hauppauge's WinTV-PVR 350
Link - click on the Buy Now button for more information on it. It's got coax connectors for a radio antenna and cable TV in; also has a connector with Svideo and RCA out, along with left and right audio RCA connectors. There's also a 3.5mm Line-in jack, and a small one for the infrared wire for remote control usage.
It's a pretty nice PVR card actually. Hauppauge's supposedly taking requests from users for advanced features and bugs that need to be fixed. Here's the forum
 
Get a seperate co-ax TV in card. A recent post points to the ATI website where they sell a $30 component out adapter for use with the radeon series. I dont imagine that you can get exatly what you want all in one card.
 
Originally posted by: Hazer
Get a seperate co-ax TV in card. A recent post points to the ATI website where they sell a $30 component out adapter for use with the radeon series. I dont imagine that you can get exatly what you want all in one card.
Click to expand...

Thats an HDTV adaptor....not a Component out adaptor. However, the consensus seems to be you will need seperate cards. So, what card has the BEST TV out?
 
You really should just buy a tivo. One can be had for under $200 and it is so much easier. A computer capture card will run you over $100 and the quality will not be like Tivo as they have a tendency to drop frames. If you want to burn video to dvd or cd, series 1 tivos allow you to extract video from the unit. Not being a smartass, just trying to save you the hassle.
 
However, can you stream MP3's, use it as a DVD player/DiVX player. I guess my goal here is to create a PC box that takes everything that is good about TiVO and then combines it with all the good things about PC. I dunno if this is completly possible yet, but i am hoping.
 
to be totally honest with you nothing for the PC comes close to the ease of use and reliablity of Tivo for recording beleave me i've tried. if I were you I would get on for a couple hundred then if you really need a divx/dvd box build a seperate box for that( doesn't take much to run divx just get an old duron and a cheap all in one MB with tv out).
 
Well, my suggestion would be to run a linux box with:

- Media Centre Software: Freevo, which is a pretty sweet TiVo-on-linux replacement with a lot of customizability.
- Streaming MP3s: Icecast can handle it.
- Remote Control Support: lirc (also supported by Freevo).
- TV Tuner: I've had some pretty good experiences with the (now) rather ancient ATI TV-wonder PCI card for doing TV-In.
- Component out: Any cheap generic video card that can handle it (ie: an old Voodoo 3 3000 AGP) will suffice.
- File sharing/Drive mapping: Samba.
- Converting to DivX you could do via the commandline with SecureShell in the background while the Freevo box was in use (with a fast enough processor).

The only thing this system won't do (I don't think) is pause TV or Time shifting, but I could be wrong on that. Keep in mind that because of the Always-being-developed nature of most Open Source software, upgrading your system to get any new featuers you want should be rather simple to do, and in time you might see Time Shifting/Pause TV become integrated as well.

That being said, for the price, you can't beat this system, as all this software is available as a free download.

The only thing is, you're on your own when it comes to setup and configuration. I myself have been eyeing a Shuttle XPC with a DVD/CD-RW combo drive to do this. 🙂

Another barrier to entry would be your level of comfort with linux. If you are at the Power User level, this should be rather trivial, especially considering they provide statically linked RPMs. 🙂
 
So where can I buy a Tivo for under $200 bucks?
I have 2 celeron 800mhz boxes sit around, and thinking about turn it into a tivo, and view photos that store in my server.
and what is the different between tivo and the replaytv?
is that a major different? or just offer by different companies?

 
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