DVD vs PVR vs Video vs ?

souter

In the old days we used a VCR to record the telly, but it's knackered and my wife wants a new one for Xmas.
I'm loath to shell out (the admittedly small amount) for what is dead-end tech, so what would people suggest?

Ultimately I want a DIY geeky PC based entertainment centre, but that ain't going to happen this side of xmas. So I need a stop gap solution that will have some value for a while yet i.e. DVD -RW/+RW/+RMA/? or PVR.

Current setup is ancient telly, knackered video, cheapo DVD with speakers, ps/2, cablelink decoder and rats nest of cables our 9 month old is already eyeing up hungrily.

Any suggestions or recommendations?

Cheers,
John

Owenw

Originally posted by souter
In the old days we used a VCR to record the telly, but it's knackered and my wife wants a new one for Xmas.
I'm loath to shell out (the admittedly small amount) for what is dead-end tech, so what would people suggest?

Ultimately I want a DIY geeky PC based entertainment centre, but that ain't going to happen this side of xmas. So I need a stop gap solution that will have some value for a while yet i.e. DVD -RW/+RW/+RMA/? or PVR.

Current setup is ancient telly, knackered video, cheapo DVD with speakers, ps/2, cablelink decoder and rats nest of cables our 9 month old is already eyeing up hungrily.

Any suggestions or recommendations?

Cheers,
John

I also want to build a Home Cinema PC and get a projector etc. but it's down the road a bit.

For the time being I got Sky+ back in October and everyone in my family can operate it (even Mum!)
Price: €300 plus €70 installation plus monthly subscription.

The next crop of DVD recorders with built in hard drives (PVR) will become available next year if you can wait a bit.

Sony are bringing out a cool new playsation called PSX in 2004.
It will include PS2, DVD-recorder, PVR and broadband internet all in 1 cool looking box.
Estimated Price: >€600

Just a few ideas to get you drooling

EDIT: Be warned, whatever route you go down is likely to involve loads MORE cables not less, especially 5.1 sound systems!

souter

Cheers Owenm.
Yer, a projector is part of my long term dream as well. This is probably a dumb question, but can you get sky+ without the dish i.e. run it off cable?

John

Owenw

I very much doubt it - the Sky+ is basically the same as a regular Sky digibox (plus 2nd tuner and hard drive) - It receives an encoded data stream from the satellite and uses a built-in decoder to erm.. decode the MPEG2 video. The hard drive only stores the encrypted stream from the dish via the 2 tuners.

So unless your cable operator is delivering an MPEG2 digital broadcast using Sky's encoding system it won't work.

The fact that the hard disk only stores the encoded data stream means you can't transfer te disk to a PC and play/copy the saved programmes.

I've no idea if there are any PVR's on the market yet which record regular TV, cable etc.
Tivo was available in the UK (some deal with Sky IIRC) for a while but not any more thanks to Sky+

DVD recorders are the only choice at the moment methinks.

Have you looked at other AV specific forums?
www.avforums.com is an excellent UK forum and for a US slant there's www.avsforum.com

biffa001

Ultimately I want a DIY geeky PC based entertainment centre,

Why don't you build one yourself? I used a Shuttle chassis, lowend amd cpu (2200+ I think, 512MB, 129gb hdd, dvd-r (with ram function) and a Hauppauge 250 PVR.

The Shuttle has 5.1 out for your sound and TV-out too. The picture is very good and I can also surf the net, email etc from my chair, as well as play Halflife in 32" widescreen/surround "ish" sound!

Or what about the new style Windows Media PC's that are coming out/are out?

Something like this - Media Center

I have been looking also at Showshifter as they now provide an new version that will use either my current PVR card or a digital tv/freeview type one. Could be good!

My Shuttle PC was fun to build, fun to use and very quiet to boot. Had to keep my wife happy too...The showshifter sw I've used before and seems a good comparison to the MS Media Center - although I've not used that myself. just compared the pictures!

Hope my suggestions are useful.

souter

Dude, that is _exactly_ the kind of thing I want (excuse the oxymoron).
Unfortuneatly I suffer from rampaging featuritis, so I also want it to pipe music through out the house, have multiple screens so I can surf while watching tv etc etc.
And more pertintently I'm not nearly as good a hacker as I think I am.
So all in all, I think my wife will be happier with a disposable VCR than a heap of half soldered componets, a hole in the bank balance and vague promises of the future visionl.

Next year though.

btw, biffa, judging by showshifter.com I'm guessing your system is windows. I'd assumed these homebrew yokes would all be linux, but I stand to be corrected?

PPC

Ya may want to have a look at MyHTPC as a windows solution and Freevo or Freevix as a linux alternative.

souter

okay, so New Year resolution #3 is to build one of these media centre pc yokes, linux probably. Anyone any experiences / opinions on this bare bones as a starting point MSI Mega 651 ? Currently selling in Peats for 400 E.

I'm probably stuck in a bit of timewarp here, but 1 PCI + 1 AGP slot free seems a bit restrictive to me. Anyone more clued up about this?

John

Phibsboro

hi,

I stumbled onto this and couldn't resist making a few comments ..

for linux, probably the only project worth considering is Mythtv.org - at least up until recently it was miles ahead of freevo etc. I have got it working in the past to the point of showing an Irish EPG. In the end the quality off my card wasn't worth it and I gave up.

I'm back in the mood now tho cos Im getting a shuttle SK41G for xmas - fab! Its just the right kinda spec for this task and as its far from leading edge these days it's becoming affordable - €204 today on Komplett. Add memory, cpu and HD and ur away! I intend to get it working with my current card and then upgrade to a hauppauge 350.

Having messed around with this quite a lot in the past I would say that showshifter is cool str8 out of the box - it bascially just works. What u don't (or didn't ) get is an Irish EPG and that's vital I think. With linux/mythtv things are much messier (as with all thing linux really) but u have much more control over the whole thing and u can set up an Irish EPG.

Having said all that, if Sky had c4 and itv I'd stop messing and get sky+

Colm