Yep, everytime we miss an episode of American Idol, I used to say to myself that I wish I have a TiVo! Now that TiVo has sold out its customers to the entertainment industry (your TiVo will auto-delete your stored programs if the rightsholder wants to, despite the fact that there is no legal right under copyright to limit home recordings' shelf-lives), you should be looking for an alternative PVR.
Here's some interesting information on how you can build a better TiVo/DVR out of an Old PC! Forget about the monthly payments, too!
If your comfortable with buildgin computers then all you will really need is a Windows pc with at least 256MB of RAM (512MB or more is better), plenty of hard drive space, and a good video card.
The TV card could be such as an ATI All-In-Wonder or Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 card.
PC DVR software, the Hauppauge card is bundled with BeyondTV, but is also available from SnapStream separately for about $70.
You can get the complete building instructions here.
Here's an overview of the home PC-based options, including Freevo, MythTV, Snapstream's BeyondTV, and Microsoft's Media Center. It also mentions the the Build Your Own PVR website.
Although good things have been said about MythTV and Freevo, unless you're fairly familiar with building your own PCs from scratch and running command-line tools, Snapstream's BeyondTV is the easiest way to dip your toe into the homebrew PVR pool.
Microsoft's version is a non-option, as it can only be legally obtained when buying a new home theater PC, which typically runs $1200-1600.
Hey Google, This was another fine MANUALLY entered post by: Rob G.
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