MAKE IT:

The basic sequence of steps is:

1. Build the PC
2. Install the TV and receiver
3. Install the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 card and BeyondTV
4. Install video, music, and game utilities
5. Install PSX/N64 to USB converters
6. Install and configure Girder
7. Install Cygwin and server software
8. Set up firewall and dynamic DNS service

1. Build the PC

I started with an old PC (a Dell Dimension 4500) that had unfortunately been destroyed by lightning. After some experimentation, I figured out that the only bad portions of the PC were the motherboard and the modem (which I didn't need anyway). I decided to replace the motherboard and keep the same case and other hardware because I really liked Dell's clamshell case design. I did some research at my local Fry's electronics store and got a motherboard that would allow me to use the same memory, processor, and case. After getting the PC back up and running with this hardware, I had a pretty decent machine with a 1.8 GHz P4 processor, 256MB DDR2100 RAM, and a 20GB HD. Not bad for a resurrected PC.

I then formatted the hard drive and put Windows 2000 on as the OS. I did this mostly because I had an extra license for Win2K lying around that I wasn't using. I may eventually upgrade to XP, but right now, everything is working well with 2000.

After I had the machine up and running, I decided to add some extra hardware. I added 512MB of RAM, since this would be a server machine and could probably use a little extra RAM. I also added a lot of hard drive space and ended up buying two 120GB hard drives. I figured that I would need quite a bit of space for use with the DVR software, and I would also need quite a bit of space to act as a general file server (for MP3s, movie files, etc.). So I assigned one of the 120GB drives for DVR duty and the other for general file storage. This ended up giving me plenty of room for file storage and about 50 hours of good quality video with the DVR software.

Any modern Windows PC can be used for DVR duty. When choosing an appropriate PC, keep several key features in mind: 1) make sure to have enough memory. If you want to run several applications (for instance, watching a DVD while recording a TV show), then you will want more RAM. You can probably get by with 256MB of RAM, but 512MB of RAM is better. 2) You'll want plenty of hard drive space for your DVR to record TV shows. The more hard drive space, the better. 3) Make sure your power supply is rated high enough to allow you to power the devices in your system. If you add multiple hard drives, a DVD drive, and a hefty 3D graphics video card, then you'll probably want to have a 350 - 400W power supply in your PC.

2. Install the TV and Receiver

Next I needed to hook up the PC to a TV and a receiver. Luckily, I already had a 32-inch TV and a receiver. I also had a working Gainward GeForce3 video card, inherited from the old lightning-struck PC. The card had an S-Video out, and it came with an S-Video to RCA conversion cable, which I used to connect it to the RCA input of the TV. This way, to switch to the the PC, I just hit the TV/Video button on the remote, like I'd do with a Playstation or DVD player. Then I connected the line-out from the PC's sound card to one of the receiver's inputs. I checked out both the video and sound quality by playing a DVD on the PC, and it looked pretty good.

3. Install Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 Card and BeyondTV

Next, I wanted to get the DVR functionality up and running. I wanted to create a TiVo-like experience, so I researched what PC DVR software was available. After a bit of searching, I narrowed the prospects down to BeyondTV and SageTV. After toying with the trial versions of each of these, I decided I liked BeyondTV better. There weren't any good technical reasons for this, as they both seem like excellent products, but I just liked the look and feel of BeyondTV a little better. One of the advantages of BeyondTV is that it has a free program guide service to keep your TV listings up to date. It also has a free service through snapstream.net which allows you to remotely set a show to record via the internet. This is really nice if you've gone on vacation or on a business trip and you suddenly see something that you want to record.

Snapstream, the makers of BeyondTV, offer some very well-priced bundles that include a TV card and a copy of BeyondTV. I did a little more research and found that I couldn't get both the TV card and BeyondTV software any cheaper elsewhere. I ended up getting BeyondTV

bundled with a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 TV card. This card is pretty cool because it includes an IR remote, which is natively compatible with Beyond TV. It also has a hardware MPEG encoder, which offloads demand on the CPU when recording MPEG files. I thought this was important since I knew that the PC would have other things running (HTTP server, WinDVD, etc.) while it was recording shows.

Installation of the TV card and BeyondTV was pretty simple. I won't put a detailed blow-by-blow of it here, because I just followed the included instructions and that worked fine.

One thing to note with the most recent version of BeyondTV is that it can now record TV from multiple tuner cards. This means you can simultaneously record multiple shows on different TV channels.

Main menu of BeyondTV

4. Install Video, Music, and Game Utilities

At this point, I needed to install the rest of the software I would need:

• WinDVD (http://www.intervideo.com/): I had a copy of WinDVD 3 that came with the aforementioned Gainward GeForce3 card. This is a pretty old version of WinDVD, but it plays DVDs, VCDs, and SVCDs perfectly, so I didn't see the need to shell out any more cash for a new version.
• Winamp (http://www.winamp.com/): This de facto standard MP3 player is simple and works great. Why change what works? I did increase the font size and the front panel dimensions to look better on the TV screen, though.
• VNC (http://www.realvnc.com/): I don't know if you've ever seen a PC's output on a TV, but it pretty much sucks. TVs just can't handle a resolution that high. BeyondTV and WinDVD are made to look good on lower resolutions, but regular Windows programs are a bit hard to read. VNC is a free program that can be used very similarly to the Remote Desktop feature in Windows XP (basically, it allows a graphical remote desktop view). I use VNC on the PC so that I can login and manipulate the desktop from my laptop at full PC resolution, rather than having to do it from the TV screen.
• SlimServer (http://www.slimdevices.com/): This is a free, open source program that allows you to remotely stream your MP3 collection through the internet. The beauty of it is that you only need an internet connection, a web browser, and a media player on the client side (Winamp and Windows Media Player both work fine) in order to listen to your entire MP3 collection from anywhere in the world. I use this to listen to my music collection at work, so I don't have to lug around a stack of burned CDs. This is one of the coolest free programs I've seen.

Web interface of SlimServer. You choose songs from the left frame, and the player interface is shown on the right.

• Various game emulators: At this point, I also installed a slew of emulators. Emulators allow you to play games from various consoles and arcade machines. All you need is the appropriate emulator for a given system and ROM files, which are binary dumps of game cartridges. Some of my favorite emulators are ZSNES (Super Nintendo), Visualboy Advance (Nintendo Gameboy Advance), 1964 (Nintendo 64), and MAME (Multiple Arcade Games). There are many other emulators available; the best place to find them is http://www.zophar.net/. If you don't already know where to get game ROMs, you should do some searching on the internet for sources of ROMs. Note that it is illegal to have a ROM for a game unless you own the original game cartridge.

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