See, this is what keeps me from bothering put a PVR together for myself. It’s just so much easier to buy a TiVo or ReplayTV!

It sounded like a good idea. It really did. My editor suggested that I write a piece about building a media center system based on a notebook, instead of one of those media center PC chassis. Just take a laptop, plug in a few USB components, hook it up to my satellite system, plug it into my TV, and voila! I’d have a powerful personal video recorder (PVR).

That was the plan, but along the way to implementation I began to remember exactly why I’d given up on the do-it-yourself method of building hardware. I decided years ago that it just wasn’t worth the time, aggravation and effort involved in making a bunch of separate components operate as a coherent whole. I know there are plenty of people out there who make their projects work, but for me, I’d long ago crossed the line between spending my time and spending my dollars.

But, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. In this article, I’ll describe my attempt to put together a do-it-yourself PVR using my laptop, some specialized software and add-on USB components…. Source: TH

Tags: pvr, media center, projects, pc chassis, usb components