I’ve taken my wife’s old computer (2.4ghz, 512MB ram) and turned it into a personal video recorder. It only has a 30gb hard drive so I took another old 30gb hard drive and added that in.

I’ve installed a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150 tv tuner card to plug in our cable line.
I am using the free GB-PVR software to function like a media center, complete with tv recording like a VCR, tv guide downloading, music and video libraries.

Because the cable is split, we only get the basic cable channels, but this is the way we had our VCR set up anyway.

I control the computer using UltraVNC, a free remote desktop control software, so that I can add in things to record from my laptop.

For good quality recording, each hour of video takes about 2gb of hard drive space. Right now, we only record a few shows a week, so the 30gb hard drive should be ok for now. 15 hours is still better than the 6 you get on a VCR tape.

I have a streamzap remote control for the PC that I want to hook up to it as well one of these days but with ultravnc, it is not imperative.

It isn’t the perfect setup since I can’t record things off HBO and other digital and HD channels, but it is much better than having to set up the VCR, fast foward and rewind tapes and then key in all the things you want to tape. A few clicks now and we’re all set.