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Television Media Science

Build Your Own Linux PVR 455

Posted by timothy from the 15-fps-could-be-improved dept.
linuxwrangler writes "A few weeks ago Russell Pavlicek, Infoworld's 'Open Source' columnist mentioned a personal linux video time-shifter (PVR) he built. In response to reader requests he has now posted a page describing the project." Escaping the monthly fees of TiVo is a good motivation -- and the total cost here isn't bad either.
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Build Your Own Linux PVR More

Build Your Own Linux PVR

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  • Any suggestions for a good remote that doesn't support the company with the worst pop-up/under ads ever?

  • Open PVR just needs an open schedule... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Helpadingoatemybaby ( 629248 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:29PM (#4814221)
    Now if someone can build an "open" free web based schedule of the major networks that people can contribute to, then the PVR would be able to read this off the net and schedule recordings!

    After all, if one person posts the times of the programs that they want to record, then everyone can have automated recording like Tivo.

    Any volunteers for this open source database?

    • Re:Open PVR just needs an open schedule... (Score:5, Informative)

      by andrew_lewis ( 534971 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:35PM (#4814275)
      XMLTV [sourceforge.net] should od the trick.
      • The problem with this is it pulls from 3rd party sites (mainly tvguide.com and gist.com I believe) to get its programming information.

        If LOTS of people started using this on their homemade PVR's, I'm guessing the programming information from tvguide.com and gist.com would suddenly change format to make this break :).
        • I've given this some thought, and I bet that if you pulled a banner or two from the site and displayed them in a adspace in the selection window they might not mind so much.

          Just my $.02

        • Re:Open PVR just needs an open schedule... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by nautical9 ( 469723 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @06:27PM (#4814718) Homepage
          You're right, it is a problem - I built my own web-based TV listings page using XMLTV (just for where I live), but put it online. It didn't take zap2it.com (the North American provider that XMLTV scrapes from, not TVguide) long to find it and ban my IP.

          However, XMLTV's message boards on SourceForge claim that zap2it's license agreement DOES allow for all sorts of personal use (just not public, like I did). But I'm sure as XMLTV's popularity grows, they'll start cracking down on its usage.

          FYI, the tv_grab_na script hits their server once per day per channel - so if you want 14 days of programming, and have 50 channels, that's 700 rather-large, dynamic, HTML-ridden pages they have to serve - if a few thousand start doing this daily, they'll figure a way to shut it down in a hurry.

          I do wish the TV stations would provide their own XML-based listings (SOAP?) - it'd certainly be in their best interests.

      • TV-Now (Score:3, Informative)

        by cjsnell ( 5825 )

        This TV-Now [unihedron.com] thing looks to be a better bet. It's not free but that (to me) is not a bad thing--you'll have somebody to complain to if it doesn't work or the listings are incorrect.
    • It would probably be easier to have people try and lobby the networks/stations to contribute theri schedules to a central source ... once one of them is onboard, the rest won't want to be left out.... of course, TV Guide probably wouldn't be pleased by such a creature...
      hmmm.
      another idea is to create something to parse the signal sent to digital boxes that has local scheduloing..
      • you could always use something like yahoo! tv. that stuff is sent plain html tables. you could easily parse the html and create your own schedule.

      • No open schedule? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        FYI, there are basically two corporations in the US which collate and license all the schedules and the various regional broadcast+cable+satellite lineups- TV Guide and TMS.

        Both companies have seen the market for this data shrink as more people move to Dish Network and DirecTV, systems which have their own in-house listings service, bundled with the decoder boxes.

        While there is (limited) competition in the TV listings market, and the profit margins are thin -- it takes a lot of time and effort to not only collect and validate the information from various sources and put it into a single standard format, but also (attempt to) clean up errors, typos, and general inconsistency across all the different data sources.

        I have heard hints that TMS is considering offering "hobbyist" licensing for their local lineup and listings, perhaps eventually giving a free/cheap service to get "legal" access to the same online listings database as is currently offered for some smart remote controls.

    • Re:Open PVR just needs an open schedule... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 ) <mister DOT sketch AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:51PM (#4814420)
      You could just use tv.yahoo.com.

      It couldn't be too difficult to figure out their URL parsing and get the provider number. You basically just get a table of shows, and you could even bring up descriptions of the shows, from the links on the page.

      The basic format is:
      http://tv.yahoo.com/grid?lineup=us_CO05536&al l=1&s tartdate=1039046400&starthour=18

      You can get the lineup code from:
      http://tv.yahoo.com/lineup?co=us&zip=80027
      And substitute your zip.

      startdate is kinda tricky. I haven't looked at it long enough to decode it, but just off-hand, it looks like the number of minutes since midnight Jan 1, 1970. (The example I pasted in was for Wednesday December 4th, 2002).

      starthour is just the 24 hour time to start the listing. So my pasted example was for 6pm.

      There are also some other options, but they are optional for the U.S.

    • Re:Open PVR just needs an open schedule... (Score:5, Informative)

      by cr@ckwhore ( 165454 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @07:51PM (#4815238) Homepage
      TV scheduling data for your cable system is already available on your cable feed ... its called "guide plus" and its available in the same scanline that carries closed caption text. This data is used in some TVs and DVD players that support "guide plus".

      If you search google for more info, there are a few resources out there with technical details on how to read this data.

      The data includes time, duration, genre, category, and show information.

      • Here is some more info... the "guide plus" (or sometimes "guide+" data is carried in the Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI) ... to get started, read this: http://www.robson.org/gary/writing/icce98.html.

        Then,go here: http://www.robson.org/gary/captioning/index.html

        Then, if you still need more info, try searching with the keywords "vbi" "guide" "caption", etc

  • Would Somebody Please. . (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cokelee ( 585232 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:29PM (#4814225)
    Market this! I have the ability to make a machine for this purpose, and I know people that have done it several times over.
    Why isn't there a company bold enough to at least make the hardware?
    I'm sure there are legal issues but it seems like some company would have tried it by now.

    • Re:Would Somebody Please. . (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:42PM (#4814348)
      For $300 that this cost, you could have a TiVO. And TiVO works fine w/o a subscription, you just don't get the guide and suggestions that you do with the monthly fee. And it's kludged beyond all belief.

      So this guy built a box that 'kinda' works (15fps, vis problems, etc). Check out the AVScience HTPC (home theatre PC) forums at http://www.avsforum.com (Under the HT PC section, they have a dedicated HTPC Linux section).
      • You can't buy a TiVo or ReplayTV without a subscription. You used to be able to, but now that's impossible. It is part of the initial agreement.

        • Ahem.....

          click here [ebay.com]

  • Best of all... (Score:4, Funny)

    by core plexus ( 599119 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:30PM (#4814239) Homepage
    If I build it myself, it won't start to think me gay (not that that's a bad thing...necessarily)
  • /. is getting more and more bizarre by the day.

  • Freevo (Score:5, Informative)

    by updog ( 608318 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:31PM (#4814248) Homepage
    It's curious that there's no reference to Freevo [sourceforge.net].

    • Re:Freevo (Score:2, Informative)

      by whterbt ( 211035 )

      Maybe that's because Freevo can't record or time-shift [sourceforge.net] yet.

      What I'd like to see, and this is probably the point the parent was trying to make, is less reinvention of the wheel and more collaboration. Don't get me started on the number of types of VNC available, each with their pros and cons. If everybody would work together on common projects, we'd have more pros and fewer cons.

    • Pausing Live TV (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sterno ( 16320 )
      It seems like the real voodoo cool trick that is unavailable on any of these systems and is available on Tivo and ReplayTV is the ability to pause live TV. Personally I think that's one of the best features of the system. Actually, pausing live TV isn't the cool part, it's letting a show queue up all the commercial time at the beginning, while you do something else, then go in and skip all the commercials. I'd love to flip a recorder on for the first 90 minutes of monday night football, then go do something else, and come back to a commercial free game.

    • Re:Freevo (Score:4, Informative)

      by Bitsy Boffin ( 110334 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @08:14PM (#4815351) Homepage
      MythTV is soooo much better than Freevo at the moment it's not funny.

      I just set up MythTV here at home in New Zealand, took me a day including writing an html scraper to get local listings. I can now pause, rewind etc live tv, schedule recordings, tell it to record all of "this" show on any channel, when I get another TV card I'll even be able to do picture in picture.

      If I'm watching TV when a recording is scheduled it warns me and asks if I'd like to cancel the recording, watch while it's recording or stop watching and let it record. I can watch recordings while it is recording something else.

      NZ doesn't have any commercially available PVR systems, MythTV is a completely wonderful replacement.

      The only thing lacking is a good way of archiving those recordings you like to CD. It would be solved if mplayer/encoder could read the modified Nuppel format of MythTV.

      Prior to installing Myth (which ISN'T hard, just apt-get everything you need and away you go, there are even deb's for it now) I tried Freevo, but I found it slow, buggy and, well, it' doesn't realy do a whole lot yet. Maybe in a year, but right now, MythTV is better.

  • The User Interface, or lack there of... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John_McKee ( 100458 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:32PM (#4814249) Homepage
    So, for $100 more than the cost of a TiVo, which are now at $199 with a $50 rebate, he built a box that has 5 hours less recording time, a worse encoder,a fraction of the features, and how do you even begin to discribe the UI? Non-existant? I will stick to my TiVos.
    • I had the same reaction... except I'm not using Tivo, I'm using a fairly decent VCR I bought back in the mid-80s. Still works fine, programming it is pretty easy, it can be set to record up to 8 shows, and if I'm busy and can't watch TV this week, just pop in a different tape. If it's a great show I want to save "forever", just pop in a different tape.

      • Re:The User Interface, or lack there of... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sacherjj ( 7595 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:44PM (#4814366) Homepage
        The main reason I went with TiVo (before I understood all of the other cool things it does) was because of the limitations of the VCR and tape. I wanted more than 8 shows per week. All VCRs I saw were limited in this capability. I also have to watch all 8 hours of the tape before I can use it again. Not all shows are the same priority, so I don't always want to watch them all before another more important show is on. With a hard disk based recorder (home brew or purchased), this is not an issue. If you want to save it forever, just record to a tape.

    • Re:The User Interface, or lack there of... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EverDense ( 575518 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:57PM (#4814479) Homepage
      Yes, but similar solutions, can be used all over the world...
      Not just in the USA.
    • The home-brewing of technology is inherently good. Were it not so, Linux and most Open Source ware wouldn't even exist, because it's always cheaper to buy than to build. But as with software, building your own gives you a level of control that you'd never get in a commercial solution. And it's not work - it's a hobby.

    • Re:The User Interface, or lack there of... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @07:02PM (#4814963)
      Obviously the linux box isn't a shrinkwrapped solution. But the homebrew might be more fun.

      I just finshed a program to grab yahoo.com tv listings and rank the shows, using a bayesian network on a training set of previously watched programs. (The show's title, rating, stars, genre etc are used for scoring, not its actual content.) Fun stuff! But obviously not yet a consumer product like TiVo.

    • So, for $100 more than the cost of a TiVo...

      It's a geek thing, you wouldn't understand.

  • No other PVRs on sale in the u.s.? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:32PM (#4814252)
    I always wonder that all that gets talked about is the Tivo. Im in Europe and there are many different PVRs avaialable here form small and big companies like Toshiba, Nokia, Panasonic and the like. Building one yourself is cool i bet but there are also many different harddrive based video recorders with timeshifting available. And no annoying subscription or anything like that.

  • TV Listings? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:32PM (#4814253)
    A good chunk of the "monthly service fee" for TiVo goes to Tribune Media Services for licensing their TV listings database and channel lineup information, and for employees at TiVo who (with limited success) massage the raw listings to provide good data so your TiVo can reliably record "The Simpsons" for you every day.

    I did not see any discussion at the linked site as to how he handled the problem of getting good TV listings for free in a format that his home-brew PVR can use to decide what to record, when, for how long.

    • Re:TV Listings? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sacherjj ( 7595 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:48PM (#4814397) Homepage
      It sounds like a glorified VCR that can record based on time settings. So you get a nice 15 fps program on the hard drive. Wheeee. Nice writeup, but I long ago reasoned that a few more bucks to TiVo was cheaper than my time to mess with this.

  • How to avoid Tivo fees and make money! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ryochiji ( 453715 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:33PM (#4814265) Homepage
    Step 1: Sell your TV
    Step 2: Cancel your cable/satellite/TiVo account
    Step 3: Profit!

    Oh...crap. I actually have a step 2.

  • Defending my TiVo (Score:2, Informative)

    by mrpull ( 112590 )
    I can't help but defend TiVo. This guy isn't doing anything that deserves a slashdot article.

    For something /. worthy, check out New series 2 Tivo for $199 [tivo.com]

    • Re:Defending my TiVo (Score:4, Funny)

      by Admiral Llama ( 2826 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:43PM (#4814358)
      Ahhh, the TiVo faithful... possibly a group actually MORE ravenous about a product than Mac users. I should know, I'm both!

    • Re:Defending my TiVo (Score:5, Funny)

      by victim ( 30647 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:49PM (#4814402)
      Lets see if Tivo should worry yet...
      • He can only record at 15fps but is still taking 2Gbyte/hr.
      • He clearly isn't doing mpeg encoding. Maybe a 422 or somesuch. In any event his quality is probably far below even VHS.
      • He can't have a disk larger than 60G, bios trouble. (Coupled with above, he has lower capacity than even old tivos.)
      • He loses one edge of the picture.
      • It displays annoying vertical lines, but you can wiggle the card and sometimes make it clear up.
      • it has no user interface for selecting shows
      • It has no ability to look at listings. Heck, you can use your tivo this way if you want to avoid the monthly fees.
      • He spent $300 on hardware, yet some critical components are used gear from ebay. My DirectTV+Tivo integrated unit was less than that (just basic package too) with free dish and free installation (and that was a bitch, took the poor guy all day). Sure I pay a bit to tivo (its on the directv bill) but the total is still less than my basic cable bill was.


      Don't Tivo and Replay have patents on the concept of DVR? It may even be illegal for him to overspend for shoddy substitute.

      On the plus side... I have fun playing with my toys too.

    • Re:Defending my TiVo (Score:3, Informative)

      by mrbuttboy ( 460308 )
      Well, it does show what you can expect to pay if you wanted to do this all on your own. Also,adding a vastly larger hard drive doesn't come with any extra risks like voiding warranty. You might even have all the hardware already laying around and just put it to good use.

      It also shows exactly how competitive TiVo really is. Basically you can build something for about the same price as a TiVo,even if it isn't quite as nice as a TiVo. If you invest in your TiVo and buy a lifetime membership you get something vastly better that will have a good resale value a year or 2 from now.

      Just listen to TiVo owners. You will rarely hear people who are so happy with a piece of consumer hardware as people are with TiVo. I love my TiVo (Almost 3 years now) and so does every person I know who has ever used it for any length of time. If you are at all interested in something like this at least try a TiVo out.

      Building a home system might be loads of fun and you might be able to do a few things you can't with a consumer product but people love TiVo for a reason. Find out why.

    • Re:Defending my TiVo (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tmhsiao ( 47750 )
      "This guy isn't doing anything that deserves a slashdot article."

      Actually, there's one key item which piques my interest: the ability to record to VCD.

      While I've seen others hack their way into this ability on their TiVos, if enough users/enthusiasts clamor for this kind of functionality, TiVo/Replay may add USB CD-R/DVD.R support to future revisions.

      Given the television and film industries' general aversion to digital reproduction, however, should TiVo/Replay provide this support, it might behoove them to placate Hollywood by specifically coding the functionality to keep the commercials with the shows.

  • How about MythTV (Score:5, Informative)

    by daun3507 ( 116384 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:35PM (#4814271)
    MythTV works quite a bit better than this one does. Check it out here [mythtv.org].

    • Re:How about MythTV (Score:5, Informative)

      by TardisX ( 15222 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @07:33PM (#4815148)
      Agreed. MythTV is much more mature, is extensible, has a nice interface and is under constant development.

      It already does:

      • Live TV/timeshifting
      • Program guide
      • Record individual programs, or regular timeslots
      • Basic editing of pre-recorded shows (bye bye ads!)
      • Uses XMLTV [membled.com] for guide information, which has grabbers for many geographical areas.
      • Kicks Ass
      Get it now [mythtv.org].

  • Yeah! Screw TiVo (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:35PM (#4814274)

    Yeah, I'm tired of paying monthly fees to a company that treats its customers with respect. Screw these companies supporting Linux too. Man, when TiVo released the 3.0 version of their software with broadband support built-in I nearly puked.

    If I hear another person complain about a monthly fee to TiVo, I'm gonna punch them square in the pie hole.
    • "...supporting Linux too..."

      So what % of TiVo sales goes to GNU/Linux? Or is Tivo just riding on Linux's back?

      Anyone out there know?

      • So what % of TiVo sales goes to GNU/Linux? Or is Tivo just riding on Linux's back?

        Why should any of it? Isn't the point that they should be putting the source back out for people to benefit from? And if they are doing this, aren't they fulfilling the gpl and any requirements and/or obligations they have to the OS community?
  • I think this is totally awesome, and I'd like to build one of my own, but theres just something nice about being able to pull a piece of hardware out of the box and have it work, no questions asked.

    But, maybe this will lead to more hardware manufacturers building machines like this that don't have monthly fees. I mean, what's it cost to build and store a database of television schedules? Can that cost be countered by simple ads? Slashdot seems to be making a great thing happen with its small amount of ads. I would be glad to trade a monthly subscription for some possibly helpful advertising inorder to have a PVR.
    • Nard drive recorders are available without monthly fees to just record like a VCR, but they cost more than a TiVo with lifetime service. No reason not to just get a TiVo with the far superior UI.

  • 15 FPS!?!? (Score:4, Informative)

    by phreak404 ( 241139 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:36PM (#4814284)
    The recording rate of the TV capture card appears to max out at 15 frames per second. If I were intending to archive these programs forever, I'd probably invest in a better card. But for timeshifting shows like the evening news from France (for my wife) and The Red Green Show (for me), 15 fps is adequate.

    15 FPS, I'd hardly call that adequate for 30 FPS NTSC television, but to each his own I suppose.

    • Computer geek, not video geek (Score:4, Informative)

      by benwaggoner ( 513209 ) <ben@waggoner.microsoft@com> on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:57PM (#4814482) Homepage
      Plus it's progressive scan, so actually losing 75% of the original 60 frame interlaced NTSC source. This system was definitely designed by a computer guy, not a video guy (as honorable and deep a form of geekhood as any).

      He really wants something that can do interlaced capture, like MPEG-2 or some of the higher profile versions of MPEG-4. I believe this is supported in the current CVS of Xvid, at least experimentally. MPEG-4 would give a LOT smaller file sizes than MPEG-2 at the same quality.

      Or, since VCD is his goal, he could capture straight to ffmpeg in a VCD compatible profile. Or use SVCD MPEG-2, which would be higher quality, and could still fit a half-hour show on a 800 MB CD-ROM.

      Windows Media 9 has great, free, integrated capture that can do interlaced, but that'd be hardly Linux friendly :).

  • but... (Score:2, Informative)

    by nuckin futs ( 574289 )
    doesn't TiVo already run linux?
    If i'm not mistaken, TiVo is pretty much a linux box running on PPC hardware.
    With the current Christmas sales around the country, I'm sure you can get the real thing cheap.

  • Is this guy for real? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:37PM (#4814302) Journal
    In his first article:

    "I remember how the process used to go when I'd scope out solutions in the closed-source world. There would be brochures to peruse. There would be data sheets read. Maybe there would be crippleware demos to run. And then there would be a solution to buy.

    Unfortunately, this takes time. Significant time. And in the Internet age, time is critical.

    But in the world of open source, I had several options right on my Linux CD. I didn't have to waste time with endless marketing materials."

    But you DID have to waste time compiling, testing, setting up, configuring, tweaking, this that and the other thing. I mean c'mon. I've seen (and used) several proprietary solutions that work great with *uncrippled* time-trial demos.

    And then you had to waste the time searching for compatible hardware, testing that, taking it back to the store, arguing for a refund, paying 15% restocking, trying something else, etc, etc.

    And then you get to the box itself. I'm sorry but a Celeron 400? Sure it might 'work', but not all that well. My p3 600 had trouble capturing tv quality streams without siginificant losses. And it at least had the benefit of UDMA/100 and a 133mhz FSB.

    Meh, so some guy made a shitty (functionally and aesthetically) PC that runs linux and plugged it into his TV. Kudo's to you, sir.

    I'd really like to do something like this, and use linux to do it. But this guy is full of it. I hate when zealots pretend to be informative.

    Gimme a useful article, not a thinly veiled 'MS is TeH SUCK Liniz is tEH GODE!' troll.

  • Case for this type of thing? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ive had trouble trying to find a decent case for a project like this. Coolermaster and Lian-Li both make some pretty slick component-style cases, but im not about to drop $200 on a pc case (especially a micro-ATX).

    Ive seen some good mods of VCR's, but they all seem to make some pretty nasty compromises.
    Any ideas?

  • Been doing this for just over a year..... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fapestniegd ( 34586 ) <`james' `at' `jameswhite.org'> on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:39PM (#4814314) Homepage
    I call it my "tuxvo"
    If you combine cron with vcr [stack.nl] you can achieve good quality recordings using divx4/5 pretty much off the shelf.
    Add an nVidia GeForce 2 MX w/TV-out and nVidia's kernel module you can save yourself the money for the scan converter.
    That is, if you don't mind black bars at the edge of the screen. Otherwise go with the scan converter.
    But IMHO nothing beats MPlayer for playback. YMMV

    Oh and In Soviet Russia tuxvo records you.

  • Tivo vs. HDD-based VCR (Score:5, Interesting)

    by swb ( 14022 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:39PM (#4814323)
    I just got Tivo, and while I'm not a huge fan of the fee (I went box lifetime subscription), you have to remember that with the fee you get software updates and fixes and a really good, highly detailed program guide.

    Tivos feature set goes well beyond just recording Sopranos on Sunday nights at 8PM.

    I'm not saying an HDD-based VCR wouldn't be a good thing, I wouldn't mind having one, but don't compare it to Tivo -- it's not the same.
  • I'm tempted to build something similar (with hotswap drives) to handle storing surveillance camera output on a disk, and perhaps feeding selected frames (based on motion detection) offsite.

    Basically, a video capture card, a minimal OS, and two dedicated storage drives capable of holding 24 hours of good quality B&W video each.

    If something interesting happened yesterday, I can swap out the quiescient "yesterday" drive for a fresh disk (hotswap) and save/copy/analyse the old data, without having to mess with the running system or the currently active drive that is being used to save today's footage.

    Seems simple enough, shouldn't even really need to have an OS, just enough smarts to capture frames and write them to disk. I've heard of people converting old TiVo units to this purpose, but no dedicated hardware that fits my description.

  • no thanks (Score:3, Informative)

    by Quasar1999 ( 520073 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:40PM (#4814328) Journal
    DirecTivo is the best... it has a satellite decoder built right in... now show me how to build one of those, and I'll be impressed... but until then, I can't easily change channels on my sat reciever with my pc, and I don't feel like forking out huge amounts of money for two tv tuner cards and two sat receivers just so I can watch one channel and record another...

    Tivo still has a place in the market... shrinking yes, but it's not cost effective to try and replace it's functionality... at least not yet...

  • no need to pause??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mbadolato ( 105588 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:40PM (#4814334)
    There is no need to pause a live TV signal like some PVRs do

    Bullshit! Apparently he doesn't have a wife that feels the need to carry on a conversation right in the middle of a critical part of the show. ;-)

    and likewise, the rewind feature comes in handy so you can reply what you just missed when the "conversation" started, before you could pause

    • Pausing live TV is the one feature that I might sink 300$ into.

      I mean look at his joke of a machine.. 15 fps (and powered by a celeron 400, I can tell you those 15 frames are blocky garbage)

      This thing is about 25% as functional as a 40$ VCR.

      Sheesh.

      BUT IT RUNS LINUX ! WOW !
    • Well, considering that most people who have Tivos stop watching live TV as much and only watch shows they recorded (some stop watching any live TV at all, even for sporting events), he has a bit of a point. It might not occur to you, but your poor Tivo is constantly recording 24 hours a day, not just when you want to record a show. The Tivo's hard disk is constantly written to while you are at sleep and at work and when there's nothing but complete garbage on. And why? Just in case you turn on the TV and start watching something you might care about enough that you want to pause it or rewind it.

      So while pausing Live TV seems like a cool "must have" feature, if all you watch is programs you specifically record, you still have that funtionality. Then you can vastly improve the life of the hard drive in your PVR, not to mention the CPU cycles wasted on buffering Live TV. If you want to pause Live TV, just hit the record button, then it's a recorded program and you can pause it.

  • what about the GUI? (Score:4, Troll)

    by newsdee ( 629448 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:52PM (#4814429) Homepage Journal
    It may be nice to have a box and software that *potentially* can work like a Tivo... for the Linux gods. But I have to ask in the name of all the rest of the mortals, where's the GUI? Can we just set this up ONCE and then avoid any kind of hacking? Or is this flawed with the problem of many OSS packages, lack of usability for those who doesn't want/are not able to bother?

    IMHO this is the main reason why OSS has not skyrocketed yet, because many people would prefer to pay an extra $100 than having to write batches every time you want to record a TV show or any other kind of menial task.

    I know instances of OSS with good interfaces exist. But GUI usually seems to have a very low priority, unfortunately.

    • Why no gui's... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sterno ( 16320 )
      The thing is that it is much easier to sit down and do a CLI quickly and get the kinks worked out than it is to develop a usable GUI. I've tried to do a similar project to this, and doing it all command line makes life much simpler in the beginning. Eventually, yes, having a nice GUI would be good, but if a hacker can throw together the box with a CLI and be happy with what he's got, isn't that okay?

      If somebody wants a nice GUI, they'll write one. As somebody else pointed out, there's the freevo project which has what appears to be a very nice GUI.
  • With all these homegrown tivo like PVR's is that if you have digital cable or a satellite you are going to miss out on recording a ton of stuff. With satellite at least you can get a box with the decoders built in. For cable I just recently got the new Scientific Atlanta 8000 box for time warner and it works pretty well, but it is Tivo-lite and has some problems sometimes. But its still WAY better than using a VCR. All it needs is a network jack so I can get 2 boxes and share their recordings. Oh it doesn't do hdtv either.

  • TiVo timeshifting (Score:5, Informative)

    by tmhsiao ( 47750 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:56PM (#4814476) Homepage Journal
    While the main appeal to most people to purchase a TiVo is its timeshifting ability, there is far more to its featureset than just the way it pauses live TV. Anyone who thinks that TiVo is just a digital VCR hasn't really looked at one closely enough to understand the flexibility that it grants you.

    "And I don't like the concept of having my destiny linked with the fortunes of the supplying company. I don't need a US$300 doorstop if the TiVo company should someday fail. Hey, if Enron and Worldcom can end up in the toilet, you have to allow for the fact that no one company will be around forever."

    I think TiVo has stated that should they go under, they'd supply the current users with some facility to allow the units to continue to function.

    "It should also be capable of creating images that can be burned on Video CDs (VCD)."

    This is an ability I know someone has hacked into their TiVo. In addition, the new version of WinDVD allows you to view a stream at 1.2x the speed of broadcast, letting you shave down a 60 minute program to 30 minutes or so (after eliminating commercials).

  • Let's give this guy some credit, here (Score:3, Funny)

    by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @05:58PM (#4814489) Homepage
    This guy watches Red Green. I was shocked to see that none of the pics on his site had a stitch of duct tape.

  • Yeah, and in the latest news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @06:00PM (#4814506)
    Man builds house by pushing large stones into a big pile.

  • This is a good idea.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chanc_Gorkon ( 94133 ) <gorkon.gmail@com> on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @06:07PM (#4814547)
    Sure you say you can do a Tivo cheaper. Maybe. But to me, the advantages of doing this outweigh the advantages of Tivo. I personally don't care for the thumbs uping and thumbs downing. I know what I want to watch and I don't want it recording anything else. Couple other folks mentioned the Freevo project and that interests me alot. But a lot of folks forget what you could do. You could hack the program a bit and add a button that lets you Zap a show to a standard DVD-R. You could use NFS and make a similar pc with a WiFi card in it, but minimal hard drive and a TV out card and have the view your recorded shows on any tv. Or start watching it in the living room, pause and go to the bedroom to finish. You could run samba and then mount a disc and setup a doze machine for your kids and they can watch Seasame Street in their room (no TV needed). I could go on, but I would have a rather long post. The advantages far outweigh they nice package Tivo provides.

    • Re:This is a good idea.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by tmhsiao ( 47750 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @06:23PM (#4814685) Homepage Journal
      I can agree with some of your points, but as devil's advocate:

      "You could hack the program a bit and add a button that lets you Zap a show to a standard DVD-R."

      I know someone who's currently archiving all of his TiVo's shows to his computer and subsequently to VCD/DVD. It takes a bit of know how, but it's already been done for TiVo units.

      "You could use NFS and make a similar pc with a WiFi card in it, but minimal hard drive and a TV out card and have the view your recorded shows on any tv. Or start watching it in the living room, pause and go to the bedroom to finish."

      I actually do this now, with video and remote sender/receiver units (total about $80), eliminating the cost of
      1. an extra PC
      2. two WiFi cards
      3. a possible extra monitor


      The flipside of the advantages of the homegrown solution is that TiVo has welcomed users hacking their units. This hacker-friendly mentality has snowballed into a large community of customers doing who-knows-what with their units (i.e. getting Caller-ID info on their televisions through the TiVo).

  • Typical Geek (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Master_Wu ( 266994 ) <tribentwrks@@@yahoo...com> on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @06:19PM (#4814634)
    He goes through all the trouble and expense to make a basic TV "Time Shift" device with Linux, and then sumbits a picture of it sitting on top of a VCR!!! Granted, that's old tech "time shifting", but he obviously knows how to set the clock on the damn thing, so it probably could "work just fine for his needs" as well.

    Let's see, what else could we make with Linux to do the same job as a tool we already have?

  • For 60% of the cost you get 33% the result! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 71thumper ( 107491 ) <steven.levin@interceptor.com> on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @06:25PM (#4814697)
    From my figuring, the author spent $300 building this super-widget. So, he saved $250 over a new TiVo with a lifetime suibscription.

    For that, he sacrificed a whole lot!

    * 15fps
    * poor video quality (vertical lines) on top of the 15fps
    * No 'live pause'
    * No watching one program while saving another
    * No guide, etc.

    For me, the tradeoff isn't worth it. Even if TiVo fails as a company, I suspect that the community will come up with a network-hack for getting scheduling information.

    And even if you lose that, you still have a better-quality recorder with an easy interface, more features, that's running linux.

    It only compares if you wanted to play around building a PVR for personal humor. It doesn't make sense as a solution, though :)

    Steve

  • Here's another Tivo-like PC project site (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @07:15PM (#4815043)
    I've been working on a PC-based Tivo-like system for a couple of months now and have published some (hopefully) useful information here [aardvark.co.nz].

    One critical factor is the choice of a "smart" or a "dumb" capture card and deciding whether you want to be able to export your recordings to DVDR/CDR disks in DVD/SVCD/VCD format.

    If you just want plain Tivo-like functionality then you can use DivX as your compression method and get reasonable results with a software-based realtime encoder.

    I've compared the two options and reviewed the Pinnacle PCTV card (dumb BT8x8 capture) and the Hauppauge PVR-250 (smart -- it has onbard hardware MPEG encoding).

    Is this stuff any good? Here's a clue -- hardware companies should stick to making hardware and leave the software writing to software professionals. This clearly hasn't happened in the tuner/capture-card industry.

    Most of the work to date has been done under Windows but I'm currently working on using this hardware config under Linux and will update the project site accordingly.

    However, if you want to then export your DivX files to DVD/SVCD/VCD you're going to get sub-optimal quality because you're transcoding between two lossy formats. Since the stuff I like to keep for posterity on CDR/DVDR is more than likely going to be material like good movies or music concerts, I have opted to use an MPEG1/MPEG2 encoder and avoid re-encoding.

    There are also a couple of video samples demonstrating the differences between the three most popular options:

    1. Realtime MPEG capture using a dumb card
    2. Non-realtime encoding using TMPGenc
    3. Realtime MPEG capture using a hardware encoder.

    There's a heap more to do on this project but it's coming along quite nicely.

  • Freevo and MythTV for Mandrake (Score:3, Interesting)

    by miracle69 ( 34841 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @08:25PM (#4815410)
    All you MandrakeClub members who are interested in Freevo and MythTV need to head over to the RPM-voting section of the Club and vote for Freevo and MythTV.

    http://www.mandrakeclub.com/modules.php?op=modlo ad &name=RPM

    Freevo is on the first page, and Myth TV is on the 3rd.

  • Pretty easy (Score:4, Informative)

    by woogieoogieboogie ( 598162 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @08:43PM (#4815536)
    Take 1 Ati Radeon All-in-Wonder 8500DV $179.00 at Newegg [neweg.com]. Install on a windows machine, install driers and ati multimedia center.

    Instant TiVO.... Oh wait, for Linux .....

    Try, http://gatos.sourceforge.net/ or ftp://ftp.xig.com/pub/3Ddemos/extras/README.xvamp

  • Support TiVo, fer crying out loud!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by .@. ( 21735 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @10:34PM (#4816054) Homepage
    What's wrong with you people? For years, everyone whined that Linux was being ignored in the server market, in the embedded market, etc.

    Suddenly, a few years ago, TiVo produced a Linux-based PVR. They even (*GASP!*) encouraged hacking it!

    Now, you want to "avoid the service cost?"

    Brilliant. Take one of the few companies that stands to actually make a successful business based on Linux, and attempt to put them out of business because you're too cheap to pay $12 a month for the service, to support a company that has supported the Linux community over the years.

    What, exactly, is the reason for not wanting to support TiVo? Besides being complete skinflints, that is...if you can't afford $12/mo., you shouldn't be spending $300-500 for a luxury item like a PVR in the first place.

  • freevo (Score:3, Informative)

    by jedir0x ( 522662 ) <.brian_dilley. .at. .hotmail.com.> on Thursday December 05, 2002 @01:43AM (#4816827) Homepage Journal
    http://freevo.sourceforge.net

    EXCELENT PVR software, i've used it. Actually, i haven't tried the recording part, but everything i have tried (playing movies, mp3s, photo gallery) was worked great. Has an awsome interface too. It would be GREAT for one of those anandtec boxes.... the sv24 or whatever it is.

  • it's fun to learn, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by geoff lane ( 93738 ) on Thursday December 05, 2002 @03:49AM (#4817180)
    It's high time that all AV equipment provided a control port - serial, USB, IP I don't really care.

    It would be very useful to be able to control all the stuff that currently has a remote, from a computer.

  • A very good Linux box for this... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DarkDust ( 239124 ) <marc@darkdust.net> on Thursday December 05, 2002 @06:18AM (#4817455) Homepage

    is one that I am currently experimenting with: Allwell Set-Top Boxes.

    I bought one through my employer, and the cool things about these boxes are:

    • small size, these are set-top boxes !
    • remote control and keyboard, both are normal PS/2 mouse and keyboard to the machine ! No drivers needed, and you can even switch the set-top box on and off with it... woohoo ! :-)
    • SCART output !! (if you want to connect a normal VGA monitor you have to get a slot plate with a VGA connector and connect it with the main-board)
    • even has a SCART input, but I don't know how to use it
    • my version even has a SIGMA MPEG2 decoder chip
    • room for one normal PCI card, e.g. my old Bt878 card
    • you have to glue your 2,5" HDD to the cover, actually... at least in my version. There are also versions of this set-top-box which have a socket for 2,5" HDDs
    • I have seen versions with ~300 MHz Geode processors, mine has a 667 MHz VIA processor, IIRC

    Can be seen here [allwell.com.tw].

    Only problem is the display driver, the video chip is a Tvia 5005 and so far I had no succes in finding drivers for Linux... VESA FB works well but it could be much faster/smoother/use real PAL resolutions if I had the correct drivers. If anyone knows where to get them, please tell me [mailto] !

    Sound works fine BTW, but I don't remember what chip that was... CX5530 ?

  • Linux and Tivo's and such (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chunkwhite86 ( 593696 ) on Thursday December 05, 2002 @12:22PM (#4819302)
    I see many posts here complaining about this guy's home made PVR. They are all complaining about the lack of features or this and that. It's a work in progress folks and it's just been started! Grow up!

    I wonder if these same complainers were complaining in 1993 about Linux kernel 0.9x "Microsoft has more features!" "Microsoft has a better GUI!" "Why should we spend all the time configuring this Linux thing when we could just spend $300 and buy Windows".

    The arguments are identical. Cut this fellow some slack for daring to build something that you won't even attempt.

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