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I use myth (mainly because it supports live tv while freevo doesn't.) It's a decent program, but still somewhat buggy. I find it crashes on occasion, and compiling can be a nightmare at times. With a fast processor (I have an Athlon XP1800) you can easily encode and decode without having to use a hardware mpeg card. The setup process is somewhat painful, and sometimes confusing. I think Myth is great for a DIY'er, but not ready for a consumer solution.

...has a great article on just this subject.

Don't try to use one of these projects because you think it will be cheaper.

If you want to do it because you think there are other benefits, or because you like to tinker, go right ahead.

You will spend more than the cost of a Tivo plus lifetime service by the time you are done, though.

Hmm... PC $600 + about a month configuring it to work as a PVR.
Tivo + Lifetime sub $300-$400

I know which I'd go for...

If budget is important, consider estimating electricity costs in a do-it-yourself solution. You might be surprised how much money worth of electricity a PC can use in just a year.

As an example, I've seen people "save money" by reusing old PC's as firewalls instead of buying a cheap $50 unit that does the same job. They're spending more money in electricity than it would have cost to buy the dedicated unit.

-Teckla

Isn't the biggest problem STILL programming guide information? Don't things like XMLTV use web sites that sometimes block IP's from using them?

Actually you probably can not get much cheaper than DirecTivo.

If you are a new sub. you can get the DirecTivo for about $50, and with a DirecTivo you only pay $4.99/month for the Tivo service (and that is for the account not the number of boxes). For me in my area DirecTV is MUCH cheaper than cable. Also the quality of a DirecTivo is far superior than any other option available for non-HDTV PVRs. It records the direct MPEG stream no encoded done on the box. Also the DirecTivo can record 2 shows at a time!

Course if you want to do it yourself you can and it would be fun, however it would most likely not be as stable, quality not as good. And you probably wont save much money if you already have cable or directv.

Can you recommend a low budget system that will likely cost me between $200-$600 between time and money so that I can avoid spending $300 on the easier solution? FWIW, you can use a tivo without paying the monthly fee. I think the monthly fee just let's you access their programming guide and recommendations. I don't own one yet, so I really don't know.

psxndc

I use mythtv, I have 1 backend server with a Hauppauge pvr-250 and a OLD win-tv card in it, it has 1GB of ram, 3x120GB harddisks, and an amd2500+. The two cards allow me to record two shows at once, lets two people on two different frontends watch two different channels, or picture in picture. This computer has more power than mythtv needs, you can use something with alot less power. Especally if you get a hardware tv capture card.

When I am recording off my old win-tv capture card and I am in gnome running mozilla, etc. I can tell a big difference in video quality as when I am not doing anything on the computer. So if you have a slow computer, you want to use X/mozilla/etc, or just want better video quallity get a hardware video capture card (happauge pvr 250/350). A pII 400mhz would do very very well with a pvr 250/350.

My main frontend is a Xbox with gentoo installed. If you have a Xbox and you are as disappointed as I was with the games the xbox is your best bet for a front end for a TV. It "fits" beside the tv, I mean who wants a tower computer beside the tv anyways? Also some guy made a xbox-linux/mythtv [blkbk.com] distro. I haven't tried it but it looks really neat.

My other front end is a laptop with 802.11g card in it. I must say mythtv does QUITE well wireless.

A cheap Duron, hard drive, case, TV-out capable video card, and TV card is going to probably cost more than a stand-alone Tivo, so you are only saving on the "backend." I like the progress that I have seen in MythTV and Freevo, especially the integrated features like emulators and such. That is the appeal for me to build these type of solutions, not price.

FWIW, I am a DirecTV subscriber and the DirecTivo gives you a lot of functionality that you just can't easily replicate. It stores full quality video from the satellite feed on the hard drive. It also allows you to record two shows at the same time. That makes it well worth the price. Of course, mine has a 120 GB hard drive hacked in to give over 100 hours of storage.

Now I just need to figure out how copy the video from the Tivo. I can ftp and telnet into the system, but I haven't investigated the state of the extraction software lately. One of those projects I need to get to...

If you add all the hardware costs up, you'll pay close to (or more than) the $250 it takes to get a tivo. Then you'll need to find some way to get program listings if you want to schedule recordings based on something besides just channel & date & time.

And the bottom line is, you don't have to pay tivo a monthly anything. Just buy the tivo and don't subscribe to the listings. Or you can buy the lifetime and not deal with monthly payments. Or buy a used tivo(with lifetime service) on ebay and get a deal. Lots of folks are trading up to series2 this way.

I have to admit that the series2 with home media is awesome. Get a $30 usb nic, and you can stream images/audio from the network. There's a sweet *nix program called byrequest (http://sourceforge.net/projects/byrequest/) that lets you serve files without windows, and they claim is will serve video also...

So why don't you go put that in your pipe and... nevermind.

Mom, can you tape the Simpsons? Mom, can you tape the Simpsons?

I just built a MythTV box recently. Here's a rough breakdown of the components I used:

• CPU: Athlon XP 2400
• MB: Some random Gigabyte motherboard, about $60
• Case: I splurged here and got an HTPC-looking Cooler Master ATC-610
• Video: GeForce2 MX 440
• Capture: Hauppage WinTV PVR 250
• 120MB IDE HD
• 802.11 wireless card
• DVD-ROM/CDRW drive

In total, I spent around $700. This is clearly not cheap compared to a TiVo, but I can do a lot of things that a typical TiVo can't and I don't have any service fees to pay. If I really wanted to save money, here's what I would have done:

• get a cheaper processor, possibly a MiniITX-based CPU/MB combo, the PVR-250 card does on-board MPEG2 encoding so you don't really need much CPU power
• get a cheap case, mine cost about $100 'cuz I wanted it for looks. You can get a beige one for next to nothing
• get a cheap optical drive or don't use one. (I wanted to do DVD playback and be able to burn VCDs)
• don't use wireless networking (run ethernet and use on-board networking)

I can see getting a lot of geek satisfaction out of building one of these things, but to use it as a day-in/day-out DVR, I don't think it makes a lot of financial sense. First thing is that it's expensive. A TiVo with a lifetime subscription costs about $500. The WinTV-PVR 350 card alone is most of the cost of the TiVo hardware. [google.com] I have yet to see an example of building one of these things for that low of a price.

Second, if you've got DirecTV, then there's no DVR that you can build that's going to do as good of a job of capturing the signal as the DirecTV DVR w/TiVo (DTiVo). The DTiVo simply copies the already MPEG encoded stream that DirecTV sends. Thus the DTiVo doesn't need an expensive (and relatively low quality) hardware MPEG encoder. Which means that the DTiVo can be found for serious cheap, [valueelectronics.com] sometimes even for free. [rapidsatellite.com] Assuming that a homebrew DVR costs about $800 to build, you could get a free DTiVo and put the $800 towards 13 yrs 4 mos worth of monthly fees.

Still it sounds like a fun project. But it seems like you'd be paying for the entertainment of putting it together. Not for the low cost of the DVR.

It took a bit of work to get going, and I probably spent a total of about $500-$600.

BUT!

There is no subscription fee - TV listings are downloaded via XMLTV.
I can store CDs and DVDs on the HD.
I can run multiple front-ends, enabling me to watch TV/recordings on another machine on the network.
I can update recording settings through a very friendly HTTP interface.
I can extract and re-encode recorded shows.

In addition, people have written lots of groovy addons, including:
A MAME frontend
A CallerID module (when the phone rings, callerid information is displayed onscreen!)
A weather report module

The possibilities are endless.

Hauppauge's PVR-350 tv tuner card: $200
Tivo after rebate: $200

It's hard to justify the cost of building your own when a tivo is so cheap. I'd like to build my own, but I can't do it as cheaply as just buying tivo hardware. (Yes, I have a Tivo).

I have a 1GHz TBird + cheap mobo, 256MB RAM, a 40GB HD, cheap case, a GeForce 4 MX440, and a PVR250. I'm using ATI's Remote Wonder and running SnapStream PVS 3.4 beta (on Win2K) with myHTPC as a frontend. Functionality-wise, it's a great setup. I'm about to pop another 80GB drive in and I'll be set for a while. All in all, with parts I already had, I think it put about $500 into hardware and software and enjoy having the system.

On the downside, there was far too much fiddling I had to do to get things right. If I were to do it all again, I probably would just by a TiVO and get the home media option.

Bottom line: Whatever you do, get a PVR250/350 for your capture card. Software capture cards simply don't hold a candle. Everyone who starts with a WinTV Go or other software card ends up upgrading to a PVR250 (yours truly included). Do yourself a favor and go straight for the PVR250.

I've built a MythTV box, and although I am happy with what I built, the next time around I would build something similar to the SolarPVR:
http://www.solarpc.com/20.htm

It has:

• Via Epia-M mother board -- This is the best mother board for building a Linux PVR because it is small, cheap, and when combined with Via's low powered processor can run completely fanless due to its low power consumption. Noise and size are more important than you'd think.
  
• PVR-250 (or 350) -- Because the Via Epia motheboard includes a onboard mpeg decoder you don't really nead the PVR-350 for mpeg decoding, but the few extra dolars for the 350 couldn't hurt. (If you get a regular motherboard with a 2+ Ghz processor you can make due with a regular bttv based software encoding card, but the PVR-250/350 cards are really cool and the relatively stable ivtv drivers seem to be working great on my machine). Plus the remote they come with works great.
  
• 120+ Gig hardrive (Wester Digital 8mb buffer) For the hardrive, you basically want something big, especially if your going to use the kickass PVR250/350 card which defaults to DVD quality encoding. You can lower the encoding bitrate on the 350/250, but once you get used the higher quality you'll find it is well worth the space. At this highest bitrate level they take up about 3.7 Gigs for an hour. So 120 Gig machine will give you about 30 hours. (I have actually set mine to record at a lower bitrate, so they take about 2.2 Gigs per hour. And the quality is still way better than what you'd get at maximum quality on a crapy little Tivo).
  
• A plain black aluminum case -- because it will look more like a Tivo. You won't have to explain to hot chicks why you have a stupid looking plastic putty-toned computer sitting next to your TV.
  

Those are the bare neccesities if your just going to be cheap. I am cheap/poor too, so that is all I have. Someday I'll get a nice DVD burner so I can archive stuff I might want to see again somday. I also want a wireless keybaord.

For further info check out the PVR Hardware Database:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-view_art icles.php

They have a page with some nice installation guides:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?p ageName=i nstall_guides

As you can see I am all for building a MythTV box, but having built one, I have to warn you that the software isn't perfect yet. It really kicks Tivo's ass in terms of functionality (I love the MythWeb interface, and you can set it too completely cut out commercials, which it does surprisingly accurately), but it still can be a little buggy sometimes and should only be used by people who like to tinker.

I built a MythTV box and went the Mini-ITX route for $500. I paid more for the small size, considering I could have gotten more CPU power, etc. for less money.

For case, I used the Morex Cubid 2699R. It's about the size of a 12" pizza box (much smaller than the VCR that it replaced!), and uses a 50W external power supply, which *significantly* cuts down on noise. My hard drive is the biggest contibutor to noise with this setup. I got my case for about $80 US.

I keep it in my TV cabinet without an attached mouse, keyboard, or monitor. Just connected to TV and my LAN, and controlled via remote control.

You can see pics and a review of its older cousin at:
http://www.mini-itx.com/reviews/2688R/

As for the rest, I got:

Motherboard:
VIA EPIA M10000 ($150-$160 US) - Has onboard ethernet, 5.1 audio, video,
and one PCI slot. Processor is already on it. Processesor has
exceptionally low power requirements (compared to high-end AMD/Intel).
Memory:
Crucial 512mb DDR (if you do decide on the 2699R case, make sure the RAM
height is below 34mm or it won't fit - the Crucial fit just fine)
Tuner:
Hauppauge PVR-350 (less than $200 via pricewatch.com)
Its included remote works really well under LIRC

DVD:
Some generic slimline DVD player for $55.
If you get the 2699R case, you need a slimline which means more $$
Note that as of current date, MythDVD and MythVideo don't work
with the PVR-350, so you won't be able to watch DVD's (yet).

Hard drive:
I used an old IBM drive laying around, I plan on upgrading to a Seagate Barracuda which is rated at 20dB while idling.

Now the pros and cons of my setup:

Pros:
Very small, very quiet
PVR-350 with the Epia M10000 uses only 3% (!!!) CPU utilization during
playback and record
Front of case has firewire/usb connections if I need later on
Even without MythDVD or MythVideo support, it's already better than a
commercial Tivo because (1) I can record at higher bitrate and resolution,
and (2) I have direct access to the recorded videos, so that (3) I can
archive to DivX or DVD...

Cons:
No DVD or avi/quicktime/etc. file playback since I've using a PVR-350 (hopefully soon though!)
I couldn't use the already built 0.11 .deb packages since I was using the
PVR-350. I ended up compiling both IVTV and MythTV CVS instead.
Since there's no attached keyboard/mouse/monitor, I need to ssh from
a different computer on the network, but I actually prefer it this way

Hope that helps

I've always maintained that buying a real Tivo was always the cheaper option, especially if you count the costs of your time involved. Now, even not counting those costs the commercial product is much cheaper! If "cheap" is really what you want (as it's listed in your request) then you really need to look at it closely.

With a new account (1 year contract) at DirecTV or Dish you can get a free or cheap PVR included... and many other benefits (3 rooms, free installation, etc. etc.). Certain plans (Platinum level or some shiiiiii) even give you the PVR subscription fee included (or included in your receiver mirroring fee).

I'm not saying you shouldn't try building one yourself, but the argument was usually "I could build one cheaper with parts I have lying around" however most people then went out and spent $75-$100 on a brand new capture card. With subsidized

MythTV has definitely progressed along the years, but it's still not 100% reliable (what open-source anything ever is truly complete, tested, and waranteed). That being said, it definitely has some other cool "Media" functions that I really would like in my family room. Of course, I'm not willing to live with the ugly beige box and noise (before you say silent processors and slimline cases, add those costs to your initial argument).

If I truly had the hardware lying around (I don't) and I truly wanted a project not just the end Tivo functionality (I don't) and I was willing to put up with all the tinkering and annoyances required (I might be, wife definitely isn't) then I would consider doing it.

--Darren

I just ordered my hardware for a MythTV [mythtv.org] based box two days ago after researching it for a long time. This is the shopping list I came up with.

• MSI MATX I865PEM2-ILS [msi.com.tw]
• Samsung black combo 52X24X52+16X CD-RW/DVD
• WAG311GE Netgear Wireless .11ABG+ PCI [netgear.com]
• Intel P4 2,6GHz 800/512K
• Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 [hauppauge.com]
• MSI GeForce FX5200 TD128 with DVI and TV-OUT [msi.com.tw]
• 512MB PC400 DDRAM
• Maxtor Dmax Plus9 200Gb 7200RPM 8Mb SATA [maxtor.com]
• Coolermaster ATC 620C-BX1 [coolermaster.com]

The reasoning for the different items are as follows:

A similar model of the motherboard got good reviews [tomshardware.com] by Toms Hardware Guide (yes, I know some people in /. hate Tom). The integrated sound on this board was recommended to me by an ALSA developer. It's also got SATA, LAN, USB and Firewire and, as a nice bonus, both coax and optical digital sound outputs.

Samsung...didn't matter much as long as it had DVD and CD-RW capabilities, black front was a nice touch though.

WAG311GE, one of few cards that support A, B and G wireless networking. Supported in Linux by the MadWifi [sourceforge.net] drivers, unfortunately not truly open source, but neither are any other ABG card drivers.

Intel processor, I usually like Athlons but temperature (and thereby cooling requirements) is much more important in this box than speed.

Hauppage, well supported by MythTV and able to do MPEG2 recording and playback in hardware.

MSI GeForce, has VGA, DVI and TV-Out, also fanless and really cheap. Closed drivers but that's kinda hard to avoid.

Maxtor drive, I really wanted a more quiet Seagate but the SATA models were kind of impossible to find in any nearby store for decent prices. Also most stores seemed to have the ones with the least storage capacity.

Coolermaster, the case isn't "designed" to be a HTPC case (such as this one [quietpc.com]) which means it doesn't have the same silly price tag. It was also the exact same width as my stereo components (well, 3mm wider) and similar color.

Now all I have to do is wait...

Knoppmyth is a fully installable Knoppix(debian) distro with mythtv. Knoppmyth is a pvr, has tv with a guide to your local cable/sat provider, weather, news, a dvd playing, an mp3 player (and indexing, by group and album, with visualizations), cd ripper with artist and title lookup, emulator frontend, and vcd player.

You can burn the iso, assemble your pvr/media machine, boot of the iso, provide a few usernames and passwords and Knoppmyth will partition and install everything you need to get MythTV running on your system including mysql, xmltv, mythtv. As a bonus you get the magic of apt-get to install almost anything else you might want. The fontend program is very nicely done and it supports remote controls and external channel changers too.

-dameron

I have a MythTV box so I speak from experience.

You *SHOULD* build a MythTV box IF:

- You are an experienced Linux user, have some extra hardware lying around (or money is no object), and are looking for a fun and interesting project to mess around with.

- You are an inexperienced Linux user, have some extra hardware lying around (or money is no object), and are looking for a fun and interesting project to learn Linux with.

- You are not one of the above, but absolutely must have the single best Multimedia Convergence box you can possibly have at all costs.

You should *NOT* build a MythTV box IF:

- You are an inexperienced Linux, user and have no money and no hardware lying around.

- You have no interest in learning Linux.

- You are an experienced Linux user, have no money and no extra hardware lying around.

- You want something that works now, not something that is sorta great now, but will be absolutely great later.

This exactly what I've been telling my friends when they get jealous of my MythTV box. I suspect in about a year or so, building a MythTV box will be a LOT simpler. Until then, follow my guideline above.

Bryan