Building A Low-Budget TiVo Substitute?

thepuma writes "Since I'm cheap, and don't want to pay monthly fees to Tivo, I am researching building my own low-budget Personal Video Recorder and player. Free software options include Freevo and MythTV. Hardware options are the main cost factor. How would you go about building the perfect low-budget PVR?" We've looked at similar questions before, but the guts of such a system (both hardware and software) have been improving -- MythTV, for instance, now supports Hauppauge's PVR-350 card. How would you build a system like this now?

Just buy a vcr

[Anonymous Coward]

and some tapes.

Low Budget TIVO

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't they call those a VCR?

Dear Slashdot

[psxndc]

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

Repeat ad Nauseum

[use_compress]

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

Re:I'd just buy one

[earlytime]

actually what tivo is doing is going after folks who "distribute" images of a tivo drive to others. You're free to hack away at your own tivo, including making drive images. *Distributing* tivo drive images violates Tivo's copyrights to their software, and also it violates linux's copyrights, because you're distributing a binary of linux without the corresponding source. Nevermind all of the other GPL programs that go with the full "gnu+linux" based OS that runs on Tivos.
Frankly, Tivo is a company that has shown a very cooperative corporate attitude towards tivo owners and hacking. They recognize that a tivo hacker is a tivo owner and a tivo owner is a tivo customer. What kind of bass-ackwards company would try to prevent their own customers from excercising fair-use with legally purchased products... oh nevermind.

Re:I just did this

[FrostedWheat]

I recently managed to compress an episode of Survivor down to 5 bytes with no noticeable loss in quality!

Going by that, I'd say he'd get quite a bit on that drive ...

Re:DirecTivo

[duckpoopy]

And you can record 60 hours of "Searching for signal" thanks to the rain fade.

Re:I just did this

[Fizzlewhiff]

Good god man! For $700 you could have hired illegal immigrants to swap video tapes for you, clean your pool, and take care of the yard. Or you could have just bought a Tivo Series 2 with a lifetime subscription.

The "Wife Factor"

[jbarr]

No doubt the techno-geek-hobbyist in us all longs for a custom, home-grown PVR, but the reason I haven't gone the "roll-your-own" route yet is simple: The "Wife Factor". Plain and simple, the absolute LAST thing I need to deal with is my wife trying to get a less-than-100%-stable system to work.

[Obligatory_ReplayTV_comment]Our ReplayTV systems have been very stable and reliable. They are basically "appliances" that simply work. No muss, no fuss. And the wife is very happy with them.[/Obligatory_ReplayTV_comment]

Trust me, after you've heard the line "So, how do I turn on the TV?" coming from a very pissed-off wife, you won't regret your buying decision...

Look on the bright side

[Cajun Hell]

At least the pubes are blurred out, in order to prevent the image from being obscene.

Re:Don't do it for cost

[Blahbbs]

You forgot the $699 cost for the Linux license.

Not so cheap now, eh?

Re:Sage TV

[BrynM]

Indeed. It looks like there's real competition to the Goat-Ass now. This is one challenge that I hope to never spectate again, but this is slashdot where our motto is: "if we can't put our heads in our own asses, we'll trick you into looking at some nasty pictures of other asses". To the parent post: Google is not evil. You sir, are evil and that woman is not at all healthy. *shiver*

It is *not* insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lifetime sub $300-$400"

Lifetime of the UNIT, not YOU.

So that's worth far less than you think.