TiVo without the service?

[Killer-Kris]

Now I realize that most people have TiVos go ahead and subscribe to the service as well, but for someone like me who can't justify a recurring subscription fee how useful would a Series 2 TCD540080 be?

I've been getting conflicting information about what features are actually left enabled in TiVos these days without the service. I've read that only certain Series 1 boxes can still be manually set to record at a specified day, time, and channel. If that's true, what competitor out there that can?

At this point it almost seems like it would be more worth my time, energy, and money to build a new PC with Windows Media Center on it instead.

 

[Blazkowicz]

or build a crap PC with "linux media center" or a plain old windows version (98 or better). i.e. any PC thrown to garbage fast enough to read DVD and divx plus a new 250GB HDD.

 

[Killer-Kris]

or build a crap PC with "linux media center" or a plain old windows version (98 or better). i.e. any PC thrown to garbage fast enough to read DVD and divx plus a new 250GB HDD.

Well our current main TV is actually an old computer with an ancient All-In-Wonder of which I've never managed to get the recording to work properly. Any suggestions on software that would let me keep using the RF remote? Or perhaps I should just sit down with the manual some day and see about reading and following the instructions step-by-step instead of assuming I can figure it out on my own. :smile:

 

[nutball]

I use MythTV (under Linux) for my PVR/HTPC systems. It can be a bit of a fanny to set up if you factor in the additional stuff you generally need to build on top of a standard desktop Linux distro (eg. getting the tuner cards working, getting LIRC working, etc.). However once it's going it's generally pretty useable. I think there are one-shot distros which come bundled with MythTV and everything it needs (Knoppmyth I think it's called).

I use one of the ATI RF remotes on one of my front-ends, it's supported under LIRC these days. Works very well.

 

[Killer-Kris]

Thank you nutball, knoppmyth sounds like just the sort of thing I need to try out. Sadly it'll have to wait until the weekend is over and I have a little bit of free time.

Thank you everyone, it's been quite helpful and likely saved me a boat load of money.