The Freevo Box Planning Stages

(Part of the BuildingFreevo set.)

Hardware

Talking to Henry Stern a while back, I mentioned that I was thinking of building a PVR -- his tip was:

Turns out, after a little research, that's basically what I'm going to aim for. it's fanless, therefore silent, and lots of people have got it working, which is nice. So I'm basing this off that.

EPIA M mainboard: http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_m_spec.jsp?motherboardId=81

EPIA howto: http://www3.sympatico.ca/howlettfamily/epia/epia_howto/

some quotes from the internets:

Regarding the PVR-250 -- that's only MPEG encoding. With a 600 Mhz CPU, I want to offload the decoding as well, so the PVR-350 is necessary.

The Case

If I build it in mini-ITX form factor, it's quite small and can fit in nice homemade cases like this: http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/minimeshbox/

Although it looks like I might be able to get hold of an old Sun DAT tape drive:

sun811tape

Turns out someone built something similar before -- The EdenStation IPX.

Random Links

http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.1

http://www.byopvr.com/Sections+index-req-viewarticle-artid-10.html

http://freevo.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html

http://www.linuxprofessionalsolutions.com/pavlicek/tv.html

http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1706.html

http://www-isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de/~hi93/myth/mythtv_debian_epia_pvr350_walkthrough

Installing mytv tv on gentoo http://home.comcast.net/~alf_park/mythtv.html

Shopping List

(Froogle finds, for the most part)

EPIA-ME6000 Eden & mainboard http://store.yahoo.com/logicalplus/viaeped60fac3.html

Kingston 512MB DDR266 PC2100 CL2.5 same store

Seagate ST380011A 80GB 7200rpm Ultra ATA/100 http://store.yahoo.com/logicalplus/seba8072inti.html

PVR-350 http://www.cheapnetstuff.com/ProductDetails.aspx?Prod_ID=152589&Source=Froogle

PW-80 fanless power adapter http://shop.store.yahoo.com/ituner/pw80.html (TODO: look for cheaper)

= $455

Linksys LKS-WUSB54GP portable USB adapter http://store.yahoo.com/logicalplus/lilkwipousba.html

OR: D-Link DWL-120 802.11b USB card http://store.yahoo.com/logicalplus/dlindw8011wi1.html

Shopping Tips

'I've used Froogle, and I've used Ebay. I'd use EBAY iff (if and only if) the ratio of good/bad is > 98%. But hey, that is me. I have only come across one "neutral vote" ebay deal, where the dude didn't tell me that the binding on the book I bought was bad. Other than that, I've had a bunch of good deals.'

'always check with the seller for shipping costs before bidding. the online calculator is often wrong, and doesn't include handling charges which can sometimes be more than the shipping itself.'

'As for shopping for hardware? Froogle is good, so is pricegrabber, pricescan, slickdeals.net, and a lot of people seem to like fat wallet for some reason. But, if your overall savings is less than a hundred bucks, I don't really think it's worth all the concern you have. Spend that money on new equipment and you'll never have to worry about some ebay seller spending your money on donkey porn and sending you a box of iron filings.'

'Just get it from newegg and be happy.'

Next Stage

onward! FreevoHardwareBought

FreevoPlanning (last edited 2007-04-27 22:17:55 by proxy)