The PVR box says it requires 733 MHz or faster. I wasn't sure if that was a high number or a low number. In case I had to return it, I checked my computer out before opening the box and discovered it has a GHz number. At least I knew that was faster, not slower.
I was confident I had lots of hard disk space, but the box says a one hour TV show will use 2 GB. But I only have 512 MB of RAM! (And no, I didn't remember that, I had to look it up.) Oh. You mean that's OK?
I had to install the TV tuner thingie in my computer, and the instructions say to put it into a PCI slot. I've never heard of a PCI slot, so I had to check my computer manual to make sure I have one, and if so, what the heck it is. Of course when I say "I've never heard of a PCI slot," you can bet that means I've heard it mentioned a few dozen times and have forgotten each and every time.
My brother is one of the best technoexplainers I know, and I have some pedantic friends, so I've listened to a million explanations about all this and I never remember. I know it's because I simply don't care, but there are a million other tidbits of information floating around in my cluttered brain I don't care about either. Do I need to remember all of Cary Grant's ex-wives names? Or who Grant Goodeve is? (I can't remember why, but he came up at Christmas – I think he might have been mentioned in the Team America or Family Guy movie – and my brother thought I was a freak for knowing that he was on Eight is Enough.)
I suppose I could have had one of my technofriends come over and install the damn thing, but this is a fun challenge for me. Not fun enough that I'll remember anything by tomorrow, though.
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Article comments
1 - Jay Jarvinen
Despite how you arrived at your conclusion, you did well. The Hauppauge PVR-150 is an excellent choice (IMHO, the only choice in this subcategory .. i.e. non-HDTV).
Your 512MB RAM (a half GB) is plenty sufficient.
The 2GB per hour is referring to hard drive space (as you said), which is the space required for an hour of uncompressed video (MPEG2 format).
"He knows I haven't gone far enough down the open source road to be able to install MythTV, and has given up trying to convince me."
Ahh, but think how rewarding it would be to prove him wrong! MythTV is awesome, and gets easier to use with every release. In the meantime, you could try a bootable CD-only version of it called KnoppMyth:
Good luck with your quest.
2 - Lisa McKay
Great piece, Diane. I, for one, will be very interested in reading some follow-up to this!
Last year, my husband decided to build a dedicated MythTV box out of spare computer parts (he usually has the makings of a whole computer or two lying around if he looks hard enough). Setting up MythTV was not a trivial undertaking.
3 - Diane Kristine
Thanks Lisa and Jay! I'll definitely write more when I've settled on one of the ones I'm testing out. I took a look at Jay's MythTV link but it still seems pretty intimidating to get set up, so I have a feeling I'll trade money for convenience. I'll give it a try, but I'm using the BeyondTV trial right now and it's so easy ... it'll be hard to get motivated to fiddle a lot with the free versions.
4 - Lisa McKay
Diane, congratulations on being designated an editor's pick this week!
5 - Dan
Try Yahoo!Go its free! I have been using it for about 3 weeks, It still needs some work(its beta) but these are the guys behind Meedio and now Yahoo! I have a feeling this will become a excellent program soon.