Build a PVR system

• Record my favorite shows and watch them whenever I feel like it (currently mostly “The Office”, “Seinfeld”, “Lost”, “The Simpsons” and “King of Queens” ).
• Fast forward all the irritating loud brainwashing commercials.
• Set it up to record whatever show/movies I would want to see whenever they would be broadcasted.
• See all the avialble upcoming show/movies with a customizable guide.
• Skip commercials automatically of recorded content on my hard drive using the DVRMSToolbox add-in.

And the big advantage is that there is no monthly fees for the PVR companies.

I’ve built a system using KnoppMyth (latest R5E50) about a year ago. I’m using a Hauppauge PVR-350 card and I’ve got 650Gb set up using LVM. It’s not that powerful of a system, but it doesn’t have to be. If you will be using KnoppMyth, definitely check your hardware first for incompatibilities.

After my next computer upgrade I will start on this goal. I will use what is now my main machine and turn it into a PVR. It will probably be a slow process as I dont have tons of money and have too many other hobbies. ;-)

But I will get this done.

This is off my list: I haven’t watched TV at home in four months, so it’s not such a useful goal.

When I start watching TV again (which I’m sure I will), it will be back on the list. At the top.

It was lots of work but I enjoyed doing it. It was a great challenge using MythTV and a PVR-350

I can’t speak for the alernatives but MCE is pretty basic in what it can do. I don’t like the fact it’s very hard to edit out commercials, no tools when the files get ‘broken’, and porting ms-dv to dvd takes a super long time (with commercials!).

After a long and exhaustive period of trying just about everything, I ended up going with Windows Media Center 2005. The hardest part of that was getting the OS, but persistence paid off.

Its quite neat, and performance is much better than I expected. Plus, it works with the Xbox 360 as an extender. Good stuff.

I wasn’t a big TV person, but my home-built PVR crashed just before the move, and I can no longer watch “regular” TV. It was a pain to build my own (on the cheap) but really well worth it.

My box has a PVR-150 and is rock solid. I’m running BeyondTV now because MythTV wasn’t working right with my TV card. I’t connected to my projector as well, and networked to my desktop computer so I can watch tv/movies on my wall, and/or stream video directly from my pc. Works like a charm.

I love my PVR machine. With the PVR card (hardware encoding built in – that way your machine doesn’t have to do the encoding!) and BeyondTV, I can record anything I want. I recorded all of Live8 and just have to burn it to DVD now. Christmas specials for the kids…all burnt to DVD.

I plan on giving Orb (www.orb.com) a try.