Okay, a while back I wrote a quick-and-dirty about how I put together a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) using wits, brawn, and a copy of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. To my amazement, people actually read it!
Since Colin rebuilt the ‘Geek, he’s been badgering me to come back and let my creative juices flow all over the place. And let them flow I will. My brain gravy will saturate this page!
Okay, so, let begin with a parts list…
Compaq EVO D510 small form factor PC
Pentium 4 2.4A
512 megs of Crucial PC2700 DDR RAM
2 Seagate Barracuda IV 120-gig hard drives
LITE-ON 4X DVD-R/RW
nVidia GeForce 4 MX 440 with 64 megs of DDR RAM
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 video card
MSDN copy of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005*
*Disclaimer: To date, Microsoft has not released Windows XP MCE to the retail market. It is only sold to OEMs and resellers to create Home Theater PCs. I have a licensed copy through the MSDN as an IT professional. I highly suggest you adhere to Microsoft’s EULA and other copyright and licensing policies…. blah blah blah. I covered my ass, now let’s get on with it.
The first thing I should mention is that Windows XP MCE 2005 is not really at all like its predecessor, WinXP MCE 2004. While superficially it bears a resemblance, under the hood are more than a few changes that make the 2005 version extremely appealing for home-brewed PVR builders.
WinXP MCE 2004 was designed for specific hardware manufacturers, such as HP. Though it was built on the basic XP operating system, the media center components were keyed to only a few drivers supporting a limited number of video cards, video capture cards, decoders, and sound chipsets. In addition, there was no way to add drivers from other card manufacturers without having a degree from the University of Nerd. And even then, the sacrificing of small children might be necessary for some configurations.
2005 signaled an apparent end to Microsoft’s hubris. The new version of the OS came with more drivers, and allowed you to install drivers for new hardware quite easily. A mere Associate’s Degree from Nerd U is all that is required.
So I got my machine together, prepped the two CDs with the OS, and sat down to work.
Let me say now, if you’re expecting a long-winded write-up on the agony of defeat and the burning sensation accompanying urination on the failed project, you’ll be disappointed. As a PC person, I am more than willing to admit Windows (all versions) has certain…. idiosyncrasies. Which is to say, you can usually expect to feel like you’ve been dragged over hot coals and jagged shards of broken glass while being slowly sodomized with a red-hot iron poker wrapped in rusty barbed wire.
The install, however, couldn’t have gone more smoothly. The install is pure Windows XP, and nothing remotely special happens until you go to set up the Media Center features. I managed to acquire an MCE remote from my favorite PC parts reseller, Newegg, plugged it in, and began setup.
The wizards walk you through it. You set up sound and video, autodetecting the video card, sound card, and video capture card. And then, the most spectacular thing. Spectacular enough to give me paroxysms of joy. It actually autodetected my digital cable box, and helped me calibrate the IR blaster to change the channels for me! In addition, I chose my preferred region and cable provider so I would get the correct Enhanced Programming Guid (EPG), and I was pretty much all set.
Yeah, that’s right. All set. I turned it on, set the Media Center features to auto-start with Windows, and away I went!
Now, you might look at the parts list above and say, “Well, sure, but TiVo is only $149! You have several hundred dollars of parts listed!”
Yes, that’s true. Except I already had the PC doing nothing (I’m a nerd, don’t ask). I also had the video card and Hauppauge capture card from previous experiments. Actually, I had the RAM and hard drives as well. My total out-of-pocket costs were pretty much $50 for the remote.
What are the advantages of MCE over TiVo? I can load all my music up in the ‘My Music’ category, load video into ‘My Video’, pictures to the ‘My Pictures’ section. I can control everything from that one remote, including my cable. This is in addition to recording capabilities on par with TiVo (except the supposedly intelligent recording feature that tries to ‘learn’ your preferences… but I never liked that feature anyway). And if I need a quick check of my email, I can minimize the MCE interface and use the PC right off my TV.
Fan-freakin’-tastic. Oh, and another feature not included with TiVo: I can burn my recorded shows right to DVD.
I still have yet to get a gander at MCE 2005. My Toshie lappie only has MCE 2003, and I have no desire to upgrade.
So, how does MCE compare to BeyondTV? Or, SageTV?
Maybe your next project can be to take the copy of Ubuntu I gave you, and setup a MythTV box. You know, cuz you have nothing better to do.
Well, all three products have similar features. You can archive music and video through them. Where MCE really shines is in the functioning of the remote. It works almost flawlessly, and because it’s all part of the OS, getting it to do something doesn’t require downloading hacked drivers and dll files. For example, Sage was terrible at controlling the cable box, so one had to download all sorts of edited ini files (or edit them manually). Getting Sage to control a cable box via serial port was horrendously difficult at best, and utterly impossible at worst. And it required downloading a few hacked dll files. Although MCE doesn’t support serial control of cable boxes, it hardly seems to need it, as it almost never screws up channel changing for me.
I cannot comment on the very latest versions of Sage or BeyondTV, however, as it has indeed been a long while since I used either. Perhaps I will build out another box to compare them.