The man the myth part 1

We cut the cable.

Well, not quite. Of the three services we receive from the cable company we no longer receive TV, just phone and internet. Combined with the subscription to Tivo, it was a good hundred dollars a month that didn't really seem worth it. I mean, you look at the 300 or so channels and most of them are crap. However, in order to get the cool channels (BBCAmerica, SyFy, Fox Soccer Channel, Versus) and a handful of others that we watched on a regular basis, you have to get this or that sports tier and this or that entertainment tier. I'm sure a la carte cable would be great except for the fact the cable companies would charge you $10 per channel. To be honest though, one of our favorite channels is PBS and that's free.

So, what to do. For about $20 you can get a crappy digital converter box for over the air (OTA) broadcasts. It might have worked or according to some reviews on Amazon might have melted and set fire to things. On the other hand, we did rather like our old Tivo and its ability to record, pause, etc etc. Oh what to do?

It was at this point as I was digging around the internets that I discovered MythTV. This was exactly what we needed, essentially a free homebrew version of Tivo. All you had to do was build a computer, load the software and connect it all up. Much sniggering amongst my internet friends commenced along with comments that I was mad, should give up before my sanity was destroyed and so on and so forth. Blindly confident, I strode on regardless, safe in the knowledge I had once built a computer before.

Then I started reading more.

MythTV is an open source project. This means there is generally no corporate body designing and selling it, just guys and gals around the world sort of doing it in their spare time. These guys are well meaning but it does sometimes result in an atmosphere unwelcoming to newbies with its lack of documentation and strange Linux syntax. No fear said I, for there is an Ubuntu version of MythTV called Mythbuntu which will make everything a breeze because everyone is always talking about how great Ubuntu is. Yeah ok, there is still no documentation, but that is what Google is for if I ever got stuck, I could Google the answer.

Much Googling later, I had a rather long expensive shopping list in no particular order (i.e. pasted from the NewEgg and Amazon emails):

ASUS PCE-N13 IEEE 802.11b/g/n PCI Express Wireless Adapter

• Worked out of the box and provides pretty good wireless connection.

LOGISYS AD203 4Pin Molex to SATA Power Adaptor

• I figure I used this somewhere because it isn't in my box of left over bits.

IOGEAR GKM561R Black 2.4GHz Wireless HTPC Multimedia Keyboard

• Another one that worked out of the box that would have ruined everything if it didn't work and let me access the BIOS.

Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800

• I spent hours making sure these would be compatible with the motherboard. There was probably an easier way to work it out.

eMachines E202HDbmd 20'' 1600x900 5ms Glare Panel WideScreen LCD Monitor 

• Obviously I needed something other than the TV in the living room to practice on. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find a cheap monitor. At some point I'll find a use for it.

APEX DM-387 Black Steel Micro ATX Media Center / Slim HTPC Computer Case

• Slim black case that doesn't look too much like a computer.

ASUS P5N7A-VM LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300/nForce 730i HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

• Again, I agonized for hours over this selection. Reading reviews online can be hazardous to your health. What if I get a dud like this guy?

Intel Pentium E6300 Wolfdale 2.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor 

• I tried to strike a balance between speed, power consumption and price. I could have gone for something with more oomph but risked having the box sound like a jet engine as it tried to cool itself. Once I changed the fan speed in the BIOS, it is fairly quiet, though not silent.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

• Plenty of space for our needs. I just checked the system and despite loads of stuff already recorded and taking up space there is apparently room for somewhere between 50-75 hours of recording depending on what recording rate is used.

LG Black DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 5X DVD-RAM 12X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM SATA 22X DVD Burner

• I didn't know you could get a single drive that read that many formats for less than $20.
  

RCA ANT1500 Indoor Digital Superior Flat Antenna

• It's slim and discreet and less than perfect in reception. I'm about to try mounting in the attic space. Failing that I might buy this to replace it.

Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 Media Center Kit Dual TV Tuner 1213 PCI-Express x1 Interface

• This was the important part. Dual tuner so you can watch or record two channels at once. On the other hand I should have bought this one. Spot the difference? Yeah the IR remote supplied with it doesn't work with MythTV so why waste the $20 on it (see box of left over bits).

Windows 7 Vista XP Media Center MCE PC Remote Control and Infrared Receiver

• See, I had to go and buy this remote to work things. I could have stuck with the keyboard above but it isn't that convenient for day to day use. Besides, at some point I will program my old remote to take over for which I needed another IR remote to learn from.

As I was formatting the list above and checking the links, I noticed that most of the prices had changed and some items are now discontinued. Don't shoot the messenger. Suffice it to say, it will probably take a few extra months to pay for itself than first envisioned.

Tune in next time for a little more in depth discussion on the build and the install and all the things that don't work quite right.