I’ve been the proud owner of a TiVo for 2-3 years now - it’s a great example of how home technology should be done, whilst at the same time it’s a source of great frustration to me because TiVo have kind of abandoned it - in the UK at least (and the company seems to have lost the plot, to boot). I picked mine up for £99 just before TiVo effectively disappeared from UK shop shelves when Thomson stopped making the set-top boxes. Murdoch’s SKY+ has been cleaning up ever since, even though it’s far from perfect and only works with a SKY subscription (you can’t use it with Cable, for example).
Well it looks like the old comparison of TiVo vs. SKY+ discussion is becoming a moot point, as the recent insurgance of media centre (or ‘center’, if you prefer) computer systems shows no signs of slowing. Choice and functionality is blossoming and prices start very low indeed. If you have an old Xbox lying around, you could opt for the open source (GPL) XBMC (Xbox Media Center), or the recently-released Microsoft Media Center Extender For Xbox. Bear in mind that you can pick up a brand-new Xbox for under £100.
Failing that, if you have a spare PC, you could either go for XP Media Center Edition 2005 or something a little more exotic. There are quite a few options available - ShowShifter (currently £29, down from £99), Freevo and Media Portal (both Open Source), or you could just ‘roll your own’ using Windows XP, Linux or even splash out on a dinky Mac Mini.
But looking at what enterprising PC users have done over at Mini-itx.com, it struck me that an ideal media centre project for me would be to take my old, broken, unloved VHS VCR and build a PC into it. The case is black and looks quite smart (gloss black metal, not grey plastic) and could easily house even quite a large PC motherboard. I’d have to think quite carefully about the cooling (don’t want it making too much noise in the living room) but if I do it right, the DVD drive could pop right out of the cassette slot! With the addition of the Quintessential media player and the WinLIRC plugin, I could even use the original remote control. (Thanks to Will for that suggestion, BTW)
It’s seriously tempting….all I need now is a Dremel!