simple TiVo like pc?

[andypnb]

hey all,

i am thinking of building a pc to act as a tivo machine.
i dont want full htpc, with surround sound and the works.

i am thinking giant harddrive for storage, tv capture and s-video out obviously, simple audio out for a ht system, but not necessarily 7.1 or something extreme.

is that a htpc and i just had the concept wrong?

any useful pointers?

thanks all,
andy

 

[Spearboy]

go for a 9800 aiw. has all the connections you will need and software program that will record shows, tv guide, etc.

 

[andypnb]

Originally posted by Spearboy
go for a 9800 aiw. has all the connections you will need and software program that will record shows, tv guide, etc.

on the aiw, the software, does it connect to internet and keep programs up to date? does it cost like some TiVo?

i have 9800 pro in my main computer, i gues i need a second one for a HTPC...hehe....

 

[Kaizer]

http://mythtv.org/

Go there if you want a program that will pretty much do what you are looking for. and free!

 

[skagen]

i have a 9800 aiw... the ati media tv center thing works like a tivo.. sorta... updates tv listings thru the net, and you can record live tv... i dunno if you can queue up a program later on in the day and record tat... but i havent really looked into it... so i dunno. but you can record live TV with the ati media center with the 9800 aiw

 

[blip]

So basically what you need is:
1) A video capture card
2) A large enough hard-drive
3) HTPC software
4) Some speakers
5) Other assorter hardware to keep up

Here is what I would recommend:
1)
The guys I know who are into HT stuff swear by Hauppage cards. That includes my father-in-law-to-be who has seemingly tried every tuner card in the world. He feels like the haupage has the best quality for the price.

2)
For HDs you should look around for the best price/gig that you can get. If the mobo you are looking at supports a fair number of RAID drives (or you just happen to have RAID card laying around) consider buying several smaller capacity drives because you can often get them for an absolute pittance. Also, think about how much storage you really need... Are you trying to build a library of tv shows on your HD or just doing some time shifting etc?

3)
From what I've seen MythTV is great. What environment are you comfortable in, though? Isn't MythTV Linux only? If you are planning on running WinXP then you will have to find another option. (PS: anyone know of a mythTV like program for WinXP... I've been looking for a good freeware, enthusiast style piece of HT software for a while.)

4)
So how simple are you wanting to go on audio? You could, of course, slap any set of stereo computer speakers in and get "simple" sound for your HT project... But I have a funny feeling you want something more advanced than that.

How much do you want to spend? There are a lot of 5.1 options out there... Find one that agrees with your price point.

5)
You certainly won't need a 3 Ghz screamer for this kind of work. I'd recommend around a 2 Ghz machine and you could probably pull it off with a lot less... 2 Ghz just seems like a good price point right now.

 

[darktiger]

Epia Mb with a Hauppauge PVR250, with a 80gb 7200rpm 8meg cache HD, 512 DDR, DVD/CD-R and small/quiet PSU. (and a basket or what ever case you want to put it in). http://www.mini-itx.com/
http://myhtpc.net/

 

[andypnb]

so a hauppage, a mini mobo with an athlon 2000+ or so, 512 ram, a 100 gb hd, a dvd burner, and a sound card that does optical out or coax out?

linux is no problem, i have some experience with it, so the mythtv should work fine.

....not bad at all.

thanks guys.

from what i see its about 1gb per hour of recording, am i off by a lot or is that realistic for regular TV? (not HDTV)

as far as audio, i have a ht system, i just want to get rid of the stupid vcr, it does such a poor job.

 

[andypnb]

bump?