Home made Tivo?

[cypher_soundz]

Hi i was wondering if it was possible to make my own pseudo Tivo system? i have the base bones on a system at the moment, (600mhz cpu,mobo,tv out card, 512 memory) i was thinknig of getting one of these WinTV-PVR http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvrusb2_datasheet.htm
and maybe incorperate movix?
hope some one can help me with my quest ;)
Regards
cyph

[Happygolucky]

Originally posted by cypher_soundz
Hi i was wondering if it was possible to make my own pseudo Tivo system? i have the base bones on a system at the moment, (600mhz cpu,mobo,tv out card, 512 memory) i was thinknig of getting one of these WinTV-PVR http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvrusb2_datasheet.htm
and maybe incorperate movix?
hope some one can help me with my quest ;)
Regards
cyph

The easiest way to create a "Tivo" (or more correctly, a PVR) is to install an ATI All-In-Wonder graphics card. The AIW 9000 Pro sells for about $100 and is a very capable performer. The included software, and the ATI Remote Wonder, make turning the computer into a full-fledged media center, an easy task. The card connects to nearly everything, includes the GuidePlus software for downloading television listings, to record something, just highlight it in the listing and choose "record". The remote works up to about 60' from the computer.

[cypher_soundz]

thanks ,
what i want is to be able to have as little interaction as possible,
just turn on and press remote allot ;) lol
i will look in to the all in wonder,
Regards
cyph

[jsquare]

Don't waste your time and money just buy a TiVo, preferably a Series1 and hack it. I spend several months before getting the Tivo trying to put together a system for that purpose only, but after testing several capturing cards including the AIW and Windows Media Center I just gave up. Too many problems with TV Display, drivers, hardware and mainly Windows, the $12.99/Month and the cost of the Tivo itself is well worth it compare to the painful experience of a putting together PC base Tivo, or even those very expensive Windows Media Center PCs.

[cypher_soundz]

thanks for the advice, there are a few going on ebay...one says with life time subscription???
Regards
cyph

[JustinH]

nonsense. My computer doubles as a tivo, and it was as easy as dropping in a 50 dollar card.

Leadtek makes a 50 dollar PVR card that plugs into a PCI slot.

Then you can record tv, pause live tv, watch tv, output to a television set, schedule programming, and burn to dvd with no hassles.

newegg.com sells the leadtek card, just search around, it is a nice card, it also has fm radio on it.

You can record in a variety of formats, optimal mpeg2 if you are going to burn it to a dvd, or windows media format if you want to save space, and just watch it one time.

It comes with a remote control, and its a better deal than paying a monthly sub.

JH

[jsquare]

If you're on a budget, own most the hardware to setup a PC as a TiVo, don't mind having a PC standing in your living room, don't care about un-guided and limited recordings features, then the LeadTek Winfast 2000XP Deluxe from Newegg is a good choice as mentioned above, I own one myself, it's very easy to install/use, has very good support from Leadtek as far as updates for driver/application goes. On the other hand Hauppauge has the worst service/support as far I know, purchased the PVR-250 back then and had to returned the same day, good hardware with MPEG Encoder built-in, but terrible and un-stable driver & application.
The WinFast has RCA/S-Video Inputs, Antenna/Cable/FM Tuner and Remote Control, but has no Cable or Satellite Box control like the TiVo so you're limited to basic cable or aerial antenna channels, no guide is available and recordings are set manually unlike the TiVo in which the guide and all the features are well worth the monthly fee. Most of these cards don't have an MPEG encoder built-in, so the bulk of the process of encoding Audio and Video in real time is left to the power of the CPU, the amount of system memory, the speed of your hard drive, and how long the system will be stable without crashing, it's very common for Windows to crash from time to time when resources are running at high levels for a long period of time. Once again a TiVo is just an appliance running a modified version of Linux, solely designed for this type of use and nothing else.

[Happygolucky]

With the ATI All-In-Wonder cards, you DO get an on-screen guide. It uses the GuidePlus system and can be set to automatically download the guides regularly from the internet. You can do searches, set it to record every episode of your favorite programs, etc. Very similar to the Tivo.

The latest drivers/software for the ATI cards on WindowsXP runs very well. I've never had a lockup or problem. You connect the card to a tv and it just works. My AIW 9000 Pro has composite and S-Video outputs, as well as standard analog monitor output and DVI output (which I use to connect to my 19" LCD monitor). Inputs are composite, S-Video, and coax (antenna or cable). The remote control is RF, so it can be used from another room (doesn't have to be line-of-sight). The software allows you to not only view movies and TV but to also use your computer remotely via the remote control. It can operate like a mouse, you can even web browse remotely. Built-in functions to play your MP3 files, display pictures, etc. I have looked at WinXP Media Center Edition and I like the look of the ATI software better.

[Entropy512]

Originally posted by Happygolucky
The easiest way to create a "Tivo" (or more correctly, a PVR) is to install an ATI All-In-Wonder graphics card. The AIW 9000 Pro sells for about $100 and is a very capable performer. The included software, and the ATI Remote Wonder, make turning the computer into a full-fledged media center, an easy task. The card connects to nearly everything, includes the GuidePlus software for downloading television listings, to record something, just highlight it in the listing and choose "record". The remote works up to about 60' from the computer.
Does the AIW include an MPEG encoder?

I have the Hauppauge PVR-350 and LOVE it.

The Avermedia M179 (Same encoder as the 350, minus a few features) can be found for less than $100.

I don't know about the Windows software for it, but MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org/) for Linux is *amazing*. It's still a little rough around the edges in some areas, but it blows away TiVo in others.

The thing I like most about Myth - Completely integrated support for streaming of the video to other devices. So you can have your multi-tuner video server sitting in the basement, and any PC in the house can display the video. (Although unless the PC is running Linux the UI won't be too friendly. :)

It's also insanely easy to burn the recorded video to DVD if the PVR-x50 or M179 was used for recording.

[Happygolucky]

The ATI All-In-Wonder cards do include an MPEG2 encoder. The latest version of the software will encode in MPEG2 (for DVDs), ATIVCR (proprietary codec) or in MPEG4. You can set all the various tweaks and bitrates as you desire.

[jsquare]

Originally posted by Happygolucky
The ATI All-In-Wonder cards do include an MPEG2 encoder. The latest version of the software will encode in MPEG2 (for DVDs), ATIVCR (proprietary codec) or in MPEG4. You can set all the various tweaks and bitrates as you desire.

All ATI's AIW include "software" MPEG2 encoder, not "hardware" built-in chip MPEG2 encoder like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 and some other high end cards.

[Entropy512]

Originally posted by jsquare
All ATI's AIW include "software" MPEG2 encoder, not "hardware" built-in chip MPEG2 encoder like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 and some other high end cards.
That's what I thought. BIG difference.

My PVR-350 uses almost no CPU when capturing. The only CPU usage I see is from writes to my Firewire hard drive. (Which uses a bit more CPU than IDE DMA, but a lot less than PIO thankfully.)

BTW, the Avermedia M179 tuner card (which seems designed for XP MCE) uses the same chip as the PVR-250, it's also a full-blown hardware MPEG encoder and only costs about $80-90.

If the ATI AIWs do have hardware MPEG, it's not supported under Linux, and that's where the most progress is being made on the software side of things.

[jsquare]

It seems like Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 supports the ATI's eHome Wonder card with MPEG-2 hardware encoder, but the AIWs still uses software encoder. Also listed are the Avermedia, Hauppauge and Leadtek cards with hardware encoder.
Check this link for a list of XP-MCE (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/partners/hardware.asp) supported hardware.

[Happygolucky]

Originally posted by jsquare
All ATI's AIW include "software" MPEG2 encoder, not "hardware" built-in chip MPEG2 encoder like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 and some other high end cards.

I've not had any problems capturing with MPEG2 on my All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro card, even though it is software encoder. I'm running on a P4 1.7GHz with 1GB of PC800 RDRAM. While capture was going on, I was doing other things like web browsing and downloading files, capture was still great, very few dropped frames. Was capturing at 720x480, variable bitrate average 4000kbps with 8000kbps max, 128kbps MP3 audio.

I wouldn't discount software encoders as being automatically inferior to hardware. I've seen many hardware encoders that were crap.