Best all computer TiVo,ViVo setup Rec?

[whitewlf]

I am trying to figure out what would be the best way to make a nice, fully computer based, TiVo style digital VCR setup... Among the questions are:

Best OS- Win98, 2k or Linux?
Best Card- Hauppague, Matrox or Dazzle 2?
Remote Functionality- Any way to change the channel on a satellite/cable box? On my mac I have a little LED attachment that can control alot of VCRs, though I don't use it much. I imagine there -must- be a similar thingy for PCs.

I'd prefer to use linux as the scripting and remote administration would be far easier for me, but, the windows graphical tools would be much easier for the non-techies in the house to use

I have the basics for either an Athlon 700 or P3 733 box. I use Dishnetwork satellite TV, and might occ. create SVCDs from DVDs or VCR for library (burn over 100bt LAN). The unit would likely have it's monitor/interface all on the TV and/or as a remote session Timbuktu or VNC... A web based remote interface is also a nice idea... apache/php/perl... I -love- the thought of using my WAP phone to set the thing to record a show when I'm not going to make it home...

[TIbrO]

It seems that you know way more about any of this than the rest of us here at VCDHELP. Good luck!

[athlin]

The Tivo boxes actually run on Linux, so it's GPL'd. The kernel is here: http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html and a pretty cool interface is here: http://tivo.lightn.org/

You could probably search for more Tivo type linux stuff at http://freshmeat.net/ and http://sourceforge.net/

[athlin]

found this site also:
http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/index.htm

[Belboz]

whitewlf,

To answer some of your questions....

1) Best OS. Linux is my favorite, but Windows does have better codec support. So if your looking for something to play more than what it records videos under (divx, avi, quicktime, etc), Windows is leading that front.

2) Best card. If your using Linux the WinTV cards are pretty well supported. I like the ATI cards myself, but I think most will work fine for your purpose. Since your looking at TiVo functionality, the WinTV-PVR might be a good choice.

3) I use DTV myself and many of their receivers are controllable by using a serial port (like the TiVO does). I prefer this method since it is very reliable. Since you have Dish network your going to need to either build or buy an IR module for the PC.

Other things you may have not thought about.

1) An actual remote. You may have been referring to this in your one point but since you seemed to be talking about the satellite box I figured I would mention it. To really have that comfort issue you are going to need a remote that you can control the PC with. You could go with a Wireless keyboard though.

2) Your tv listings. TiVo gives this to you in the subscription or life time fee. Unless you are going to do manual recordings all the time, you are going to need some form of a schedule.

3) PVR functionality. It is very nice to be able to watch one thing while recording another. Unless you go with the ATI Radeon AIW or a WinTV-PVR this isn't going to be an option.

When you start adding up the costs of some of these special items, you really start to get up there.

I would recommend getting a 20 hour TiVo for $100 - $150. Add a drive to it (use my BlessTiVo program to add it! go to http://tivo.samba.org to check out my FAQ with all the info). Add an ethernet card to the TiVo (or use PPP over the serial port) and use lightn's TiVo Web interface to schedule programs remotely. You can use extractstream to pull your captured videos off the TiVo too.

You will get more functionality, smaller package, and less work!

Course building what you say would be a fun project though!

[Dman65]

Please let us know what you finally end up doing. i have been trying to do something similar.

So far I have tried a BT878 card with Video For Windows drivers and writing my own software. Everything worked fine for capturing the video, but unfortunately the system locked up at non-regular times. Sometimes it wasn't even in the middle of capturing. It also had the drawback of not being able to play and record at the same time which is something I am really trying to achieve.

My second attempt was with a Dazzle DVC parallel port edition. My premise was that the computer would only have to capture at most 500KBytes/sec which should be a piece of cake and would leave plenty of cycles for playback. This of course has turned out to not be the case and my on-board parallel connector can not capture above 300kbytes/sec reliably.

I have also looked at trying to get a couple of the MPEG encode/decoder chipsets to roll my own device but all of the manufacturers require a "rigorous screening process" in order to sell you the chip. I thought putting the device together would be a challenge, not nearly so as getting the pieces.

From what I have seen of the TiVo units they use a Linux version and an IBM PowerPC RISC chip. They also have an MPEG2 encoder and MPEG2 decoder chip (seperate chips unlike a 3-Cube design).

So far it has been an interesting project and I have learned a lot. My wife is getting a bit tired of the cables and my staying up until 4:00 in the morning on weekend though

[neogeek]

I also have quested to have more power over my Time Shifting-PVR'ing then the TIVO offers.
(Yes I have 2 TIVOS and NIC card in them with extra HD's and all).
Problem with Hacking the TIVO.. you have to pay the 20.00 a month per box to get the database of
shows, ie the TIVO TV-Guide data. You are also forced to take their updates, that can dis-able any
hacks that you have done on the the TIVO, adding 2nd HD, NIC, etc... Yes Linux is Open source, but
the TIVO binaries are not, MYWORLD is not open source and this binary runs alot of what the TIVO does.
If you want to use the TIVO you would be better off Nuking the box and creating your own version of TIVO
on it. Nice box, integrated Encoder/decoder chips, etc.. whoops.. Drivers for Video and Encoder and
Decoder chips not open source... Where do you get show data from? I have heard of cgi or php scripts that do this but I would still rather pay someone to upkeep this data rather then write this myself all the time.

SO.. where does this leave you in terms of OS? Yes I agree the Tivo rocks, but when you don’t want to have to play a war of hacks on it. I just want it to run with features I like. What you will likely <insert disclaimer> never see on Tivo is a CD-R. This means you need another box and the
Network card to get files off to burn. What the point? I still plan on PLAYING with the TIVO but for my
PVR needs it's out.

Windows.. Your question of which OS is better is a tough one. Win2k is more stable but is more bloated then win98, yet Win98 is not "secure". Best option is based upon your hardware. Win2k more error correction stability,
win98 can be stripped down to nothing, I had a box PII450 with 256 megs ram and 99% system resources
free Win98. How about a RAM drive with your software Codec's or Stream from your Vid Card to a RAM drive? No droped frames due to HD i/o.. ??

Look I love Linux, but the Video Card driver support is not there yet. I have yet to find a MPEG encoder
card that with drivers that support HARDWARE encoding under Linux. So.. that does leave Windows, as much as I
would LOVE to have a Linux box that does CD-R backups of PVR scheduled items. I don’t have that on my plate
right now.
Back to where that leaves us. Windows, might as well got with Win9x as the drivers are there and the software
is there, runs fast enough, and can code hacks for it.

If anyone wants to keep the thread open on this or exchange ideas I would love that. Either
here or on another data stream (website, e-mail list what have you).

My 2 Cents

James

[incognito]

I think there's a KFIR-based mpeg encoder card with
linux drivers. try linuxvideo.org or linuxtv.org if you're
interested

[Belboz]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-07-17 10:51:41, neogeek wrote:
I also have quested to have more power over my Time Shifting-PVR'ing then the TIVO offers.
(Yes I have 2 TIVOS and NIC card in them with extra HD's and all).
Problem with Hacking the TIVO.. you have to pay the 20.00 a month per box to get the database of
shows, ie the TIVO TV-Guide data.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Huh? Its $9.95 per unit. I assume you meant $20 for your two a month. As cheap as the 20 hours are you can add lifetime to them and a drive and network card and still be cheaper than a "fully tivo capable" pc.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
You are also forced to take their updates, that can dis-able any
hacks that you have done on the the TIVO, adding 2nd HD, NIC, etc...
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

TiVo upgrades do not disable all hacks. It doesn't effect drive upgrades (I wrote BlessTiVo and have been through 2 software rev's since I added a drive to my TiVo).

As for an upgrade causing a NIC or other mods to not work. They are easily re-activated. It is just a by product of the multiple kernels they switch between during upgrades. Most people want the added functionality of the upgrades. The biggest complaints lately have been from people not paying for a subscription where the upgrade has taken away manual recording functionality.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
SO.. where does this leave you in terms of OS? Yes I agree the Tivo rocks, but when you don’t want to have to play a war of hacks on it. I just want it to run with features I like. What you will likely <insert disclaimer> never see on Tivo is a CD-R. This means you need another box and the
Network card to get files off to burn. What the point? I still plan on PLAYING with the TIVO but for my
PVR needs it's out.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

A CD-R will never happen. You would have to deal with basic mode to save anything of length, and even that would be very short timewise.

I agree that the TiVo is not a 100% solution for everyone. I have 3 of them, but still use my PC to capture stuff for long term backup. I've found that the TiVo in combination with a PC works very well.

[neogeek]

__________________________________________________ __
TiVo upgrades do not disable all hacks. It doesn't effect drive upgrades (I wrote BlessTiVo and have been through 2 software rev's since I added a drive to my TiVo).

As for an upgrade causing a NIC or other mods to not work. They are easily re-activated. It is just a by product of the multiple kernels they switch between during upgrades. Most people want the added functionality of the upgrades. The biggest complaints lately have been from people not paying for a subscription where the upgrade has taken away manual recording functionality.

__________________________________________________ _____

Correct they have not but can. What else is the crypto chip for? It can md5hash any folder, file, config what have to you make darn near any hack un-usable. It them becomes a hobbie if constant upgrading/undoing what has been done. Dont get me wrong, I love Tivo but sometimes I just want something to work. Not something I have to muck with to get to work.

Yes, I think the Tivo rocks, but the point is it does not make VCD or SVCD without many hacks. It's a high maintaince tool. Where what I and I assume whitwlf are looking for is something a bit more stable, even if I have to pay a few more bucks.
I stand by my statement that it's becomming a hobbie to make the Tivo do something I can make a (more expensive) Wintel box do easely.


IMHO I used your tool BlessTivo IT ROCKS and thank you.


-James
and yeah I fat fingerd the 20.00 a month.. sorry.