Help using a PC as a DVR

[sporkthedork]

My wife and I recently canceled our TiVo subscription as we weren't watching much television (sold the TiVo here, actually). I'm looking at turning my desktop computer (running Windows Vista Home Premium) into a media center pc with the capability of scheduling and recording standard cable television.

I already have an internal Hauppauge TV tuner on the desktop. I'm assuming that the first thing I need to do is connect the coaxial cable from the a splitter to the to the back of the pc. I am also assuming that I will need an internet connection on the pc to access show times through the media center program.

Does anybody have any experience doing this? I know that there are several programs that I could use besides media center (I think BeyondTV is one of them), but since I already have media center and am not looking to spend any extra dough right now, I would rather just stick with it.

Does anybody know if I am forgetting anything with regard to this? Do I need a dedicated hard drive to make this all work? I know video can take up a fair amount of space. Any help would be appreciated!

Casey

[gtakacs]

I assume your hauppauge card does decode the digital signal. If it does you should be in good shape. I personally use SageTV and have been for the past 2 years. It is really great! It's a one time fee to buy the software but there is no subscription and you get the EPG (program guide) free for life. I have a PC hooked up to my living room TV that does the heavy lifting and capturing and I have a smaller PC (think Mac Mini) hooked to my TV in the bedroom. I can stream the recordings off of the main one to the one in the bedroom or watch two separate shows on each TV individually.
I have 3 external Hauppauge USB tuners so I can record 3 shows at a time.
Sage TV's price is really very easy to swallow considering how great it has been working for me for the past two years.

I have tried Windows MCE before and I could never get it to work right, it just seemed like a pice of crap compared to SageTV.

[janetg]

i have had media center for about 3-4 years set up just like that - coax into the tv tuner card (hauppage). media center takes care of downloading the content for the guide - and it's easy as pie from there - just record - watch - delete.

[hhscr]

I have Media Ceter Running on a Computer for this purpose and it sounds like you have all you need.

The only issue I have with MC is that everything recorded is protected and can't be watched on anything else.

It does use alot of HD space so the bigger the HD the better.

[gtakacs]

Originally Posted by hhscr

The only issue I have with MC is that everything recorded is protected and can't be watched on anything else.

I forgot all about that. SageTV records regular mpeg2 streams straight off the air that can be copied, recoded, viewed or done pretty much whatever you wish with them.

It does use alot of HD space so the bigger the HD the better.

Agreed. An hour of Hi Def recording is about 6-7GB. Schedule accordingly. I record a lot of children stuff off of PBS and recode them to divx avi for a lot more manageable file size for archival.

I might sound like a SageTV fanboy but I sure am happy with their product. The community is really active too, so depending on your computer savvyness and how much you are willing to play with SageTV you can get it to do a lot more than just record TV from a tuner.

[sporkthedork]

Thank you for the comments and suggestions, y'all.

Greg, I am going to do some research into SageTV as it sounds like it is a pretty interesting program. I am also going to get an extra hard drive as I know my current disk will get full in no time with those gigantor file sizes you mentioned (through the little research I've done, it sounds like standard def file sizes are also fairly large).

Oddly enough, I think the hardest part of this setup for me will be tethering my wife's mobile broadband card to the desktop pc as it doesn't have its own access to the internet! Speaking of which, do any of you know if there is a reliable PCMCIA/Express card to USB converter (her mobile broadband card isn't USB)... everything has to be difficult!

Thanks for all the help and the suggestions.

Casey

[gtakacs]

Originally Posted by sporkthedork

Oddly enough, I think the hardest part of this setup for me will be tethering my wife's mobile broadband card to the desktop pc as it doesn't have its own access to the internet! Speaking of which, do any of you know if there is a reliable PCMCIA/Express card to USB converter (her mobile broadband card isn't USB)... everything has to be difficult!

Your best bet is to buy an 802.11b/g card for your desktop and set up an ad-hoc network between the two machines and have the laptop share out the internet connection over the 802.11b/g connection (assuming your laptop has built in WiFi). This solution is not very reliable and can cause problems but it works and it's free or relatively cheap.

If you want a more robust solution you can buy a wireless router such as a Linksys WRT54G and have both the laptop and desktop with a wireless card in it connect to the wireless network and still share out the internet connection on the laptop. This will be a better solution than the first one but costs a bit more (the price of a wireless router)

I think SageTV has a 30 day trial version available as well.

FWIW I pulled cat5e into all my rooms and all my computers are hard wired to each other. I just don't like wireless networks. I still use wireless networking for my laptop and some internet cameras but my PCs are all hard wired to a central router hidden in a closet along with some network attached storage.

Good luck with your setup!

[Rson]

You might be out of luck with Vista. Apparently there is a Digital rights management issue on Video Capture cards.

If you have cable boxes, you need only a video capture card (like the one I am selling in the classifieds) Not a TV tuner card.

You hook up your cable box to the computer and tune to the station. If you have a signal that doesn't require a cable box (usually older systems)

[sporkthedork]

Originally Posted by gtakacs

Your best bet is to buy an 802.11b/g card for your desktop and set up an ad-hoc network between the two machines and have the laptop share out the internet connection over the 802.11b/g connection (assuming your laptop has built in WiFi). This solution is not very reliable and can cause problems but it works and it's free or relatively cheap.

If you want a more robust solution you can buy a wireless router such as a Linksys WRT54G and have both the laptop and desktop with a wireless card in it connect to the wireless network and still share out the internet connection on the laptop. This will be a better solution than the first one but costs a bit more (the price of a wireless router)

Is it possible to share my wife's mobile broadband access from her laptop with my desktop using a hard-wired setup (i.e. Cat5 from her computer to mine); or would I need a crossover cable for this, instead?

My desktop has an Asus M2N32-SLi Deluxe MB with onboard wireless (which, by the way, sucks; doesn't have near the sensitivity or reception ability as my wife's wireless on her laptop). I would rather go hard wired if possible just because the proximity between the machines is very close.

It seems as if I couldn't read the end of your post, Rson. I will actually be connecting analog cable for the time being. I'm hoping DRM doesn't prevent this setup. I guess I'll find out tonight!

[gtakacs]

Originally Posted by sporkthedork

Is it possible to share my wife's mobile broadband access from her laptop with my desktop using a hard-wired setup (i.e. Cat5 from her computer to mine); or would I need a crossover cable for this, instead?

You can use the hard wired connection as well. You have to either use a crossover cable between the two machines or you have to use a hub/switch.

[sporkthedork]

Cool, that's what I thought.

Thanks again for your help Greg. I'll let you know how this all turns out.

[Flea77]

I have heard great things about Sage but when I was looking a while back I fell in love with BeyondTV which you might also take a look at. They are both about the same, I just liked the way BeyondTV worked and looked a little better, YMMV.

Also, a TV tuner like the AverMedia will work just fine in Vista, I have one running in Home Premium with BTV and it is great!

Allan

[sporkthedork]

I thought I'd let y'all know that I managed to get everything up and running through MC this evening. It took me awhile to figure out how to get my Vista Home Premium desktop to connect to internet supplied by my XP laptop (via crossover cable), but once I got it everything else was a breeze. Of course, I ended up not having speakers (doh!) but I'll stick with headphones for a weekend.

I don't mind the way MC works with the program guide but I do like some of the options that Sage and BeyondTV offer so I'm going to continue to take a look at these programs; trial versions would definitely be nice.

Thanks again for all the help!

Casey