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Build Your Own Personal Video Recorder 101: (Part 1)
Page: 1/2
(1211 total words in this text)
(287686 Reads) 
Build Your Own Personal Video Recorder 101
ABSTRACT: What the heck is a PVR and why you'd want to build one.
AUTHOR: Rampy (reviews AT byopvr.com)
What's A PVR?
A PVR is an acronym for Personal Video Recorder... sometimes it is referred to as a Digital Video Recorder (DVR). A PVR is like a very smart digital VCR on steroids.
Why would anyone want anything more than a VCR? Let me use myself as a usecase. I have a Tivo. The basic functionality of a PVR allows you to schedule recordings by program instead of just time/date/channel a traditional VCR offers. I can interact with the program guide to find details about upcoming shows so I can record only the "Seinfeld" episode where George tries to preserve his high score on a Frogger machine and NOT the Keith Hernandez episodes. I can make wishlists "queries" that tell my Tivo to record any shows/movies that a have a specific actor. The next time "Treasure of Sierra Madre" is shown it's going to be taped, even if it's 4 months from now at 3:45am on TCM. I can record only the NEW episodes of "CSI" or "Friends" and never see a re-run (unless I want to).
One big feature of PVR's is the ability to time-shift. Granted a regular old VCR can time shift, but it's a little different and better with a PVR. The optimal situation for PVR'ing is to identify a pick list of shows that you want recorded on a recurring basis (Tivo calls this a season pass). Build up a queue of recorded programs and you can pretty much pick and choose what you want to watch and when. You can store many more shows on a hard disk based PVR than you could on a video cassette, and get near instant access to any prerecorded show. No more messing with counters or rewinding and fast forwarding all around a tape trying to find the program you want to watch. If you were to tape as many programs as I Tivo you'd have to contend with switching tapes as well.
I can watch a program that normally takes an hour in about 35 minutes (give or take) because I can zip past the commercials (if you have a ReplayTV you can do this automagically via commercial sensing. With Tivo it takes near nothing to blip-blop fast forward past the commercials and blip-blop play to start the show again). That means I can spend less time in front of the tube and more time on the PC Monitor updating my site about PVR's. =P
There are some other neat features such as the abilty to pause live television for those important pee and snack breaks (or to yell at telemarketers that call in the middle of "The Screen Savers"!).
OK PVR's are awesome!! But...
So hopefully you "get" why people are so excited about PVR's... Why would anyone want to build a homebuilt PVR when I can just go down to Best Buy or click my way to amazon and buy a Tivo or ReplayTV? Well, there is some merit to that. Commercial PVRs are stable, proven, and easy to use/setup. If you want a near instant out of the box experience maybe that's the best route for that type of person.
So again, why would someone go to the trouble of building your own? PVR hardware unit costs have come down quite a bit ( at time of this article you can get one for 150 dollars after mail in rebate ) BUT you are still on the hook for the service. It's anywhere from 9.99 to 13.99 a month for the guide service that is essential to make the PVR work (without the service a Tivo is a doorstop). Most commercial PVR units allow you to buy a "lifetime" (of the unit!) or prepay for a few years of services in one lump payment of around $300.
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