Fire Comcast TV ... They are fired!!

I've been working for some while to get rid of Comcast TV service.  For the last month or so we've not used any Comcast content so today I canceled the TV service and returned their equipment.  Of course Comcast in their infinite but bone headed wisdom decided to increase the cost of the remaining service $10/month!  That's a great incentive to continue to do business with them ... NOT.

In a related development, Verizon is working at the end of the street so there is some hope that broadband will soon be available.  Given that Verizon cost is comparable and included phone service Comcast is going to get fired completely.

I got an email from an old friend about my Fire Comcast system and sent the following reply.  It sums up things fairly well.

The answer to all questions is 'it depends.'  I built my system on old used gear of one sort or another on a 100 Mbps network.  By splitting the recording and playback functions I was able to use older/slower gear.  It's certainly possible to build a single PC system but I'd be concerned about cost.  Here's the current state:

• Tuner - HD Homerun dual tuner ($94) -Takes the digitization load off the DVR.

• Antenna ($0) - Made several from internet plans.  The fractal antenna works as well as anything else.

• TV DVR - MythTV running on 3 Ghz P4 with 1.5GB memory & 360 GB of old IDE drives ($70 for box, power supply, motherboard & memory, $0 for disk drives salvaged from old machines).  This box is ONLY responsible for recording OTA from the HD Homerun and playing back to another machine driving the TV.  There are some issues when recording two shows while playing back a third.  Most likely it's either a processor or disk issue.  There are a number of fixes the cheapest of which is to setup a cron job to move the recordings to the playback machine overnight ($0).

• TV computer - Intell Core 2 DUO, 2.4 GHz, 3 GB main memory, 2 sata disk drives ($90), chassis and power supply ($70), 1 TB USB ($99).  This machine drives the TV and downloads NZB content.  I overspent on it as I was anxious to get the whole system up and fire Comcast ($90/month) so the extra expense seemed justified.  I run XBMC as the principal video display software with extensions to playback MythTV recordings (loose commercial skip so I just skip forward 30 seconds to get past commercials).  I run Sabnzbd for NZB content download and store it in the XBMC directories.  I also setup a bunch of desktop launchers for major networks and a web page with show links.  This allows watching current shows on the show sites.  We don't much use these.  I use vobcopy on this machine to copy DVDs for backup and later viewing.  We get DVDs via netflixs and from the library.  I use an XVGA interface to the TV since the TV has a conformal display mode better than HDMI (machine doesn't have an HDMI output).  This box is overkill to drive the TV (previously I'd used a P3 laptop).  I use it because of the XVGA resolution compatibility with the TV.

All in all the system works well.  All of the hardware is used/salvage (exception is 1TB USB disk & HD Homerun).  Most was bought on Craigs list. There's much to recommend partitioning functions across a network.  With complete P4 systems going for anywhere from $30 to $70 I suspect that this configuration could be replicated for about 2/3 of what I spent.

A couple of pieces of advice.  

• Get a good solid TV interface early in the process.  The laptop I used to drive the TV originally had plenty of power but couldn't drive the TV at HDMI or better resolution.  Check your TV docs to see what inputs it has at what resolutions.  If you've got a HDMI 720 or better D shell input you'll likely be satisfied with the video quality for TV (most hi def TV is actually 720p/i) but may have issues with DVDs.  Above 1080 it's all VERY GOOD.

• I tried several OTA TV DVR software packages.  MythTV is the pick of the litter.  Plan on installing it several/many times as you sort through the configuration issues.  There's lots of docs available but be aware that there have been several versions and the docs while giving useful clues are not reliably current, often contradictory, often confusing, often incomplete, etc.  That said, the clue you need to configure is out there somewhere you just need to be patient, keep looking, and be willing to do things over and over again until you get it sorted.

• I prefer XBMC over MythTV as a viewing interface but it's only a preference.  Several factors drove my choice.  XBMC has a good mouse interface and the new Logitech wireless mouse has good range, is cheap, and works well.  I also wanted a keyboard/mouse interface on the TV system so it is usable for other purposes.  If you are going to use MythTV as the viewing interface you'll probably want a remote as it is oriented that way.

• There is much good information on YouTube.  Look at it BEFORE you get started.  That said, don't believe everything you see.

• Start with what you have by way of hardware.  When you run into issues then you can direct your spend at the real problem.  My original configuration was a P3 laptop with a broken keyboard and a 486 doing OTA recording.  It actually worked surprisingly well.

• Experiment a bit with NZB before getting over involved with DVR recording.  Checkout NZB.su.  Likewise, experiment with the network TV show sites before getting over involved with DVR recording.  Hulu is good.  There is a LOT of recorded content available and you may not want/need to do as much DVR recording as you think.  

Good luck with it.  Let me know how you do.
Regards,
Richard