Yesterday I mentioned how you can turn your computer into a PVR using Bittorrent and RSS. What I really want is a Tivo without any restrictions or DRM. I don’t even care about the recommendation engine–I just want a hard drive on top of my TV that records stuff when I tell it to. I see that Shaw offers one (scroll down), but it’s probably Tivoesque in terms of restrictions and, besides, I use Novus for my television. I called Novus, but the person I spoke to lacked a command of the English language.
Instead, I may turn to the good people at MythTV. This is an ongoing open source project to build-your-own PVR. Via Hack-a-Day (dude, what’s wrong with capitalization?), here’s a page of tutorials on assembling your own system.
In truth, I don’t want to build my own. I want to pay some geek to build one for me. I’d say that there’s a business opportunity here for these grey-market devices that don’t come from a major manufacturer.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I’ve assembled (built is too strong a word) one with a stock WinXP box, the Hauppage 250 video capture card and Snapstream’s BeyondTV software (you get canadian listings forever w/ the software purchase).
I like it enough that I’ve moved my computer where the TV used to be and the TV is unplugged. My kids use it (ages 4 & 7) well enough.
The only thing I haven’t figured out yet is _automatic_ commercial removal.
The Vancouver Linux Users Group held a MythTV presentation about a year ago — what an awesome system.
I mention VanLUG because it would be a great place to seek help, if you (or your readers) have a question or two that hasn’t been solved through research. There are at least a few people who are operating a MythTV system at home, and others are familiar with it.
VanLUG
http://www.vanlug.bc.ca/
There’s a few problems with selling a MythTV setup:
– TV guide info: The service they use is for non-commercial usage only.
– Other licenses: I think there are also license problems with the mpeg codecs (and especially with the AVI/QT stuff).
I’m in the planning stages with my MythTV box, going to build one once my student loans are all paid off. I’ll blog about it when I’m done, and I’d be more than willing to set one up for other people.
Right now I like the Xbox frontend running Linux, not sure how well it works but it would be fun. 🙂
I’ve had people bugging me about this for years. A post from last June from my friend TrevorJ, before he got his own blog:
http://www.bmannconsulting.com/node/322
Also, there is KnoppMyth:
http://hust.la/KnoppMyth/
A bootable Linux CD — stick it in your PC, see if it works with your combination of hardware.
I’m getting rid of my Linux server at home, and am going to PVR it in some way, likely for a friend since I don’t have a TV nor cable service.
I like my MythTV… I need to research a recording problem, but I’ve opted for bittorrent to fill that need for the time being. I’ll see what happens when I upgrade the linux variant on the fileserver.
My husband just set up a wireless Myth box for us. I haven’t spent much time looking at it, but it seems pretty cool. Just need to get a remote control for the laptop….