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This week: How to build your own TiVo (or, How to never miss an important football game ever again.)
Building your own TiVo—or FreeVo, as some call it—is more than a dream. It’s more than a trend. It’s the new cool way to stick it to The (TiVo) Man while impressing your friends.
Make and Wired have published detailed how-tos. There are also several online communities like The Green Button that will help guide you through the tricky parts.
For the technology dunces of the world—myself included—I had several friends break down the jargon into simple steps we can all understand.
Your mission: To build your own digital video recorder from mail-order parts.
The payoff: An integrated entertainment system that records TV programs with no monthly fees. You can also build in various wrinkles so that it will record high-def programs and edit out commercials automatically.
Keep reading for your marching orders…
Ingredients
1. A credit card with about $500 working capital on it.
2. A computer with a media operating system. Various versions of Microsoft Media Center, Vista Home Premium, Linux Freevo, etc. will work, too. It’s the operating system that’s important, not the computer itself; you can even use that old one sitting in your garage. Or you can use your current home computer. But if you go that route, be sure to back up all your music and videos when you install the new media system. You don’t want to lose that precious footage of Junior taking his first steps in your quest to record MTV’s Spring Break. Depending on how much you plan to record, you may need more hard drive space.
3. Video card: $70 – Available in quiet or cheap versions.
4. A dual tuner: $90 – This tuner handles both standard- and high-def signals.
5. MCE remote: $30 – It seems like an impossible dream, but you’re finally going to have ONE remote.
6. Various cables, cords, and adapters as needed. Some people also like to buy a casing to contain hold all these parts and make it somewhat attractive.
7. More relationship savvy than Dr. Phil, since your spouse/life-partner/roommate is going to wonder what the F you’re doing to the TV. The best way to play it is to convince said spouse/life-partner/roommate that you’re going to all this effort for them. That’s what my buddy C.J. did, as he explained:
“You have to consider WAF (wife acceptance factor — or HAF if it’s the wife doing the installation). Always think about ways to make it easier for them. The right remote will make or break your system due to your spouse yelling at you about how to do certain things even if you told them three times in two days. All aspects contribute to WAF: feasibility, silence, beauty and function. Last week I just added a small program that actually skips past commercials of your recorded shows automatically. My wife was shocked when she saw what it did. It’s astounding how well it works, no more fast-forwarding and rewinding to get to the right spot. She keeps saying, ‘I just keep feeling the urge to grab the remote and fast forward but it’s doing it for me’ with a giant smile on her face. That was the best feeling ever.”
Steps
1. Install the parts (video card, hard drive, tuners) in the computer case. This just means plugging and/or attaching them to the brackets inside the case. Some people will buy a new case to hold all these parts and make a more attractive package to sit under the TV. If you’re using a laptop to build your system, you’ll definitely want a new case because there isn’t room inside for all the stuff you’re adding.
2. Install the media operating system on your computer. Once you insert the software CD into the drive, a self-install application will guide you through the steps.
3. Set up the tuners and install the drivers. The tuners are one of the items you just plugged into the case, and the drivers are the software that will run them. Again, a CD will arrive with the tuners, and you just follow its prompts. Once the drivers are installed, the tuners will pop up on screen, a la “Windows has detected new hardware.”
4. Configure your media settings (timers, programs you want to record, etc.) At this point, you still have the keyboard attached to the computer, which makes setting up your preferences much easier. The first time you open up your media operating system is kinda like when you open up Microsoft Word for the first time on a computer: it asks you all kinds of questions about how you plan to use it.
5. Program your remote. No different from programming a new remote under any other circumstances. If you’re using Microsoft Media Center, it can set up your remote for you.
6. Connect your computer to the TV. A matter of connecting the cables.
7. Sit back and enjoy. You’ve just conquered the Everest of home entertainment, my friend.
Chris Weber is an occasional contributor to mentalfloss.com. His last article was on indigenous alcoholic treats.
Comments (18)
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Thanks to a techie husband we’ve been “free-vioing” for years.
Love ya honey!
posted by Beth on 11-26-2007 at 2:09 pm
“You have to consider WAF (wife acceptance factor). Always think about ways to make it easier for the wife. The right remote will make or break your system due to your wife yelling at you about how to do certain things even if you told her three times in two days.”
Yes, because no woman would have the technical savvy to be interested, or ::gasp:: do it herself. And all wives do is nag and yell. Let’s see how many sexist stereotypes we can trot out in one article!
posted by Iris on 11-26-2007 at 2:27 pm
Amen, Iris! You know that we feeble-minded women never figured out how to make the VCR stop blinking 12:00. Surely no mere female has ever built a Blue Box or read an issue of 2600 magazine.
posted by Jill on 11-26-2007 at 2:38 pm
My husband built us a “FreeVo” (love it!) almost 5 years ago. He used an ATI video card, the program Beyond TV (version 3, I think), and a computer. He took it a step further, and instead of running it into the TV, he runs it through a projector so we have a 106″ diagonal projection. Of course, we have the huge flat screen TV upstairs, hooked into a second computer, that can access and play the recorded files, also, so we can watch Dr. Phil whenever we want. Sweet!
The only problem is that he is forever filling up the hard drive with sci fi. It’s a small price to pay, though. I love my geek!!
posted by Amy on 11-26-2007 at 2:43 pm
Oh, and for Jill and Iris – I totally could’ve built it myself, if he didn’t keep me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen all the time.
Relax. No man would say, “no,” to free Tivo. And women like you would either a) do it yourself or b) be thrilled to have someone do it for you. So the only people who would need convincing would be un-tech-savvy women. I’m sure the author is well aware that tech-savvy women exist.
posted by Amy on 11-26-2007 at 2:46 pm
So.. It appears as though the blanket he’s got is an Ohio State blanket. If so, I’d pay him to just come make mine for me!
posted by Autumn on 11-27-2007 at 1:52 am
Yes its an Ohio State blanket. Nice article Chris.
posted by c.j. on 11-27-2007 at 7:47 am
i see how one could record their favorite shows, but can you still rewind and pause the show?
posted by Mescan on 11-27-2007 at 1:39 pm
yes you can rewind and pause current shows. I normally start a live show and pause it then come back to it 10min later or something and press play so i can go through commercials. Or you can just record the show and watch something else and come back to it later.
I have 4 tuners so i can record 4 shows at the same time while watching a recorded show. This has came in very handy on Mondays due to Heroes, Chuck, Prison Break, K’ville, and the UPN shows. You can also setup season passes and such.
The best part is you’re not paying the DVR fee imposed by DirecTV/Comcast/TimeWarner and you get all the features if not more with a pc.
posted by C.J. on 11-27-2007 at 1:55 pm
I know I’m being a pain in the butt to say this but these are not TiVos. TiVo is a brand name DVR, these are DVRs but not TiVos.
TiVo also has way cool features and requires no work right out of the box. I love my TiVo, but they decided not to support sattelite anymore so I’m stuck with dumb DirecTV DVR, which like MythTV is cool, but not as good.
posted by Scott on 11-27-2007 at 3:25 pm
TiVo is not supporting satellite service anymore? Can’t you still buy a Series 2 TiVo? Wouldn’t that work just fine with DirecTV?
posted by Jason on 11-27-2007 at 9:43 pm
Could someone explain TiVo to me? I live in New Zealand and have a DVR but have to program in everything I want it to record (and have to key in titles as well). I thought TiVo was a service that made it really easy to record stuff to your DVR without having to tell it exactly what time to start recording etc. Could someone set me straight? Thanks!
posted by Robin on 11-28-2007 at 1:52 am
Jason:
TiVo series 2 will work with DirecTV, but will not record high-def programming. The HD DVR that you can get from DirecTV will work fine with HD, and has 2 tuners and all the options the high end HD TiVo DVR has… so its kinda silly to go the TiVo route with DirecTV unless you have no HD capability and don’t plan on getting it.
posted by Scott on 11-28-2007 at 1:21 pm
Our cable system requires a digital box to access the “premium channels”. TiVo interfaces with the box to change channels at the appointed recording time. Can you do the same thing with a home-built FreeVo?
posted by Steve on 11-28-2007 at 2:37 pm
Yes. Your cable/sat box connects to your pc tuner. The remote on here comes with a IR Blaster that will change the channel on the box for you. Basically you use the Media remote to channel up, it sends the signal to cable. It takes all of 1 extra sec. All your premium channels are accessible. Any channel your box can get you will also through the pc.
Tivo is a brand of a DVR. It provides a service for $13/month that interacts with a guide (antenna, sat, cable) that will record things for you and gauge your interests and record things you may like. The author called it ‘build a Tivo’ cause its the most common name that almost everyone know. Such as using Google as a verb. Would the article catch more people if it said build your own MythTV/BeyondTV/Media Center/HTPC?
posted by c.j. on 11-28-2007 at 3:54 pm
Hello. First of all thank you for going to the trouble of publishing this article – it has the potential to help a lot of people. I guess my question(s) are directed to ‘c.j.’ since it seems you’re in the know and have been kindly enlightening those of us who are techie dolts.
1. Reading the Wired article it states “digital-rights management technologies will probably make your homebrew PVR obsolete.” Is this possible with your ‘FreeVo’? I’d hate to go to all that trouble only to have it be locked-out down the road because of savvy digital encryption by the ‘media controllers’ (in the interest of simplicity, lets just refer to the conglomerate of them going forward as ‘Big Brother’ (has anyone else out there ever wondered how hard it would be for a camera to be installed inside TVs and channel video of you in your house back out the cable so the government could watch you? No? Just me? Then I guess I’m just a paranoid conspiracist.))
2. Hopefully you can fill in a few of the blanks in your instructions for those of us who are a little less, how shall I say?…technically-inclined by nature (in other words, a lot of us out there!) After reading this m_f article and both the Make (very hard to follow) and Wired (not very detailed) articles in an attempt to dissect their ‘detailed how-tos’, unfortunately I’m still left scratching my head. I for one would need a very step-by-step dissection of ‘Step 1 Install the parts (video card, hard drive, tuners) in the computer case’ in order to be able to do it on my own. For example, dissect each step as if you were trying to teach it to a 3rd grader – seriously no joke.
Bottom-line – on its face this unfortunately this seems a little too much trouble for me. Back to eBay I guess to find a Tivo with transferrable Lifetime Subscription (you can get one for about $250 max – under $200 if you’re lucky) . . .
posted by Mike on 11-29-2007 at 2:34 pm
First let me say i’m no expert in this and maybe someone can shed more light where i’m wrong.
1. DRM is everywhere already, from mp3 to movies. But at the same time people are hating DRM and trying to remove it. There was some noise last year about making tuners susceptible to this but that was thrown out. Tuners on the market now are not built to be stopped by these ‘flags’, but sometimes you’ll catch a flag on a recorded HBO show you had for a while. For instance i had some movie from HBO but didnt watch for about a month but when i came to view it my PC said this show is protected and unviewable. This only happened to me once though.
Another attempt that was made to incorporate DRM was CableCard. These are cards that go in slots on some tv sets so you dont need a cable box, think of the access cards you put in satelite boxes to get your channels. DirecTV was even in talks with Microsoft to make their own propietary tuner to replace buying a receiver, sort of like cablecard. Now the thing is that pc’s are upgradeable. When they come with something, someone else brings something out to get around it. Needless to say, there is a cablecard connection device made by ATI that you can connect to your pc to use cablecards to access your cable. I been adding onto my original setup for about 3yrs. Each year adds something new to try, next year will be HD DVD and bluray. Why buy 2 separate players for $3-400 each instead of a combo pc drive for $250. My point is that the pc industry is huge and everything is going digital and more people are putting pcs in the living room. Big Brother would lose a ton of money by trying to prevent you from accessing your stuff. Lastly if you build a system, just buy the latest tech so you’ll be futureproofed. A couple extra dollars now will save you tons of headaches later. I skimped and saved $40 but had to dish out $110 a year later.
No i never thought of my tv broadcasting video of me back…thats kind of creepy.
2. This is not as complicated as it seems. If you’ve built a pc before this is cake. If you’ve ever installed a device in your pc this is cake. This is only difficult if you’ve never opened a pc before, in which case you need to do some reading. Below is a no frills build guide. You can jazz it up for your situation, whether it be a piano black case or a slot loading dvd drive.
Simple steps if you have no pc:
1. Buy a mid-tower pc case, if it doesnt have a power supply look for a 500watt just in case with pci-X and SATA connectors.
2. buy and install a ATX motherboard preferably with 7channel audio and gigabit ethernet onboard
3. Choose a matching processor for your board, preferably dual core. Install
4. install a video card, look for HDCP compliant, HDTV out/HDMI out
5. install a hard drive, i use a 320gb just for tv.
6. install an optical drive of your choice (bluray, hddvd, dvd)
7. Also you’ll need memory, if you’re using Vista try 2gbs. If XP Media Center go with 1gb. Dual channel if you can.
Now you need tuners
8. Vista works well with a Avermedia, Hauppauge and ATI tuners. I have 2 HD and 2 standard.
9. Install O/S of choice
After install, O/S will ask you for drivers. This is when you bust out all the cds that came with your devices. When this is done check Windows for updates and reboot.
Now open media center application and follow the guide.
Things to note: If your video card has HDMI it will simplify your life tremendously. Also newegg is a great site for parts but shop around cause there be rebates available that make items dirt cheap. I got 2 cases and a power supply for a total of $10 after rebates.
Ok i think thats it.
posted by c.j. on 11-30-2007 at 12:09 pm
Oh yeah its technically called a HTPC, Home Theatre PC.
posted by c.j. on 11-30-2007 at 2:57 pm