New DVR Linux project

After helping a friend setup a new Dell PC at his home this weekend, I am the proud owner of a gifted 1 GHz Gateway PentiumIII computer. As soon as I confirmed all needed files were off the machine today, I installed Ubuntu Linux and reformatted the drive– bye-bye WindowsXP forever on this box!

My plan is to purchase a relatively inexpensive TV tuner card and setup the computer as a home-brew DVR using MythTV. As with my previous experiments with Ubuntu Linux, the installation was quick, easy and painless. All my work online so far this evening has been on the new system.

I have expressed this before, but it is absolutely amazing to experience the robust power of free, open source software tools today in December 2005. Since many of the productivity tools I now use are web-based (my wordpress blog, my del.icio.us social bookmarks, IM buddy lists, etc.) it is virtually immaterial what computer operating system I am working on, when I am “working on the web” as I am tonight. Just amazing. Hublog has some screenshots posted of default applications in Ubuntu Linux that you might check out if you have not seen this yourself before.

I will post updates about this project as things advance. Hopefully in a week or two I’ll have the DVR recording and watching commercial-free (or at least versions for which I can skip the ads) TV programs. The hard drive that came with this PC is just 40 GB, but that is plenty to get started. Considering the baseline commercial TiVo starts at 40GB, and the Linux OS doesn’t take up too much room, this seems fine for now. I watch almost zero TV now as it is, so it is a little ironic I am working on this project at all. I am convinced there ARE some good programs on television from time to time, however, the problem is TIME– without a DVR, I don’t have the time to FIND much less WATCH TV programs. When this project is successful, that situation should change. My TV watching time will go up, but it will be highly selective, since I’ll be time-shifting and opting-out of commercials in my viewing. I think these are things everyone should be choosing to do (except in the case of live sports, of course) in the 21st century entertainment sphere. This may be bad for advertisers and old-media types, but I think it is absolutely wonderful for consumers like me.

The main thing I do not know at this point is how I want to send the recorded TV show video and audio signals back to my television(s). Because of space constraints, I do not want to co-locate the computer with my entertainment system, I want it located elsewhere in the house. I played around with a Radio Shack 2.4 GHz video sender about a year ago, and was not impressed with the video quality. In addition to poor video quality, the fact that a 2.4 GHz wireless signal would likely interfere with my existing home wireless computing network also argues strongly against this option. The best scenario would be to send the video signal back out on my house’s existing cable network on a different, unused channel. I read about a system you could buy for about $100 online months ago but can’t find the URL, basically you install a channel filter at the point where your cable TV comes in from the alley, and that blocks a 5 channel range within your home– then you can rebroadcast a signal from your DVR on one of those channels and view the content on any TV in your home.

The main problem with that solution is that I would prefer not to spend any money on this project, beyond the TV tuner card which I probably have no choice but to purchase.

This PVR Guide is one of the web resources I have found and am consulting on this project. If you have other suggestions or ideas for me on this I would welcome them! 🙂

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