Almost free TV / PVR

G-Ding.TV | Viewing Linux in a whole new way

For the cost of basic hardware you can have a PVR (Personal Video Recorder, e.g., TIVO) in your house. You can even use an old computer (maybe go get a bigger hard drive, and a TV Tuner card if you don’t already have one), to save even more money.

This is nothing new, really. MythTV (the PVR software) has been around for a while. Linux (the computer operating system on which MythTV runs) has been around for quite a while. Both are free. Run MythTV on the Linux flavor of your choice, hook it up to your cable outlet, and bang… you’ve got free TV Recording.

So why bring it up now?

Because I just found a way past my biggest barrier: complete lack of understanding of Linux. A couple of guys put together an installer that installs Linux AND MythTV together for you. If it runs as cleanly as I hope, that means I can just accept all defaults and I won’t have to mess with Linux settings at all! WOO HOO!

I’ve got an old 266MHz computer laying around serving Free Cell to my wife all day. With a TV Card and a bigger hard drive, that could easily be turned into a PVR, and life would be good.

So will I actually do it? Probably not real soon, since I still have to buy the components I mentioned, but yeah – this definitely is something to shoot for.

[tags]TV, PVR, DVR, free, personal finance, MythTV, Linux, TIVO, BeyondTV[/tags]

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