[ale] semi OT: ideas about building a PVR/XPC

[Joe]

"lance crocker" <jnlc at bellsouth.net> writes:

> Hey all,
> 
> I am planning on building a PVR ( Personal video recorder - like Tivo ), an
> XPC ( Multimedia entertainment PC that will hockup to my TV and home
> theater ), or some sort of combination.
>
> I have thought of two basic choices for this attempt.
> 
> 1. Buy an Xbox, hack it and install Xbox linux on it ( roughly around $300 )
> 
> or
> 
> 2. Build an XPC using current high end PC hardware  ( roughly around $1700 )

You probably don't need current high end PC hardware. Last year's
model will have sufficient performance, at a fraction of the price. I
figure I can put together a 800Mhz AMD-based box with reasonable
multimedia hardware for around $400. Get that working, and upgrade the
hardware as you go, if you feel the need.

Let's see...

Case:  $30 (Cheap crap, but gets the job done)
HD:   $100 (80GB)
MB:   $100 (including 800Mhz AMD CPU)
RAM:   $50 (256MB SIMM)
Sound: $30 (SB clone)
Video: $50 (Something with TV out)
Tuner: $45 (ATI TV Wonder)
DVD:   $50
NIC:   $15
-----------
      $440

The "cheap crap" comment pretty much applies to the whole list :-)
Probably some of that could be trimmed even further, and you might
just have a bunch of usable pieces lying around already. But you'd
end up with a system that would do the job.

Cheers,

-- Joe Knapka
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