So, I have now been a TiVo user for um, about a month and a half I think, and it is to restrictive. Need to be a little freer. I mean limited freaking space, no support yet for burning programs to a DVD on a computer instead of just A/Ving it to a component style DVD burner, and they freaking don't support G wireless yet in their drivers so I am running a freaking B adapter and slowing down my whole network because of this. Plus they don't support the more secure WPA security in their existing software, so you leave your wireless open to allow the encryption to eventually be broken if someone wanted to. Anyway, like me said, to limited, I moving on.
[/end TiVo rant]
OK, so we need a beast to house the new PVR and carry the Sage goodness, & this is where I need you guys' help.
What we gotses (leftovers following comp. upgrade):
What we wants IT!:
- TV Cards: OK, what I want is a 2 tuner system minimum, and I like the dual tuner & encoder on one card setup of Hauppauge's WinTV-PVR-500MCE but don't want a card that is going to be limited to the Windows XP Media Center Edition maybe it would be better to just go with two cards. Also, it doesn't look like any of those can do a simple passthrough of the cable signal so I will need to get a splitter. This seems a little silly to me that you can't get a card like this that would have a function somewhat like a VCR where you can pass the signal through, or override channel 3, similar to the TiVo's ability also, but to simply pass the signal through it when you are recording something else they made you have to go into the software menu 2 menus deep, no buttons on the remote here. I guess it just seems silly to me as that seems like the most basic functions of a recording device, to allow you to record something while watching something else without jumping through hoops to do it. TV card suggestions?
- Cool (Black) case 17" wide to match my other components in the living room as I would really like to run it there. I've been checking some out already, but would like any suggestions from other people that might have used some cool ones for their PVRs.
Features I am looking for:- Plenty of room for hard drives
- Built in IR sensor (although I could probably mod the case to incorporate an IR sensor also)
- Cool but quiet, I can already hear the TiVo's hard drive working, but it really doesn't bother me. I think that lots of small fans would.
- Good looking or concealed drive bays (don't really want this thing to look like a desktop PC I stuck in the rack)
- Don't really need any front panel hook ups, but firewire might be nice for using the PVR to create the MPEG for a DVD of movies from my MiniDV
- Hard Drives: Planing on a small HD for the OS & such, and a large (200GB) one for the recorded shows
- MB: probably something with as much onboard as possible to keep the clutter down. Onboard audio should be fine I would think.
- Pretty TiVo style remote - Half tempted to try getting an in-between program for the cool remote that TiVo has. Also am thinking of maybe just finally picking up one of the harmony remotes (688 is pretty tasty looking) But I would still need some sort of IR receiver. Do I need to get a package with software, or can I use a universal remote and install the IR on a PC and have Sage take care of the rest?
Well, now you know what I want to do, I am still looking around, and not in to much of a hurry, but could really use the help of people that have already built systems...
11-08-2004, 02:06 PM
Linear Mode
