Building your own DVR sounds like a job for a computer engineer, right? Try again. Even PC newcomers can put one of these together. In three steps, you can take a plain jane PC and revamp it into a working media center.
The Steps
- Buy A Tuner Card Your new homemade DVR needs a way to get a signal in. This is how you do it. If the PC you’re starting with doesn’t have much room inside, you can always utilize external tuners.
- Buy DVR software Your tuner card may come with some. Throw it away. Personally, I think Beyond TV is the easiest way to get a simple DVR running. Plus it comes with a remote.
- Buy A Video Card Make sure it has the video output you need.
Hook up your cable. Plug in your TV. Boot it up. Boom. You’re done.
Is your DVR perfect? Nope. You’ll probably need some more hard drive space, a quieter cooling system, and some more software. But it sure isn’t bad for 3 simple steps.
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Paul Ames | June 16th, 2008 at 8:53 pm | link
How does one move a DVD onto a DVR?
Pete | January 18th, 2010 at 4:01 pm | link
I think a tuner card in a PC will not work with Verizon FIOS. I just had FIOS installed and the tuners in my HD TV will not work. I had to rent either a stinko NTSC TV digital converter box, or a HD set top box, or a Motorola DVR from Verizon. Have you any info about FIOS and a tuner card ? I would love to save some bucks and do my own DVR’ing and converting.