I wrote the attached in 2006 after spending a couple of years playing with PVR technologies. I recently ran across it going through some archives and I found it funny as well as nostalgic.
Quote:
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This document covers a multi-year project to build a home theater PC (HTPC). After several revisions, the system is in a state that is considered finished. This means that no more additions or updates are planned for the HTPC except for perhaps critical security patches. It is therefore a good time to document the complete building of the HTPC in case a hardware failure or other major issue necessitates recreating it.
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This may seem funny as a quote several years later, but I was not saying that things would just "gel" for the next hundred years or so. It was just a statement of how things were at the time given the current state of technology. I thought it funny as you hear these things about people making statements at one point in time that are (I think) intended as "current state" and get thrown back at them in the "future state".
I also found the two spaces after a period funny. Computers and fonts and all have changed norms there...
The nostalgic part comes later here:
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There is a wealth of software packages available that provide various DVR features. Some packages such as MythTV are free and run on Linux. In fact, MythTV was the first software installed on this example HTPC. Although it worked as advertised and the software cost was minimal, the state of the various hardware drivers on Linux were not stable at the time. Nevertheless, the MythTV software was used successfully for several months until the HDTV tuner card was added.
While researching Windows DVR software, SageTV seemed to be the most advanced and flexible at the time. Windows MCE was a strong contender, but the lack of a trial version removed it as an option. SageTV also had a strong user community actively developing customizations to the software. It already had some core features available as third-party additions such as commercial detection and skip, and a web server. It emerged as the only choice that met all the requirements with most of them addressed in the official package.
At this time, the various software options have matured and there are several good offerings. Most of the major names such as Windows MCE and BeyondTV meet the target goals of this example HTPC out of the box or through user-provided customizations. On the other hand, SageTV is not lacking in features, is still being developed, and has a strong user community. Therefore, SageTV remains as the software of choice for this HTPC.
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That was my view 13 years ago and until I got frustrated with remote viewing issues and a purchasable / passable replacement for the HD300 it was my "final" solution for a long time even though it went though some iterations along the way.
10-09-2019, 08:42 PM
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