Build a PVR system

I found some notes on creating an HD-capable PVr in this EFF article. This article (and others from EFF) point out that regulations will outlaw the sale of HDTV receivers which ignore the so-called Broadcast Flag this summer. So if you don’t exercise your rights now, you won’t be able to do so legally a year from now.

Just discovered this BYOPVR Forum, which contains news and tech discussion which anyone working on a project like this may find useful.

I love seeing devices with A/V hookups and a 4-port ethernet switch. This one is audio only, but…you get the idea.

From this LD article on the Sonos digital music system.

Today Transmeta announced a digital entertainment initiative around their Efficeon line, which organizes a bunch of partners toward providing a reference platform for PVRs and other digital entertainment systems.

This effort looks much more friendly to the hobbyist market than the Coventive board I mentioned earlier.

Related links: media-server

The Coventive Uranus board turns out to be prohibitively expensive for a hobby project. They want $16K for the SDK!

So I’m going to have to pursue other alternatives for a hardware platform.

Here’s an interesting PVR board listed on LinuxDevices.com:

The Coventive Uranus has a 64 bit SoC, bidirectional MPEG 1/2/4 hardware, composite video connectors, and ethernet, in a mini-ITX package. And comes with a linux SDK.

Sounds like a great place to start.

I’d like to replace my TiVo, which I love dearly, with
something I can rebuild from source. I’d like to build
one for my sons, who live with their Mom and don’t have
cable TV. I’d like to record shows and push them to their
unit over the internet, bypassing the cable TV thing altogether.
Not to mention my friend Chris who lives in a famous apartment
building in DC and has the worst cable TV selection of anyone
I know living in the 21st Century.

And I’d like to get some of my geekier friends involved in the
project so I’m not struggling away on this all alone.