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.

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) . . .

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?