DIY PC PVR

[The Mighty Elvi]

I was watching The Gadget show this morning and the ones with breasts had to get as much tech bought for £100,challenge.

Long story short, the blonde one with breasts bought and old PC and then added a TV tuner a 500g HD and some freeware.  She then had her own personal video recorder, a la SKY +

Anyone on here actually done this, as I might give it a go.

[admc6]

I watched that. Looked fairly simple. Not quite sure if the pvr program runs direct as it's own operating system.

[NickH-D]

I haven't done it myself, as I pay a damn good price for my BT vision package (£30 for line rental, phone, broadband, and vision with films, entertainment, music and kids).

I do however have a friend who does the very thing you mention, seems to work well enough, and I think he even gets out of paying a tv license as he doesn't watch ANY live broadcasts, he watches recordings which I believe allows you to mitigate the license payments.

[Jay]

Yes, you can even use Windows to do it  It's called media centre, just make sure your edition of Windows comes with it, then use your xbox as a media extender device  Not sure if there is a remote for it to control it via your BB, check AppWorld, I know there are some Android remotes for it (never tested them though).

Boxee is good as it has a lot of media ready for steaming http://www.boxee.tv/make It's based on XBMC, so you could also try that?
Not sure if the last 2 can actually record though, I never looked at that and the websites aren't showing anything with a quick search, all my media is either DVD, AVI's or watched through iplayer/itvplayer usually.

PS: if you can do what the brunette did and get a cheap yet relatively beefy laptop capable of HD playback, pickup a USB or PCMCIA DVR card you can hide the laptop behind your telly 

[Jay]

Stumbled on this while looking at sommat else
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/home-entertainment/207001881?pgno=1