Help me come up with something easy for the Mrs.

D

Disarray

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 19, 2003
Messages
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I want to disconnect my satellite but need DVR functions for the OTA local stations to accomplish this. My wife is very tech unfriendly, so whatever I come up with has to be super simple. Ideas?
 
any decent OTA HD capable tuner + BeyondTV4 +BeyondTV Link for the clients.
 
Any windows 7 PC with a tuner.. Just have it boot direct to Media Center

Edit: also do you need HD.. if not look for a series 2 Tivo. My mom picked one up for 60 bucks at biglots a while back to use with her basic cable. Worked great.
 
bastage said:
Any windows 7 PC with a tuner.. Just have it boot direct to Media Center

Edit: also do you need HD.. if not look for a series 2 Tivo. My mom picked one up for 60 bucks at biglots a while back to use with her basic cable. Worked great.
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The tv is HD, but she would not care if it was SD. Thats all the satellite is right now anyways.
 
Disarray said:
The tv is HD, but she would not care if it was SD. Thats all the satellite is right now anyways.
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What do you have laying around for old hardware that you could throw at it. What your asking for is pretty light so if you have old stuff this could be done for the cost of a TV tuner card. Although since its an HDTV you might as well go HD with the setup if your building, It could easily be done for a few hundred bucks from scratch.
 
sabregen said:
any decent OTA HD capable tuner + BeyondTV4 +BeyondTV Link for the clients.
Click to expand...

+1

HDHomeRun and a nice antenna gives you 2 tuners for OTA and the tuner simply connects to the PVR via ethernet, so you can put it near the antenna and avoid attenuation due to the impedance of a long cable run. BeyondTV on a cheapo dual core running XP. An integrated nvidia 8200/9300 chipset should be more than enough. Get some beyondtv link subs for remote boxes (for additional TVs, if necessary) and you're good to go.

This was more than enough for my wife for 2+ years at our old place.
 
About 4 years ago I was running beyondtv4 and I loved the server/client setup and the UI is nice.

Too bad there is no real front end for the software for something like media browser and or cable card support.

7mc is good, but I miss BT4 for sure.

Tuner farm running in a rack with HTPC clients with live tv
 
CrimandEvil said:
Beyond TV is dead, I highly suggest not using it.
http://www.geektonic.com/2010/09/goodbye-old-friend-snapstream-beyondtv.html
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I wouldn't say "dead" - it's no longer in active development, but if all the OP needs is OTA, it will do that nicely. Additionally, there is still an active community at snapstream's forums. As far as Beyond TV lacking a front end, that's true, but it's easy to ad BeyondTV to an existing front end. I used to run beyondtv as a choice in meedio. There's also information in snapstream's forums about adding BeyondTV to other 10' interfaces.

One thing I always loved about BeyondTV - I can run a server with multiple tuners, add a remote box running link and either watch recorded or live TV from the server on the remote computer. To this day, for some unexplainable reason, I still can't do this with 7MC and a remote machine, only those god awful limited extenders which can't run hulu plus, netflix, etc.
 
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bastage said:
What do you have laying around for old hardware that you could throw at it. What your asking for is pretty light so if you have old stuff this could be done for the cost of a TV tuner card. Although since its an HDTV you might as well go HD with the setup if your building, It could easily be done for a few hundred bucks from scratch.
Click to expand...

I thought about that but by the time I look at parts, I keep running up to $600. Seems if I am going to buy a tuner card, I should get a PCIe, none of my mobo's are PCIe, so on and so on.
 
Disarray said:
I thought about that but by the time I look at parts, I keep running up to $600. Seems if I am going to buy a tuner card, I should get a PCIe, none of my mobo's are PCIe, so on and so on.
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thats not at all the case.. Hell you can get a USB 2.0 card that will do pretty much everything from best buy for 80 bucks.
 
Would a USB card be a good component long term, say if I built a good HTPC, would I want a USB card?
 
Disarray said:
Would a USB card be a good component long term, say if I built a good HTPC, would I want a USB card?
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if you are building from scratch then USB is probably not the best route, but if retrofitting an older system there is nothing wrong with it.
 
Although maybe more pricey, it works very well if you are wired.

$10 Homebrew "HD Antenna"
$149 HDHomerun
$80 SageTV
$100 WHS on reliable PC
$200 SageTV extender
Harmony remotes to turn on extender, receiver, TV all at one time

Sky's the limit on the number of hard drives you'll need for HD recordings. :D

You can download SageTV and WHS trials to take a look at it.
 
Alright, resurecting this thread since I have to make a decision.

I have: An old XP machine with a video card that has Svideo out.

I want: To be able use the xp machine as a DVR to record OTA tv. I need it to have a tv guide like I find with my dish network DVR.

Can I buy a usb tuner and use beyond TV to accomplish this? Also, will it cost me anything per month to have it work, or just the $100 to buy the software?
 
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