RedjackRyan
07-06-2006, 10:21 AM
A while back i posted that i was in the process of building my own homegrown Tivo like device...a FreeVo.. Well its been a few months and many changes under my belt, so i thought i'd post some build notes for those of you who might be inclined to follow in my footsteps.
The Goal: to construct a full featured digital video recorder. The project should be low-cost , Allow recording of TV , Allow transfer of Video Tape to digital media, Allow transfer of vinyl albums to digital media, and be capable of interfacing with digital cameras/recorders.
All DVR functions should be able to be performed with the display set to the TV.. No computer monitor in the final configuration.
The Computer:
I was fortunate in that I had some spare computer chassis lying around, for my DVR i chose a Soyo Dragon motherboard initially, the motherboard had 5 PCI slots and 1 AGP, No onboard video or sound , and would support a 1.0ghz AMD processor and 512mb of memory.
I purchased a 200gig 7200rpm Seagate drive to use as my storage media. I also purchased
Video #1 ATI Radeon 7000 series with TV out
Video #2 ATI TV WONDER PRO capture card
Soundcard AU10 soundcard
Logitech Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
The Software: Initially i used Mandrake Linux as the O/S and installed the Freevo software package.. Issues with the ATI cards eventually had me reinstall the O/S using Windows 2000 Professional. I did some research and chose GB-PVR for my dvr software ..
I purchased a funky light up case...wife approved... for $55 . While i admit the case looks cool with its Spiderman like faceplate and glowing eyes.. the case itself was junk.. Broken hinges and a bent frame on arrival. The screwless mounting brackets were also junk.
Cables: S-video, Monster Audio cables, additional Coax cable to bridge to my satellite receiver
Wireless Network Adapter - I really didn't want to have to snake cat5 cable from upstairs to the living room so i went wireless. Tiger had a $10 Trendnet USB wireless on sale so i bought one, if it was junk i was only out ten bucks.. It has some signal strength issues, but i was able to get a solid 95% connect strength by improvising a small parabolic dish and extending the usb cable length so the antenna is several inches above the PC.
I also picked up a linksys WRT54G router to act as my wireless gateway. The router does its job despite being a bear to setup initially. As an unexpected bonus, it solved my loopback testing problems.
The Experience : It's been a learning process to be sure, my initial setup relied on an abundance of spare parts.. My goal was to do it on the cheap, as such I ended up with a host of hardware incompatibilities and roadblocks. The 2 ATI cards while servicable, were not compatible with the software i had selected (GB-PVR) and no amount of massaging could get the software to recognize the cards.
THe Ati Tv wonder card did come with software of its own so we used that for a few weeks. While it did a decent job of recording, the interface was not user friendly, nor was the screen display easily read on a TV.
I broke down and purchased a Hauppauge PVR 150 video card to replace the ATI Capture card. The Hauppauge was supported by GB-PVR and the system recognized it right off the bat. However, joy was short lived as the soyo motherboard gave up the ghost...
A day of fiddling and swearing over the remains of the PVR system and i moved on, scrapping the Game server i had been running in favor of the DVR. The new system uses an IBM Netvista tower, 1.5ghz with 1gig of memory. I used all the hard drives and video cards from the previous build. I did not bring over the Audio card, prefering to use the onboard audio.
Try as i might, i could not get the Hauppauge 150 to install correctly under Windows 2000. After a few hours of swearing, I installed Windows XP and the conflict resolved itself. The Hauppauge card installed without a hitch.
The Results: Its almost finalized, just a few finishing touches to put on the system and its done. Overall i'm pleased with the way things turned out, despite all the setbacks and additional trips to the computer stores. GB-PVR works like a charm, provides an easy to use and easily read interface. Its low frills but allows for the installation of numerous plug-ins to customize the system to your specific needs. Some of the plugins available are Sports Score tickers, Address books, or Movie Showings/theater information.. All a click away.
The system also axes commercials automatically during recording. There are actually two ways it does this.. on a normal DVR recording it "marks" the areas where the commercials occur. This marking allows rapid skipping past or viewing of commercials if you desire. The secondary process actually makes a commercial free duplicate of the recorded file.. it stores it to a seperate filename and is useful if i want to play back what i recorded downstairs on my computer upstairs, or if i want to archive to dvd or cd media.
For 99% of the operation, the mouse is all I need. I can set recording times with just a few clicks on a very simple menu. By enabling the Tv schedule download function, I can select any show on any channel with just a click to set the record function. Unfortunately I have yet to get the system to interface with my Satellite receiver, so i have to set the satellite to auto-switch to the correct channel when i set a record event. Other users in the GB-PVR forums have reported success in configuring the software to control the satellite so i have not given up hope yet.
Yes, it may have been overkill.. I could have bought a Tivo and called it a day. However, i do have a system that records and plays anything and doesn't give a rats behind about Drm or broadcast flags. It's also simple enough for my wife to use, but intimidating enough so that visitors will leave the tv the hell alone :D
Was it cheap? Hell no.. I spent enough to buy three Tivos.. but again, it does more than a Tivo ever will. This is more of a Media Center than just a recording device, it has the capability to stream media to any room in the house via wireless, it will house our music collection, and because its a PC we can also instantly look up anything on the web just by switching windows.
My suggestion to anyone who may decide to tackle this project themselves is plan carefully... Be sure the hardware you select is going to work together.. I ran into a lot of avoidable issues because i tried to use what i had lying around (and if it wasn't in a machine already...i knew it was crap) in retrospect, its probably better to buy new equipment or at the very least equipment that isn't 5 or more years old.
Do not skimp on your capture card, Hauppauge appears to be the leader for this kind of technology and they are well regarded by most of the members of the DIY PVR community.. They aint cheap though, but you get what you pay for. If you don't have a lot of processor, make sure you get a capture card with onboard MPEG-2 encoding, that way your processor doesnt have to bear the load.
If anyone decides to tackle the project, i'd be happy to provide what little knowledge i've gained on this project, or try to talk you out of it :D
The Goal: to construct a full featured digital video recorder. The project should be low-cost , Allow recording of TV , Allow transfer of Video Tape to digital media, Allow transfer of vinyl albums to digital media, and be capable of interfacing with digital cameras/recorders.
All DVR functions should be able to be performed with the display set to the TV.. No computer monitor in the final configuration.
The Computer:
I was fortunate in that I had some spare computer chassis lying around, for my DVR i chose a Soyo Dragon motherboard initially, the motherboard had 5 PCI slots and 1 AGP, No onboard video or sound , and would support a 1.0ghz AMD processor and 512mb of memory.
I purchased a 200gig 7200rpm Seagate drive to use as my storage media. I also purchased
Video #1 ATI Radeon 7000 series with TV out
Video #2 ATI TV WONDER PRO capture card
Soundcard AU10 soundcard
Logitech Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
The Software: Initially i used Mandrake Linux as the O/S and installed the Freevo software package.. Issues with the ATI cards eventually had me reinstall the O/S using Windows 2000 Professional. I did some research and chose GB-PVR for my dvr software ..
I purchased a funky light up case...wife approved... for $55 . While i admit the case looks cool with its Spiderman like faceplate and glowing eyes.. the case itself was junk.. Broken hinges and a bent frame on arrival. The screwless mounting brackets were also junk.
Cables: S-video, Monster Audio cables, additional Coax cable to bridge to my satellite receiver
Wireless Network Adapter - I really didn't want to have to snake cat5 cable from upstairs to the living room so i went wireless. Tiger had a $10 Trendnet USB wireless on sale so i bought one, if it was junk i was only out ten bucks.. It has some signal strength issues, but i was able to get a solid 95% connect strength by improvising a small parabolic dish and extending the usb cable length so the antenna is several inches above the PC.
I also picked up a linksys WRT54G router to act as my wireless gateway. The router does its job despite being a bear to setup initially. As an unexpected bonus, it solved my loopback testing problems.
The Experience : It's been a learning process to be sure, my initial setup relied on an abundance of spare parts.. My goal was to do it on the cheap, as such I ended up with a host of hardware incompatibilities and roadblocks. The 2 ATI cards while servicable, were not compatible with the software i had selected (GB-PVR) and no amount of massaging could get the software to recognize the cards.
THe Ati Tv wonder card did come with software of its own so we used that for a few weeks. While it did a decent job of recording, the interface was not user friendly, nor was the screen display easily read on a TV.
I broke down and purchased a Hauppauge PVR 150 video card to replace the ATI Capture card. The Hauppauge was supported by GB-PVR and the system recognized it right off the bat. However, joy was short lived as the soyo motherboard gave up the ghost...
A day of fiddling and swearing over the remains of the PVR system and i moved on, scrapping the Game server i had been running in favor of the DVR. The new system uses an IBM Netvista tower, 1.5ghz with 1gig of memory. I used all the hard drives and video cards from the previous build. I did not bring over the Audio card, prefering to use the onboard audio.
Try as i might, i could not get the Hauppauge 150 to install correctly under Windows 2000. After a few hours of swearing, I installed Windows XP and the conflict resolved itself. The Hauppauge card installed without a hitch.
The Results: Its almost finalized, just a few finishing touches to put on the system and its done. Overall i'm pleased with the way things turned out, despite all the setbacks and additional trips to the computer stores. GB-PVR works like a charm, provides an easy to use and easily read interface. Its low frills but allows for the installation of numerous plug-ins to customize the system to your specific needs. Some of the plugins available are Sports Score tickers, Address books, or Movie Showings/theater information.. All a click away.
The system also axes commercials automatically during recording. There are actually two ways it does this.. on a normal DVR recording it "marks" the areas where the commercials occur. This marking allows rapid skipping past or viewing of commercials if you desire. The secondary process actually makes a commercial free duplicate of the recorded file.. it stores it to a seperate filename and is useful if i want to play back what i recorded downstairs on my computer upstairs, or if i want to archive to dvd or cd media.
For 99% of the operation, the mouse is all I need. I can set recording times with just a few clicks on a very simple menu. By enabling the Tv schedule download function, I can select any show on any channel with just a click to set the record function. Unfortunately I have yet to get the system to interface with my Satellite receiver, so i have to set the satellite to auto-switch to the correct channel when i set a record event. Other users in the GB-PVR forums have reported success in configuring the software to control the satellite so i have not given up hope yet.
Yes, it may have been overkill.. I could have bought a Tivo and called it a day. However, i do have a system that records and plays anything and doesn't give a rats behind about Drm or broadcast flags. It's also simple enough for my wife to use, but intimidating enough so that visitors will leave the tv the hell alone :D
Was it cheap? Hell no.. I spent enough to buy three Tivos.. but again, it does more than a Tivo ever will. This is more of a Media Center than just a recording device, it has the capability to stream media to any room in the house via wireless, it will house our music collection, and because its a PC we can also instantly look up anything on the web just by switching windows.
My suggestion to anyone who may decide to tackle this project themselves is plan carefully... Be sure the hardware you select is going to work together.. I ran into a lot of avoidable issues because i tried to use what i had lying around (and if it wasn't in a machine already...i knew it was crap) in retrospect, its probably better to buy new equipment or at the very least equipment that isn't 5 or more years old.
Do not skimp on your capture card, Hauppauge appears to be the leader for this kind of technology and they are well regarded by most of the members of the DIY PVR community.. They aint cheap though, but you get what you pay for. If you don't have a lot of processor, make sure you get a capture card with onboard MPEG-2 encoding, that way your processor doesnt have to bear the load.
If anyone decides to tackle the project, i'd be happy to provide what little knowledge i've gained on this project, or try to talk you out of it :D