One of my summer projects was to build a media center with either Myth (Linux) or Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). I had most of the parts already, so in the end all that I bought new was a case and a TV tuner card. Here’s the specs of the system as it stands now:

Motherboard: MSI MS-6380
Processor: AMD AthlonXP 2200+
Memory: 1GB PC2700
Video: BFG nVidia GeForce FX 5500 ( 256MB )
Sound: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy MP3
Network: Realtek RL8169 Gigabit PCI
TV Card: eVGA NVTV Single Tuner ( 16MB )

There’s also a Broadcom V.92 56k modem installed for Caller ID functionality, a USB 2.0 PCI card (as the motherboard only supports USB 1.1), and a 16x DVD-ROM.

Originally I wanted to make it a MythTV-powered box, so I started a Gentoo install. After a day or so, I got Gentoo installed and all 2347923487 prereqs for MythTV (there’s not that many, but there’s still alot of pre-install work). After finally having everything installed, I discovered that the decoder chipset on the NVTV (Philips SAA7173HL/101) is not, in fact, supported by MythTV. This was rather depressing as that meant all that time compiling was somewhat down the drain. My next step was to try MCE. By chance I got MCE through the company I’m working for, so I do in fact have a legit OEM (with no logos or anything on it) copy of MCE. After installing and getting the box all set up, I had a working MCE Box. Although it’s not powered by MythTV, it still earned the name “mythbox”.

MCE 2005 is nice, but works a lot better with the remote. This cost me about $30 and a quick search on eBay. Now I have a fully working Media Center box that works as a TiVo, a FM tuner, a DVD player, a CD player, MP3 player, and more. One especially nice thing about it is the Online Links section includes a link for XM Radio Online, which means I can listen to XM on there instead of the *fabulous* Milwaukee-area radio…

One surprising thing about MCE is it’s very easy to copy recorded TV. After making the Shared Documents folder shared, I discovered a “Recorded TV” folder which keeps all your recorded TV. After setting a record for MythBusters, MCE placed it nicely in my Recorded TV folder with the title of the show, channel name, date, and time, all in a “Microsoft Recorded TV Show” file that plays in Windows Media Player. It’s not MPEG-2 format, and you can tell by the size of the file (Screenshot: Mythbox Documents).
3GB is a lot of space for a 1 hour show. That means that my 20GB hard drive that I’m starting with will fill up very quickly.

As for now the Mythbox has been put downstairs and is hooked up to my TV to serve as the final TiVo in the house (therefore making all 3 TV’s have TiVo). Unlike a regular TiVo though, burning recorded TV will be a breeze.

I haven’t been able to play around with the Mythbox too much, but I’ll post more details in the future as I play around with it more.

~Jaker