well I started thursday (the day before my birthday) night building the virtual-TiVO box. Well I started again.

Well I built a ubuntu edgy (aka v6.10) server on my AMD64 dual core with 2GB of RAM. I only have a 200GB drive in the machine. And you are thinking that 200GB is lot but it is nothing for a TiVO like machine. I went with MythTV to start out with. If it doesnt work for me I can always switch to SageTV. The one issue with SageTV is that it is mainly a Windows DVR/PVR that has a linux port. Ok that is not all bad but the HDHomeRun I have is not supported by SageTV except with a hack for the Windows (only) version. And I am not going to run windows as my O/S for my DVR/PVR.

So I have heard horror stories on the net and from coworkers/friends about MythTV and I should go with something like SageTV. One friend (Jody) has built a very similar machine (I let him do the research and I reaped the benefits). He got his working fine. I am not there but close.

It took me two installs to get unbuntu/mythtv installed correctly. It would have been only one if I followed the instructions and not did things out of order. My bad. Well I was not working anyways and it was fun.

After I got MythTV installed and configured (which wasnt that long maybe an hour). I had it working. My channels dony match up with the real channels. So I will have to go edit the channel listings to match the real channel with the channel on the MythTV. I live in an old ATTBI (AT&T Broadband/cable) network that comcast owns so my channels dont quite match up to normal comcast. So I have to manual swap things around.

Once I get that done, I should be able to start watching TV/recording things.

Then I need to work on making it a DVD player (I have the mythtv plug installed just not configured), play movies that are loaded on the HD (like .mp4 or .divx files), clean up the web interface to it, see whatever other plugins are for myth, etc. Oh yeah get the NetFlix plugin to work. I have it loaded but it wont take my username/password. I get a 501 error code. Hmmm strange. I will need to see what is going on with that.

I also need to find a good theme for widescreen (16:9) since I have this hooked up to my HD-LCD-TV (46inch Sharp Aquos). the current one works but is not that appeasing.

more to come soon….

And if you are counting thursday to now, It has not been nonstop. yesterday I had to do errands and drink beer for the birthday. And today I have done very little so far. tonight when I get home from the parents I will do more.