Building a Personal Video RecorderBuilding a Personal Video Recorder
Memory
The motherboard supports 512MByte SDRAM. The speed must be PC133 or better (the memory what you can buy recently is usually better, PC400 or so). At first i tried with 256MByte RAM only. It works well but i think using 512MByte makes it a bit faster. So i recomend to use 512MByte module. Please note there is only one socket on the motherboard, so you can install only one memory module.
TV Card
I prefer PCI TV cards because they are supported by most of the PVR software. You migth try other cards like USB or PCMCIA but be sure your PVR software supports it. Within PCI cards i like Hauppage (www.hauppage.com) cards, because they are supported by almost all PVR software, they have good quality and reasonable price. I think the best choice is the Hauppage PVR150 or PVR250 if you need radio tuner. In my opinion there is no reason to use PVR350 card (it's same as PVR250+video output) because not all PVR software supports video output other then playing video (e.g. you will not be able to see menu and other screens except video playback).
IR Receiver
The TV cards usually comes with an IR Remote Controller. Because the PVR usually don't have keyboard or mouse IR remote controller is the best way to handle them. The TV cards has an external IR receiver, so you can put them onto the front of your PVR case. The only problem is usually you can't turn on the PVR using IR remote controller. But there is a solution, you should install a separated microcontroller based hardware between your IR receiver and TV card IR input. This hardware captures IR signals and turn on the motherboard. There are some schematics available on the internet.
In my case i made my own hardware, becase i wanted to add more functions to the microcontroller. If you want to implement you IR receiver it will be easy task. The Hauppage remote controllers uses RC5 encoding to send commands. You can find RC5 standard description on the internet or you can take a look at my schematics and source code at the end of the article.
LCD Display
I also added an LCD to my PVR. I think it looks cool and it's very practical in the case of listening music because you don't need to turn on your TV. I choosed graphics LCD (240x64pixel) mostly because i had one :-) and in this case i can display logos, icons and different fonts. If you are looking for a cost effective solution a character display is better option.
As i mentioned i added a microcontroller to my PVR to handle IR signals. This microcontroller also acts as a LCD interface. The microcontroller has USB interface so it's easy for the PC to communicate with it. You need a plug-in for your PVR software to be able to handle USB communication with the LCD. At the end of the article you can find all of the information (schematics, source code).
CAN Interface
I added a CAN interface to my PVR because my home automation system uses this bus to communicate. So i will be able to control my PVR using the LCD+touch screen control panel of the home automation system. I think it's a very nice feature for a people like me, who usually has no idea where he put last time the remote controller. That's why i like the idea of a fixed LCD panel next to my bed. Hopefully i will not loose it.
If you are a well organized people you can omit this feature...
DVD ROM
If you want to playback DVDs or CDs you need a DVD ROM. Some people might prefer to use not only DVD ROM but DVD Writer. I was not interested writing DVDs with my PVR because for me much more convenient to copy stuff to my PC, arrange, cut, transcode, etc. them and finally write DVD on my PC.
Of course most PVR software supports DVD writing, so if you need this feature there is a posibility to use.
I use Teac DVD ROM. There is no specific reason to choose Teac except this one the first one what i found with black front plate. The black color was important for me because i made the PVR case myself and i wanted to paint it black to match with the other Hi-Fi and video equipments what i have.
Harddisk
Bigger is better. At least when we are talking about HDD. Fortunately the price of the harddisks are dropping so a few hundred GByte disk is not so expensive. There is only one other thing to consider. The noise of the HDD. Even there is some software way to decrease the noise of the HDD (slowing down the head movement by changing some settings of the HDD electronics) the more silent HDD is better choice.