Chronicle of Acute PVR Disorder

An Account of my Maladjusted Personal Video Recording Experience

Quick Index:

  1. Introduction
  2. Going with the Underdog: ReplayTV
  3. Building My Own PVR
  4. Ordering Hardware and Software
  5. Plan C
  6. Conclusions
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1. Introduction

A few weeks ago, I was talking with my friend John about the lack of real news on television. During our chat, I mentioned that every week I look forward to the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central) to provide me with some relevant (and sarcastic) political commentary. Upon hearing this, John took me into his living room and sat me in front of the tube. Using his remote control, he showed me a list of the last twelve episodes of The Daily Show on his TiVo. I was impressed. We watched The Daily Show for the next five hours straight. Heaven.

Our Jon Stewart marathon convinced me that Tivo has some merit - a belief I did not have beforehand. Still, I did not want to give in to my indulgent North American lifestyle so quickly. After all, just four months prior, my wife and I purchased a DVD player, followed by a Netflix account and even a DVD burner. At this pace, we were on track for single-handedly depleting more of the earth's natural resources than the residents of Texas, Florida and Orange County combined.

But the case for TiVo was strengthened when I learned that a college friend, Brian Glazer, would be appearing on a reality TV show called Average Joe. To be clear, how I feel watching reality TV is identical to how I feel listening to Howard Stern, drinking beer 'til I puke or hanging out with ten guys wearing baseball caps. Each requires the maturity level of a college freshman - which I am not. Watching Average Joe is no exception. It's an intellectual wasteland. Yet missing five seconds of Brian-TV felt unacceptable to me. And what if I missed an episode by mistake? TiVo was calling my name.

2. Going with the Underdog: ReplayTV

My first step towards a new PVR (personal video recorder) was to look at some prices. Tivo costs about $250. Plus another $299 for a lifetime service subscription. That is $600 beans. Not cheap.

I remember my brother saying something about a product called ReplayTV as an alternative to TiVo. A few months back he purchased two of these Replay units and built some sort of a media network with video streaming from TV to TV to laptop. I checked out ReplayTV's web site and found that it was cheaper than TiVo ($125 + $299 for subscription) yet the features were comparable.

I went with it. Impulse purchase supreme.

When the unit showed up, my wife was skeptical. "Why didn't we just get TiVo?" This question would be asked a few more times before the project's completion.

My first technical hurdle was to connect the ReplayTV unit to our wireless network. Both TiVo and Replay need internet connectivity to download television schedules as part of their subscription services. Since we use a wireless network, I purchased a Netgear ME101 Bridge and a 3 foot crossover (RJ45 CAT 5) cable. As my wireless network is secured with a password, I needed to configure it using my laptop. Netgear's software was super easy; the network was online in a few short minutes.

When I turned the ReplayTV unit on, I was guided through a series of setup screens. Finally, Replay attempted to go online, get television schedules and check my subscription licence key for authorization. For some reason, the network connection failed three times but finally worked after turning the unit off and then on again.

I guess this is where the chronic PVR disorders begin. When the Replay unit downloaded our local cable schedule I could not match our channels with those listed. Both Replay and Yahoo listings show channel 13 two times for local viewers. In our case, channel 13 is The WB - for other residents of Oakland it is NBC. Unfortunately, Replay had the wrong settings for us. My lovely wife wants to tell our PVR to tape every episode of The Gilmore Girls without telling it when or where. I wish to do the same with The Daily Show. Since our channels were all messed up, this was impossible. The fact that this is a big deal to us is strong evidence of a slothful descent into listlessness.

After a failed attempt to solve the problem, I decided to return our day old ReplayTV. Returning it was no small feat. Replay's customer service people are in India, while their systems and accounting people are in the U.S. So there was a slight delay in getting the refund coordinated.

Note: After posting this narrative, a reader let me know that ReplayTV has an option for configuring channels. After looking through the 84 page ReplayTV manual I found nothing of the sort. There is some troubleshooting help on page 63 but this explains how to select alternative channel line-ups - none of which were correct for our cable listings.

"Why didn't we just get TiVo?"

3. Building My Own PVR

Is it possible to be a nonconformist when talking about consumer electronics? I don't think so. But my experience with ReplayTV exposed me to plenty of other TiVo alternatives, and some of them appealed to me. TiVo runs on the Linux operating system. But it does not seem to fit the nature or spirit of free open-source software. As I did more research, I started to think about building my own PVR out of the digital nuts and bolts donated by the world's open-source philanthropists.

My intention was to use Linux instead of Windows and to follow Jarod's popular blueprint for do-it-yourself PVR computers. In looking at prices, I realized that the cost would be ~$100 more than TiVo, but my maladjusted obsessive-project disorder granted me permission to spend the extra loot. Anyhow, I have always wanted to improve my Linux skills and I knew a custom PVR would be infinitely more flexible: burning programs to DVD, recording multiple shows at once (possible with multiple capture cards), changing the kitty litter, watering our house plants, folding laundry etc.

Note: according to the MythTV email list, Linux ivtv drivers are necessary to run MythTV and are said to be new / risky, though maturing fast.

4. Ordering Hardware and Software

Warning: before you copy my PVR shopping list, finish reading this entire document. I did not end up using Linux at all and my hardware planning could have been more precise. In fact, please don't base any of your decisions upon what you read unless you are ready to waste your money and live a life indigence.

I ended up ordering the following products from a wonderful online hardware distributor (ajump.com):

After receiving the goodies, I spread everything out on my living room floor. Our cats were very curious. First reactions (the cats and mine) to the Pundit were first rate. This computer case seemed as well engineered as any I had ever seen, plus it was just plain cute. Even though the fan was audible, the unit is reasonably quiet and not as annoying as other computers (or people) in my past.

The Pundit instruction book prompted me to grab a screwdriver and take the case apart. While the written instructions did not explicitly say so, the interior of the Pundit is cramped and requires that hardware be installed in a certain order. I learned this through, as my Bostonian friends say, trial and "air-rah."

Initially, I removed the drive bay that eventually would hold both the DVD/CD and the hard disk. This exposed the motherboard and allowed for plenty of room to install the CPU. The unit was easy to lift out, no screws or clips hold it in place (same goes for the PCI bay towards the back). Next I dislodged the cooling fan and installed the Celeron Processor.

Before re-installing the cooling fan, I set the 512 MB chip in place. In doing so, I noticed that an additional 512 MB of RAM would never fit in the second slot. To do so would be like sitting between John Candy and Chris Farley on a crowded bus. If I ever require another 512 MB of RAM I will doubtlessly need some vaseline.

With the CPU intact, memory card in place and the cooling fan re-situated it was time to install the CD / DVD driver and hard disk.

Finally, I put the Happauge capture card in the second PCI slot, next to a pre-installed modem (that I will never use). But when I attempted to put the PCI bay back into the Pundit it was clear that the new card was not going to fit. The Pundit's cuteness was starting to wear off. I switched the modem and Happauge slots to see if this would be easier, and though it was, I ended up bending Pundit's metal frame in order to make things comfortable. The picture is pre-bending (pb).

All of my hardware was now installed in the Pundit. It was time to put the case back on and begin installing Linux. Foiled again! The case did not fit over the CD/DVD drive! Asus recommends installing an Asus disk. I had a Sony. I wonder if Jarod, the original PVR author had similar problems with his Sony drive? Who knows. The solution was to "adjust" the front cover of the Pundit's case with a pair of vice grips and some elbow grease. Not very elegant, but neither was bending the case five minutes earlier.

Note: Jarod has responded to clarify that he did not, in fact, use the Pundit but refers to the system as a second option. For a variety of different PVR hardware configurations, along with success stories and ratings, look at http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-pvrhwdb.php.

Next problem. When I booted up the unit, I found that neither my CD/DVD Drive, nor my Hard Disk were recognized. I fished around in the Pundit's BIOS, but came up with nothing. Two hours later God spoke to me (George Bush convinced me that God spoke to him so I knew he would be in touch sooner or later). Anyhow, God told me to take the computer apart again, look at the back of the hard drive and compare the jumper positions to those in the manual. Jumpers are little brackets that must be moved to tell a piece of hardware what role it will play as part of your computer. For some reason, the Maxtor was not set up to be a main drive, but rather a "slave" to another drive. I made this poor slave a master and the world was righted. God smiled. I have not heard from him since. By the way, I had the same problem with the CD/DVD jumpers.

To install Linux, I downloaded Fedora on my windows laptop and burned it to three CD's. Putting Disk one in my computer was exciting. The CD/DVD drive whirred and Linux announced it was on its way. As was recommended by the PVR architect, Jarod, I partitioned the hard disk using Fedora's utilities and finished the entire install in about an hour.

5. Plan C

Rebooting after a Linux install is nerve racking. You never know if things are going to work out. In my case, of course, Linux failed. The error I received was something like "floppy.0: no floppy controllers found." Because the Pundit has no floppy, I guessed that Linux's nausea was from searching for something non-existent. I disabled traces of "floppyness" in the Pundit's BIOS. Nothing. A few web sites recommended that I use the Fedora installation disks and find a utility called"Grub" to disallow Linux from its aimless floppy forage. But the commands people referred to did not yield any results. I thought back to a time when I installed Linux in 1997. I struggled for days to get a video card working and gave up. This time would be no different.

Note: a reader responded about the floppy issue. According to his message, "the problem is that mod_probe tries to load the floppy drivers if /dev/fd* device files exist, which they do in the Fedora installation. The thing to do is log in under single-user mode at the console; then, either 'rm /dev/fd[0-9]*' or, if you're nervous, 'mkdir /root/saved_dev; mv /dev/fd[0-9]* /root/saved_dev'"

Fast forward to Plan C: Bill Gates. No more open source. Do you see how hypocritcal this whole endeavour has become? Switching to Windows XP meant that I needed to find a new PVR software program. Three of them caught my eye, and they all offered support for my Happauge capture card (and remote control). I decided on a product called Beyond TV from a company called Snap Stream Media which sells for $59 and includes free television listings with no subscription fee.

Note: alternatives include gbpvr ($free), HTPC ($free), SageTV ($60) and ShowShifter ($60).

Installing Beyond TV was easy. The product worked well with the Happauge remote and the channel listings showed both NBC and the WB options for channel 13. Hallelujah! Beyond's interface was also very easy to navigate and it made cool "swish" sounds whenever I moved from one screen to the next. I searched for "Jon Stewart" and came up with the next three-thousand broadcasts of The Daily Show. I chose to record them all.

Was I done? Could this be the terminus of my PVR expedition?

No.

When my first recorded Daily Show appeared in Beyond TV's program menu, I cracked a grape soda and got comfy on the couch. My wife sat next to me knitting. I think she was working on a pair of wool booties. Anyhow, the recording of Jon Stewart looked ok for only a second. Soon the sound started falling behind the movement of his lips. That was no good. Plus his body blurred when he moved. My hero, Jon Stewart was jittery and smeared. The wife grumbled.

"Why didn't we get TiVo?"

I spent hours looking around the Beyond TV discussion area trying to figure out how to make my picture look sharp. A lot of people were experiencing the same issues as I. Installing all of the latest drivers for my Pundit and Happauge capture card was the most obvious solution. Rather than using the drivers on the included CD-ROM, I went to the most recent ones found online at the Asus , SiS (this is the video chip on the Asus motherboard) and Happauge web sites, respectively. After all of this, the picture was better, but Jon Stewart still looked unintentionally silly.

I went AWOL and jumped the fence, sending an email to Snap Stream asking for a full refund (they claim to have a 100% money back guarantee). Though I felt downtrodden, I regained my composure and downloaded a new, less mature product called SageTV ($60 + free subscription). While the interface was not as pretty as Beyond TV, the picture quality was much better, especially with the new drivers I had installed. Progress.

Yesterday I read dozens of messages on the Sage message board and learned how to adjust the picture quality so that our recordings are near perfect. This process was a little awkward, requiring me to go outside of the Sage interface and into the Happauge Win TV controller to adjust Hue, Saturation, Contrast and Brightness. Back to Sage to see how it came out. Back to Win TV to adjust some more. Over and over.

Apparently, the next version (2) of Sage will be available in early February 2004, and these picture adjustment issues will be much easier to grapple with. I am also eager to use the new interface (pictured above) as the current one makes me feel like I am in the lobby of a government building using a poorly designed information kiosk. Regardless, the more I get to know Frey Technologies, the makers of Sage TV, the better I feel about being a customer. They have a devoted install base and an active user community.

Note: Just downloaded and installed version 2 of Sage TV. Much better interface and hardware / capture card configuration is included.

Update 1/25/03. As an excercise of principle, I have decided to join the MythTV mailing list and attempt a re-install of Linux, this time using Mandrake. I will update the narrative with my findings soon. Ad hominem attacks aside, I have been persuaded to give it another try by the large number of comments (closed guestbook due to SPAM) and emails. From what I have read, it sounds like Windows may still be a better choice as a PVR platform because of the stability and support of the different manufacturer's drivers, but we will see.

6. Conclusions

This is only my second day as a PVR equipped husband and already my wife has forgotten about TiVo. She watches episodes of Charmed and the Gilmore Girls and grins as she fast forwards through commercials. As for me, I have been spending quality time with Jon Stewart - his show on the Iowa Caucases was not to be missed.

Yes, this little project ended up being a little more pricey than I had expected, about $800 total, but I am left with an expandable and powerful system capable of doing a lot more than any TiVo can do. Perhaps the whole thing was silly. After all, VCR's basically do the same thing right?

© Matt Reider 2004

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