Pintmaster

18May/064

Building the Ultimate (cheap) HDTV PVR

I've been working on my Ultimate (cheap) HDTV PVR for a few weeks now. See the previous articles (1, 2, 3) that detail my problems. I've purchased a ton of hardware and returned a ton of hardware. Here's what I am left with and approximate prices:

Total Cost: $1021

Not so cheap anymore!

Other gear in my setup

  • Monitor: Panasonic TH42PX50U 42 Inch Plasma TV
  • Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR601U

Mistakes Made

I've made a bunch of mistakes building my HTPC. When the computer kept rebooting / stalling, I wrongly attributed it to hardware / driver problems. My assumption was compounded when I read that people were having problems with the turtle beach montego (my original HTPC sound card). I ended up spending a lot more when I had to keep returning hardware. I now think that the problem was with the original PSU in the Antec Sonata failing. It was rated at 380w and when I ran through the Power calculator, it seemed that it would be enough for my hardware, but apparently that is not the case. Either the PSU is failing or the hardware is much more power hungry than the calculator thought.

What can you do with it?

Now that I've just dropped a grand on this box, what can I do with it?

Recording TV - You'll now be able to set media center to record your favorite shows for you in High Definition. Some pitfalls here are: you need a really strong signal. I purchased a Terk indoor antenna, but the signal is weak. I am within 15 miles of all the broadcast towers in Houston, but my directional antenna only picks up 2 stations well from inside my house. The rest of them are pretty choppy. Im going to try buying a $100 antenna and put it in my attic run a cable down to my living room.

Downloading Torrents - While my TV channels dont fully work, I've got to use uTorrent to subscribe to shows on tvRSS.net in order to get my fill. I've also got my Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD on Time Warner cable as a backup :)

Music - Im not using it for music. This is when it sucks to have all your music in iTunes. It would be nice if someone (Apple ?) wrote an iTunes interface for Windows Media Center (but I cant see why they would)
Gaming - I dont use it for big screen gaming, but I can see myself getting a wireless controller and maybe installing MAME or an NES / SNES emulator.

Is it ready for primetime?

If you are an inexperienced user thinking about building a HTPC, no, it's not. Even if you are an experienced user, it may be more pain than its worth. Especially the quirks with OTA broadcasts. In fact - right now I would prefer to download a torrent of the show rather than record it over the air.

This quirkiness / lack of seamless integration is where apple really has an "in" into the living room. Steve jobs recently stated "we hear you load and clear" when asked about a potential Apple media center. The Mac Mini is a great little platform. It will be fantastic if they can integrate a dual HD and SD tuner into that package, or even have a little add on. Im a little disappointed with the inflexibility of the Windows Media Center software. It's missing a lot - such as the ability to automatically compress a recorded show to Divx. This is a relatively young product, but unfortunately, it still acts like a computer and not enough like an appliance. This is where the failing is. Things dont "just work".

Conclusion
Im not happy with Windows MCE 2005. Frankly, recording on my $12/month Scientific Atlanta 5300hd box is better than my $1000 Windows MCE 2005 box. I'd like to try and make this work by installing MythTV on Ubuntu which seems to offer more flexibility, but I am waiting for Dapper Drake to come out around the beginning of June to do it right. Im very conflicted about this right now. I want to watch TV how and when I want to watch it. I want to do it legally and in High Definition when possible. I dont want to have to pay 60 bucks a month to Time Warner Cable to watch my 5 or so shows that I can get free over the air. The kicker right now is that with my current setup, it is more inconvenient to try and record in HD over the air than it is to download the torrent. I will make this work! Keep your eyes on this space.

Filed under: Apple, Articles & Papers, HDTV, How-to, Media Center, Microsoft, Technology, Windows Media Center Leave a comment
  • Jonathan, The pc can handle the conversion down to 480i, Im sure. You would just have to use the s-video out from a video card ( a newer card may not have that ) and change the resolution on the PC to 640 x 480. Then load up Media Center and it will downscale the HDTV recordings to play in that resolution.
  • Jonathan Craven
    Is it possible to record an OTA HDTV show on your PC and then play it on the non-HDTV? The $100 Turk antenna works great, I get nearly a dozen HDTV channels and can record them on my Media Center PC but I haven't found a way to play them on a regular TV or convert them to 480i.
  • Ok, the update on the Dvico is that it isnt great for my OTA signal. I get every HD channel except for Fox over the air when my antenna is plugged into the tv. When my antenna is plugged into my Dvico card, I drop frames all the time! I basically dont use the card anymore. I watch live TV when I want to and I torrent everything else. I've even thought about investing more money to get someone to put an antenna on the top of my 3 storey townhome, but that may be a waste of money!
  • Jim Perry
    I'm in a similar situation. It seem that MCE 2005 and this whole HTPC thing is in its infancy. The technology is all there, but no one is providing a solution at a decent price. You mention on your blog about using bittorrent and such as have I. There is no good solution and I don't see one for the next 5 years.

    Knowing this though, I'm still going forth and braving the frontier of this Digital Theater PC/TV frontier.

    Here is a post I made on the Green Button website forums:

    Any thoughts or suggestions welcomed.

    Ok, so here is my long drawn out dilemma.

    I want a MCE system.

    I have a 6 year old 1 gHz Dell, and I'm finally ready to upgrade to a MCE system and have $2,000 to sink into it.

    I'm wanting to spend about $1,600 for the computer, and save another $400 for 2 LCD 17-19" Monitors for Dual monitor setup.

    I have Dish Network. A 36" Toshiba HDTV CRT, that is 4 years old, with 2 sets of component HDTV inputs, (pre HDMI). I also have a LG HDTV tuner with built in DVD player that upscales to HD.
    I also have an Xbox 360. The 360 and my old Dell (with XP) are networked.

    What I'm wanting is to be able to use my new $1,600 MCE setup to record, satellite programming from Dish Network. (I'd be willing to switch to Direct TV if it would make matters easier), also record HDTV over the air broadcasts, and send them over ethernet network (cabled) to stream off my 360, using it as a MCE extender.

    I would like to stay away from the IR blaster route. I've just heard about too many problems.

    All of the above equipment, and the future MCE would be in my basement, within 20' reach of one another. (cable wise).

    I would like to know what video cards, capture, tuners, etc. I should go with, to get the most out of this setup. I would also like to be able to record 2 programs at once.

    Should I go for a custom built system or does someone provide a MCE box, that would do the trick.

    What about the Sat tuner cards for MCE systems like they have in Europe. Any hope of getting them here in the states?

    So in summation a MCE solution that records Satellite, HDTV over the air, and streamed over ethernet less than 20' to a 360, to be watched on a CRT 36" HDTV.

    Please let me know if you need any more info.

    Thanks in advance.

    Jim

    I read articles about the ATI HDTV card. What do you think of the Dvico?
    Can you give us an update?
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