I never bothered to update this forum with what I did. It's been quite a legnthy process, and fortunately my wife has been quite patient.
I had gotten a Sony Vaio PC from a brother who didn't need it, it's a 2.6 P4 with 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HD. It had a software encoded capture card, which I never got working.
I got Beyond TV with a Hauppage PVR-150 card. It took me a while to figure out how to get the PC to show on the PC - I ended up getting a 256MB AGP Graphics card that works well. I'm not sure I've got 1080 - I think I'm getting 720p to the TV, because the 1080 setting looks terrible. The card cost around $50, so that worked out.
The PC wasn't on my network, since my router's in the spare bedroom and the PC/TV is in the living room. I got a Linksys PCI wireless card, which I don't really like but works OK. $45.
I got Beyond TV installed and working, set up the capture from the cable box to the card. It uses an IR blaster to change the channel on the cable box, which took a LONG time to figure out. The IR blaster's range is about 2 inches, so it has to be RIGHT on the remote control sensor on the cable box. Plus, it has to be set to the right code. It's a long process, but works ok in the end. However, cable boxes only give SD out (Firewire's a possibility but extremely difficult) so I'm getting 480p out of the cablebox into my Media Center. TV looks OK - Lost looks good, but it's definitely not HD quality. Each hour of TV takes up 2 GB of space.
Once I got everything up and running, Lauren and I got a new TV - 32inch Samsung. It looks good, but now I needed all new connectors and whatnot. I got a DVI - HDMI cable, so I ditched the RCA cables I had been using (This got me to the 720 I mentioned earlier).
So now, I want to do HD recording. The cable box isn't going to give me that (I can record an HD channel in SD, but can't record an HD channel in HD) so I am using the cable line that comes into the house with a splitter. I just got an HD Homerun, and I'm going to hook that up into the coax, for a total of 3 tuners at once. It'll be good but since my 120GB HD is half full now, and I'm not even recording HD - I'm going to need a bigger HD. I'm thinking around 250GB, maybe more if I can swing it.
This has turned into quite a project. It's been really fun, so far, but a little frustrating at times.
i have been thinking about doing this but right now i just don't have the time, even though yes, it does sound like a fun project!
eh, you could do it much faster than i did b/c i'd just tell you the mistakes i made and you'd skip over them.
investment - a PC with decent graphics card, DVI to HDMI cable
Beyond TV or Sage TV plus Tuners - $200
it can get expensive, quickly
when you have time can you list all of the hardware you need, or is that it?
well, what are the specs of the PC you have? Will it be solely dedicated to this project (media server)? Does it have DVI out? XP or Vista? Large Hard drive (over 200GB)? And do you have an HDTV? (If not, you need much less stuff).
If you have an HDTV, you would essentially need one package that includes dual HD tuners, remote control, and software. Link is below. It's $200 but pays for itself after 20 months. or, it pays itself off instantly if you don't tell your wife how much it cost. It works by connecting to your PC via crossover cable, so there's no internal components heating up your PC so it'll be cooler and quieter than with a hardware encoded internal card.
Very cool, Dan. I'm impressed you got all that going!
What exactly does the HD Homerun do? Does it accept CableCards for cable HD? Or is it for OTA or Sat?
BTW, I love my TiVo HD.
HD homerun gives you the ability to capture HD recordings from the QAM signal (essentially, your cable line has HD without the cable box - you can get stations 2.1, 4.1, 7.1, etc in HD for the major networks). The HD homerun lets you record those channels.
It will not let you record 702, 704, 707, etc, in HD. Which is only a point of interest because you can get the major networks without the cable box, but NOT TBS HD, RUSH HD, etc.
It's hard to explain over this forum.
I'd have gotten a Tivo HD but didn't want to pay $10/month or whatever it is. looking back, that might have been a better way to go, but I've been using my media center PC for watching Netflix "instant" movies (basically streaming, it looks good), Hulu (also looks good), and YouTube. So that's good.