Low-Budget TiVo Substitute

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Low-Budget TiVo Substitute

Slashdot has a bunch of comments from folks who have build their own digital video recorders. Some of the software that has been used and recommended include:
- Freevo
- MythTV
- KnoppMyth
- XMLTV
If you have built your own DVR with open source software, we'd love to hear more about it. It's clear that this is still the domain of pretty determined folks, but it is impressive to see the growth in this area.

Slashdot | Building A Low-Budget TiVo Substitute?

by Gen Kanai December 10, 2003 in How-To

Comments

I built a MythTV system. The computer is an eMachines system with a Hauppauge PVR-350. The base operating system was Red Hat 9. It took about a week to get setup and working (I built it from source). MythTV worked like a charm. I really liked it. Except for one detail - I couldn't find the magic combination that allowed me to create a DVD of a recorded program. I tried for nearly two months to figure it out (installed this and that, added more and more stuff...) - no dice in the end.

I needed the ability to create DVDs. I took a chance on some Windows PVR software: SageTV. I installed Windows 2000 Server and it's updates in the first night. The next night I added drivers for the PVR card, tuned it's channels via the software that was included. Installed SageTV and - blamo - it was just working. The resulting video files are recorded in DVD format (2.5gb/hour - you have to set this up). I tried creating a DVD with the ulead dvd authoring software (also came with the PVR card) and it just worked. Updates to the ulead stuff seem to cause troubles... like dvd's that don't work in all players.

SageTV could be prettier, but I was looking for software that was rock solid and just always works. I've been using this setup for a few months now and its only confused me a couple of times - so understanding the various settings really does matter. Rev 2 of SageTV is just starting it's second beta... this rev is supposed to look a lot nicer... we'll see. I'm hoping for continued stability.

I also picked up something called Womble mpeg2vcr - which lets me edit out ads. Very handly when you want to save a show to dvd and get rid of the ads completely.

My wife hasn't tried out SageTV yet - she's interested in it, but just hasn't wanted to learn something new yet. She's using our old ReplayTV 20 hour unit.

I used to record from the ReplayTV to a VCR to share a show with someone. Now either I just burn a DVD or I record from the ReplayTV to the SageTV then burn the DVD.

Was it worth the effort to build a new PVR? Sure - it cost more than I probably should have spent (~ $800), but it can be expanded to have three tuners eventually and it'll be just a video server - humming to itself away from the TV and there are no monthly charges. I'll add a couple of Hauppauge MediaMVP's to the TVs in the house and everyone will have access to the video server - it has been claimed that the MVP can be SageTV Client with Rev 2 of SageTV.

Posted by: Dave Kopper at Dec 11, 2003 10:49:56 AM

Lower budget than what? Brand new DirectTivo Series 2 units are $99 (or less) at Bestbuy (even for current subscribers) and for the same price you can get a whole DirectTV w/Tivo system with dish and installation if you are a new subscriber.

Posted by: David Beckemeyer at Dec 11, 2003 8:39:24 PM

Why can't these PVR efforts copy the Tivo interface better? It doesn't have to look like Tivo, just more or less feature parity. Doing such might even support some sort of business. Instead they add on all sorts of silly features like playing MP3's on your TV. Just copy Tivo!!!

David, that's disingenous. You know as well as everyone easle that Tivo runs $500 or $200 + $13/month.

Posted by: pb at Dec 17, 2003 11:26:05 PM

Dave is absolutely correct. He said DirecTivo, not Tivo. A 40hr DircTivo costs about $99, and the service charge is 4.95 a month. Of course, you need to use DirecTV.

Posted by: Dan Isaacs at Dec 19, 2003 12:54:03 PM

Who said DirecTivo? Even so, the comparison of Freevo and MythTv is to Tivo, not DirecTivo.

Posted by: pb at Dec 29, 2003 2:52:34 PM

What I want to know about is the image quality on a TV; is it equal to the TiVo and at what quality settings?

Posted by: Tim at Aug 26, 2004 5:44:42 AM

I am running BeyondTv on a pc hooked to my TV. The PC is a AMD 2200, Nvidia 5800, mpeg2 capture card, two harddrives and network storage. sound card with digitial out. I cant say if it was cheaper then buying a TIVO, but I have free will to do what I want with my content. The wife loves it. And I can play things I download thru bittorrent.

Posted by: Bryan at Mar 30, 2005 8:21:07 AM

I have a DRT-800 humax DVD recorder just sitting in my closet. I no longer use it Because I started working for the Cable Company and they provided me a DVR. I am now thinking of quiting and want to know if hacking this box to run one of the free services above is an option and getting rid of tivo all together. I just started looking into this and do not know if this is even possible.

Posted by: Kingroot at Mar 25, 2006 12:32:27 AM

I want an audio system that has huge harddrive capacity so I can fill it with mp3s, or even better, has a usb port that I could hook up an external HD or a flash card. Will Divo or its' clones work? Can you put your own HD in it like X Box?

Posted by: John at Apr 13, 2006 5:25:35 PM

Low-Budget TiVo Substitute

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