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| 5/24 |
| 2005/9/23-27 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/CPU, Consumer/TV] UID:39841 Activity:nil |
9/23 Anyone ever built their own TiVo/PVR? any suggestions/advice
before I build one? I'm reading my way through http://byopvr.com
trying to figure out how to build one.
\- isnt the hardware heavily subsidized? why would you want
to build one from scratch? or is this a geek learning exercise?
\_ definitely the latter. granted I won't have to pay a
monthly service fee, I'll probably pay more up front
if I build one.
\_ I built mine out of mythtv because for some reason, I've
generally been against paying for a subscription of any kind.
You also get more features from building your own. Another
reason these days with TiVo adding various restrictions is
that you're not under direct control of some corporation's
whim. I admit, TiVo probably is more stable, but mythtv is
what works for me.
\_ How much did you spend on the hardware?
\_ I've used parts that are just laying about few times.
The latest incarnation I'm working on cost me about $400
for the shuttle-like case, cpu, and memory, I believe.
\_ I like to be able to watch recorded programs remotely :)
\_ You mean like mythtv?
\_ Decide on size of machine and noise level you find acceptable.
\_ how about those VIA C3 chip. I know that you can run
800Mhz without any fans. The newer 1GHz chip from
xxx nm fab reportly can run without fan neither. tried it? |
| 5/24 |
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| byopvr.com You can now be notified before a scheduler task takes place with balloo n hints. You can choose to display scheduler task information : task nam e, channel name, duration, recording mode. Optimized support of FFDShow filter for software capture devices. Improved detection of TV Cards with MPEG2 Hardware Encoder. Fixed the teletext initializing problem when using Windows XP or Direct X 9 in other language than english. Improved and optimized the Timeshift buffering engine for some capture devices. It's a good review, but it's more about specifications and gaming benchma rks than the home theater / video playback/accelleration features I'm sp ecifically interested in. ViXS video processing for on the fly transcoding/processing! Looks like a MSRP of $ 169/$189 (two different models: one for MCE 2005, one for regular XP) They seem to be positioning the NVIDIA DualTV as a high(er) quality captu re quality and some interesting bells and whistles. NVIDIA Pure Vid eo Decoder is at mpeg2 decoding it should be a pretty awesome card! Of c ourse the proof is in the pudding and the greatest hardware in the world is useless if the good 3rd party PVR applications don't support it. Innovation One has developed a USB IR transceiver that makes using multiple cable & sat boxes with MythTV much easier and more relia ble (they are based in Canada, fwiw). They are seeking a few more Beta t esters before they finalize the CommandIR - and were looking to see if a ny BYOPVR Canadian users was interested. They do charge a nominal (below their cost) fee for the units, but if you 're interested in helping with the testing and have mulitple set top box es to control and/or want a better way to consolidate your IR receiving/ blasting this seems like a good product to check out! VideoReDo MPEG editor has a new version out called VideoReDo Plus wi th a feature they call Ad Detective. The Ad Detective is an integrated c ommercial detection/marking/removal tool built into VideoReDo Plus. VideoReDo is that it's both really fast/easy to ch op up MPEG2 files (there's not transcoding or long load time and the int erace is pretty straightforward), and it makes frame accurate mpeg2 cuts without screwing up the audio sync. This new commercial detection piece is just icing on the cake. In any case it's definitely worth the trial download to decide for yourse lf if it's the right mpeg2 editing / commercial remvoing tool for you. told TechBlog that these were probably just "false positives." "Denney said the copy protection is trigged by a flag in the video signal . The reports appearing on the Web appear to be cases where TiVo misinte rprets noise in the signal as a copy protection flag, and imposes the re strictions." PVRblog broke the news of content protection in Tivo rearing it's he ad albeit supposedly it's just an accident/glitch. The fact that the cap ability is built in and can be triggered "accidently" at the head end wh en certain shows should expire doesn't bode well for TiVo, in my opinion . "A bug in the latest version of TiVo's operating system has some users co ncerned that the service's content protection mechanisms--supposedly int ended solely for pay-per-view and video-on-demand content--may someday b e applied to broadcast television programming." Kottke: Tivo hates its customers You probably already know how I feel about DRM in general, but to surmise : I can't stand that a device I own and a service I pay for can be a mov ing target (in the wrong direction) with the possibilty of me having les s PVR functionality now than when I purchased the device. |