[vox] Tivo question

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Mon 08 Dec 03,  5:58 PM, John Mark Walker <johnmark@nostarch.com> said:
> On Monday 08 December 2003 03:31 pm, Dave Margolis wrote:
> > On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, John Mark Walker wrote:
> > > Why bother? You can get a slim PC with cheap, commodity components, a TV
> > > tuner, a graphics card with video out, install Freevo or MythTV with
> > > MPlayer, Xine or your favorate DVD-capable video software, use XMLTV, and
> > > voila, you've got your total Linux multimedia hub where you can rip DVD's
> > > to your personal libraries, record TV shows, burn whatever you want to
> > > Video CD, DVD, or whatever format you choose, and without any stupid DRM
> > > or pay-for-play service restrictions.
> >
> > I agree with this statement, and I have been actively researching doing
> > just that for the last couple of days.  However, I have almost decided
> > that the price in both money and time might be way to much too invest.
> >
> > A super-bad linux based home-brewed DVR (probably based on an XPC) would
> > cost quite a bit more than the used Tivos I'm looking at run from
> > $100-$200.
> >
> > $12.95 per month will add up fast to the amount of said linux box, but I
> > don't think the $299 lifetime subscription would.
> 
> So if you can build a decent Linux box for $300, doesn't that pretty much make 
> it worthwhile? I've been pricing out components, and that's about what it 
> comes to.
 
can you list components on that?  that seems *awfully* cheap.  i'm
interested because i haven't ruled this option out, but $300 seems
too cheap.

thanks!
pete


> > MythTV looks pretty amazing, but getting all the harware to cooperate
> > would be no small chore.  For example, getting TV-out to behave under linux
> > is pretty tough.  Lirc is really neat, but that took WAY to long to even
> > get to where I thought the remote was working, and I still haven't tied the
> > remote signals to anything useful.  TV-card support through BTTV is good
> > so that's no big deal.
> 
> Good point. I haven't made it that far, so I have nothing to contribute here 
> yet.
> 
> >
> > > By the way, No Starch Press is actively looking for a book on the subject
> > > :@)
> >
> > I'd buy that book!
> 
> Cool! Do you know anyone who would be interested in writing it?
> 
> -JM

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