Yet I have been frustrated when I have missed a couple of things this week that I had been watching. I don't want to hook up my VCR because they are shite. Sometimes I manage to find the programmes on the internet which has helped in the past.
So because of the frustrations this week of missing stuff I decided to have another look after noticing an article on MythTV. MythTV is a free program that lets you do everything that a
Media Center PC can except it runs on Linux. This means there is no cost for software, don't need to buy any version of windows or any other software it is all free. I can remember reading about MythTV a long time ago but at the time it was very complicated to setup which didn't necessarily put me off but it was also in an early stage and not everything worked.Since I originally read about MythTV masses of work has been done on it and it now looks like a complete package. One thing that really jumped out at me is that it can be setup in different configurations. You can have what you call a backend, which basically mean you can put a nice big, fast computer with all the recording hardware hidden out of the way in a cupboard somewhere (under my stairs). Then have a slower, silent, tiny PC in your living room or wherever acting as a Frontend. So you when you pause live TV or schedule recordings when sat on your couch it is actually being recorded on the PC in the cupboard. Yet to you sat there it looks like its happening in front of you. This sounds like an excellent idea, this means I can have a nice fast noisey PC under the stairs. One of the major problems I was having when I looked the other week was how to make a fast PC that was going to be quiet enough in the living room. This isn't so bad when you only need a slow PC in the living room.
I had read all of this and could feel another project coming on. I then read late last night that some people had managed to write some scripts to enable an Xbox to act as the frontend, so don't even need to put another PC in my living room. The Xbox is already there, this is getting even more interesting.
I decided to plonk down the money on the TV Tuner card. I already own an old one but it
doesn't have any hardware encoding and is basically rubbish. But the new one a WinTV-Nova-T-500 I ordered enables me to receive 2 digital terrestrial TV channels (Freeview) at the same time. So I can record one while watching another or record 2 channels at the same time. I very nearly bought the WinTV-PVR-350 because everyone was banging on about the card but what most people fail to mention is that it doesn't have a Freeview tuner so you would only get the 5 analog channels.The tuner card is the only part I have bought so far. I intend to just fit it in my main computer
while I do some testing to see how well it works and use the bundled software that comes with it and may test out GB_PVR another free solution but it runs on Windows. I decided not to go to Wallington, the Northumbrian Coast or the Ice Hockey tonight and have saved the money which has enabled me to buy the above mentioned card.It's good to have another project underway. I have had quite a few over the years. One of the early ones I can remember doing was making a PC that streamed MP3s and displayed what was playing on a small LCD screen I built. It had full remote control. This was long before the likes of Streambox and the dozens of other products now available but it did the same thing (I've still got it in the spare room). I suppose before that there was building my own PC, this was before most people did things like that. I also hacked the Xbox to enable me to use XBMP or now XBMC. That was probably the most worth while project and was the whole reason I bought an Xbox so I could play my movies and music using it. It was a bit nerve racking doing it as lots of people had turned their Xboxs into bricks (unusable) doing it, especially when I had only bought it for over £200 a few days earlier.
There have been other projects like networking my parents house (twice) originally as 10-Base-2, then 10-Base-T, then 100-Base-TX, hopefully I got that right. Then in my own house I ran cables through out the house, even into the attic. With proper wall sockets and everything linking back to the cupboard under the stairs where I have my cabinet and server.
If all my testing goes well I may have another server in the cupboard for the TV recording. Although I never ran the TV aerieal to the cupboard and not sure if the signal would be strong enough splitting it again in my bedroom and running it back down to the cupboard. I can't run it from where it enter the house as I now have laminate flooring down. Where as upstairs I have carpet and could take the floor boards back up if needed. Will see how everything works first.
I had mentioned about the networking in my house but I forgot about the Wi-Fi betwen my house and the parents, this was a bit of an experiment that has really payed off. It lets us share one internet connection. They can listen to the music on my server and access any files we let each other see. We can also share printers. They could if they ever buy an old Xbox watch the movies and TV series on my server. When I get my PVR project finished they would also be able play the things I have recorded as well from the comfort of their house. How cool is that, yeah I know I am a geek and sad :-)
There have been numurous other projects from MP3 jukeboxes, web servers, mail servers, dedicated downloading computers, linux installations and tons more. I could do with 2 external networked camera, that's another I would like to do, would know what happened to my green recycling box if I had that running. Just a shame I don't have the money to do all the projects I would like to.
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