Is there a way I can set up a computer connected to a TV to record TV shows? Is there a special flavour of linux which could help (or do it for me :P), or another OS (what does Windows Media Center Edition do?)
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<br />*temp. hiatus from forums due to comp + net broken* :'(
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Re: Make a PVR out of an old computer.
MCE 2005 is WinXP with the "Media Center" interface built in. It pretty much lets you chose from your music (thumbnailed album art), recorded tv, dvd, pics, movies (avi, mpg ect), radio, and online services (mtv.com,vh1.com, ect) from an easy to use interface. It also allows you to select outputs, tv aspect ratio's and other settings. It will also allow you to have a subscription guide for your TV channels. I've read around that Knoppix is really decent for PVR's using MythTV, however, I'm currently buidling a media center with (K)Ubuntu on it and plan on using Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 for my tuner. The problem is finding a kernel for getting ivtv drivers working. They worked in Breezy, but not in Dapper because of the way the Dapper distro handles 3rd party firmware. I'll get a fix though, i'm sure because there is newer documentation from what I've been reading. Then just use lirc for your remote control, and a video card that has a output matching the best input on your TV and you're good to go.
Media Center has its benefits: Cutting edge hardware support, Hi-Def audio (there are no audio drivers for my X-Fi Platinum in ALSA), and furthermore, it's very very simple to use, plus VFD displays on media center cases are becoming more commonplace.
Cons of Media Center: over $100 from an e-tailer, support communites suck, it's not widely distributed, and its Windows. You can't tailor it to specifically do what you want it to do.
With the way the *buntu's are developing, chosing to use it as your media center isn't a bad decision. The user base is huge. The support communities are huge and growing. It has way better hardware support over what I was using before (Fedora 3,4 and 5), and it just seems like a great choice.
Just my opinion,
Will -
Re: Make a PVR out of an old computer.
You can try KnoppMyth. It's a mini distro with mythtv installed.
If you are going to buy a capture card and the pc is that old, then get one with a built in encoder so the cpu does less work.
What are the specs of the machine you want to use?Comment
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