is internet connection required?

[stevie-d]

so i've got a an old PC which i was about to kick to the curb.

I've also been thinking of getting a PVR, but not at $500 my cable company sells them for.

Then I thought, "maybe I can turn my old PC into a PVR", which is how I arrived here

Although I read the product descriptions and FAQs, I have some TOTAL noob questions - real high level stuff not even covered on the FAQs:

1. The system requirements talk about 'hardware encoding' and 'software encoding', but I don't know the difference. I want to be able to record shows while I'm away, or maybe record one while watching another - that's all. Does that factor in?
2. My PC is a PIII @ 600 MHz - is that enough CPU? I have 256MB RAM, which I can easily bump up, but I can't do much about the CPU. If the PC doesn't have enough horsepower, please let me know, and I'll forget the whole idea
3. Aside from the tuner card, and SageTV, does the system require an internet connection? Is that how it accesses the scheduling grid? Or does it get it from the digital signal? This is also a dealbreaker for me, because I don't have WiFi, and I'm not stringing a LAN cable from my router to the living room!
4. Is SageTV compatible in Canada? (Specifically, Rogers, who is my current cable provider)

I guess that's about it... If I can add a Software\Card bundle at more than half the price of a PVR box, that'll be my holiday project

Thanks in advance
Steve

[reggie14]

Since the Internet connection is apparently a dealbreaker, I'll cover that one first. For all intents and purposes, an Internet connection is required. As you guessed, that's how it downloads guide data. Technically you could try to use a "sneakernet"- that is, download guide data on a different machine and load it on your DVR computer. I don't recommend it though.

I'm not sure you have a good idea of the total cost of ownership for SageTV. Your machine, with more RAM, probably would be fast enough to act like a server. But, I don't think you'd play back TV very reliably with it (you're right on the edge). So, you'd need an extender, which is a device that plugs into your TV which actually plays back the video files on your computer DVR. So, it needs a network connection to the computer DVR.

You don't need a fast computer for a server because really all the server does is store files on a hard drive and serve them to other devices. The TV tuners which Sage sells include hardware encoders. That is, analog video is encoded into a digital format on the card itself. In comes the cable signal, out goes an mpeg2 video file from a particular channel. Some TV tuners don't have hardware encoders, meaning the computer's CPU has to do all the work to encode the files- and 600Mhz isn't fast enough.

Also, these files are big. I'm guessing your 600Mhz computer doesn't have a whole lot of hard drive space. The encoded video files take up 2-3 gigabytes per hour. My SageTV computer has 3.5 terabytes of hard drive space. Obviously, you wouldn't need that much, but a 30 gigabyte hard drive isn't going to go very far.

The idea of a subscription free DVR is nice, but SageTV isn't about saving money. Most people have to spend a lot more money to get a Sage system up and going than they would have spent just getting DVR through their cable company. I'm a little surprised that your cable company is charging $500 for a DVR- most cable companies in the US will lease DVR boxes to their customers for about $15 a month.

In case you're wondering what Sage is about, it's about control and functionality. You can do a lot more with a PC-based DVR, particularly one using SageTV, than you can with your cable company's DVR. That matters to some people, but for most people the cable company's DVR is fine.

[stevie-d]

thanks Reggie

most appreciated!

my disk capacity is a bit bigger than the average HDD of that era. In fact, I think I have 2 drives in the box. And I have a few unused HDDs kicking around

However, the internet connection IS an issue.

Ya, I'm disappointed with my cable provider's PVR cost. Actually, it's a HD PVR, but for someone without an LCD\plasma, the "HD" part does not interest me... In fact, maybe it won't even work with my good ol' big heavy CRT?

I *do* see some retailers selling the PVR 1/2 price with the purchase of a HD TV

I guess I'll wait till my CRT dies...

Thanks again

S

[Ryokurin]

Another option you could do is have it dial up and retrieve the info if you have access to dialup,

A 600mhz processor is good for SD content only, and only if you go with hardware based tuner cards like the Hauppauge pvr-150 or 500 which I imagine is probably starting to get hard to find since its a analog tuner. Definitely don't try to use a software tuner (usually the cheapest tuner you can find) I remember using a 850mhz computer to capture back in the day and it wasn't easy.

You don't need terabytes of space but I would definitely recommend a large drive if you plan on capturing video with quality. Luckily you can find 300 gig drives for under 90 bucks these days, although you may run into issues getting a machine that old to read it. Come to think of it, if you are going to spend 50-80 for a drive, its not that much more to spend 20 on a cheap router and another 20 for a usb wi-fi card.

[MattHelm]

How about picking up a set of these while you are buying the software and tuner?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122097

[brainbone]

Wireless is generally cheap. 802.11g PCI cards can be had for ~$10 shipped. Routers can be had for $20 to $30.