The crummy analog picture quality of the Comcast DVR [superbowlcomcastdvr, comcastdvrwar, comcastdvrdst, newcomcastdvr, comcastdvrdead, comcastdvrdelete, comcastdvravsforum, comcastdvrcodes] box has me actively researching solutions for building my own HDTV ![[WikiPedia]](http://www.mikeyp.com/css/external.gif)
PVR . I didn't expect to discover that the Electronic Frontier Foundation supports and encourages people to build their own HD PVRs before the FCC-mandated broadcast flag goes in effect this summer.
Thank you EFF!
BTW, did you know that ElGato makes an external HDTV decoder with FireWire output?
We talked to the ElGato guys at MacWorld. The hardware is very slick, but more importantly, the guys Get It. They were very open to firmware tweaks and hacking their own box. I asked them what they were planning to do come July (regarding the broadcast flag) and they said they couldn't talk about it. My feeling is that they would enable the broadcast flag _in software_, which is a Good Thing.
Some cool bits - The ElGato does require a Mac to record, but since it's pulling raw streams, the recording hardware requirements are low. The playback requirements are a killer though, as the stream is MPEG, the playback is platform agnostic which means you're not locked into a $2k dual G5, you could get away with a $1k homebuilt HTPC.
Nice. If El Gato would only a) publish the stream specs for linux geeks and windows drivers, and b) support CableCard for encrypted QAM, we'd be totally set, and they would have the corner on the HTPC market.
Bought one of those ElGato EyeTV HD Tuners right after MacWorld. (They had the show price for it on their website for a few days after MacWorld ended.)
It arrived last week, and I'm still waiting for the EFF-recommended indoor antenna to arrive from Amazon.com, but experiments using the $0.99 rabbit ears I found have been promising.
Like StickyC says, you need some horsepower to play back HD fullscreen/full frame rate, but both my underpowered non-current macs have no problem recording the the HD stream. My little iBook G4 can play back a decent 12in window with minimal choppiness, but since there's no DRM, I can move the recordings to my much more capable PC.
The EyeTV dovetails nicely with TitanTv.com for scheduling recordings/guide data. Not as nice as the Tivo interface yet, but Grandma could do it after you set it up for her.
There's some editing capability (for removing commercials, etc.) and you can export in a number of formats.
The tuner will also handle Clear QAM, but since I'm a DirecTV boy I don't have access to anything but ATSC.
Probably the worst thing about this box is that I just KNOW it's gonna cost me big time as a rationalization to buy that dual G5 I really don't need.
