Are Media PCs still a thing?

[Morat]

I was wondering....
After getting the TV aerial fixed, I'm now pondering the replacement for our dead Humax PVR box which did sterling service for a number of years before turning up its toes.

Right now, the Smart part of our 5 year old Samsung TV has been replaced with a Chromecast and phones but this doesn't allow recording "real" TV and a lot of the streaming options seem to take a long time to show up after a program shows on air.

I'm wondering if I'd be better off home brewing a media PC with an HDMI output for the current 1080p TV but able to move up to 4K  should I feel flush enough to buy a 4K monitor for it.

Does anyone else do this? I seem to recall this was quite popular a few years back but things seem to have a gone a bit quiet. I'd be interested to hear of people's experiences if you wouldn't mind sharing...
Thanks,
Morat

[pdm]

I went the MythTV route using the Mythbuntu distribution.
I bought a little fanless PC (four core 1.6GHz AMD powered, 4 GB memory, HDMI output - 18W peak consumption). Built in 1.5TB 2.5" low power drive for recordings. 4TB USB3 HD for stored movies, shows, music and photos. HDHomerun tuner (2 transport, 4 channel) tuner - bought a 2nd later to allow multiple live TV users concurrent with multiple recordings.
Setting up the MythTV backend takes a bit of practice but once done works fine.
The PC also provides the main frontend.
Both MythTV provides a web interface to allow remote control of all aspects of recordings, show archiving, etc.
For slave TVs in other rooms, I use Raspberry PI3 boxes running Mythfrontend (or OSMC (kodi)) with the PC set as the backend - 1080 HD only, no 4k possiblewith Pi3. Cheap, reliable, WiFi or Ethernet built in and easily duplicated to as many rooms as you wish.
Thus far I have experimented with MythTV, PLEX, OSMC + TVHeadend; all systems have pros and cons - for our specific needs, MythTV front and back seem to give the best results...
TVHeadend as a backend is slightly easier to set up and the remote web interface is a bit more comprehensive in that it also provides backend setup pages; I set up a system for my son in law using a Pi3 and HDHomerun (<£200 total cost with 3TB storage) as both backend and frontend (OSMC with TVheadend)
PLEX is great as a media source system but the DVR is still rudimentary and it costs money...
Let me know if you need to know more.

[Afasoas]

Similar here - EMBY backend and a couple of Pis distributed around the house running Kodi with EMBY plugins/skins.
EMBY does support some TV tuner cards and thus probably offers PVR functionality. I've not used it, so I've no idea how good it is/isn't.

If I had infinite time and money I'd look at adding DVB and FreeSAT tuner cards to a media server and implement a server based PVR. Nice to have the ability to watch realtime TV broadcasts on any device using just a web browser.

[jiberjaber]

I've been dabbling with media PCs for a loooong time, we are lucky our Samsung SmartTV can record to a USB thumbdrive, so that sorts out Mrs JJ's fetish for crap tv being recorded, for everything else I have a FireTV with Kodi installed so access to everything else on that.

If I didnt have the recording facility on the TV I'd resurect the DVB cards on the servers up there with TVheadend and use the fireTV and kodi to bring them to the living room etc

I quite like the simplicity of my current setup.

[Morat]

Thanks all, your posts have given me much Google fodder.
My geeky side is full of anticipation

[Charlotte]

We just have a Mac mini and a big arse screen in the living room because ICBA sodding about with Linux just to watch a bit of telly.

[Kim]

We just have a Mac mini and a big arse screen in the living room because ICBA sodding about with Linux just to watch a bit of telly.

This, but without the big arse screen.  Or the Mac Mini.

And that's not through lack of skills required to make MythTV or whatever do its thing.  There's just so little worth watching that it wasn't worth maintaining dedicated systems for.

[ian]

I heard an advert on the radiogram the other day about the latest Sky gizmo letting you record something like seven shows at the same time. Seven. Who watches that much TV? Well, other than my parents, I suppose.

Anyway, we used to use a Mac Mini until we gave up with terrestrial TV. Everything comes through the internet these days and the LG smart TV does everything we need with zero palaver.

[Ben T]

I heard an advert on the radiogram the other day about the latest Sky gizmo letting you record something like seven shows at the same time. Seven. Who watches that much TV? Well, other than my parents, I suppose.

Anyway, we used to use a Mac Mini until we gave up with terrestrial TV. Everything comes through the internet these days and the LG smart TV does everything we need with zero palaver.

Yeah Sky Q I think it's called?
We find we do need more than 2, but could probably manage with 3 or 4.
We never watch anything live except on BBC so we don't have to watch adverts.

[ian]

I honestly don't know how people find the time to watch all the TV they evidently watch. By the time I've done all the very unquantifiably important things I normally do, cooked and eaten my tea, chased the cats, been to the pub etc. etc. it's always nudging towards 11pm. I might squeeze in something from a box set before bed. I did record stuff once-upon-a-time, it mostly just lazed around like some magnetic teenager sponging up precious hard disk space.

From a very brief exposure the other day (the Kleenex toilet paper kiddie arse inspector), I definitely can't handle adverts. That enhanced tolerance from my days as an American is long gone.

Of course, if I didn't spend my time diverting threads and annoying everyone with my stream of consciousness flights of fancy here, I'd have loads of time for TV.

[pdm]

I for one would dispense with the whole lot but the household needs are subservient to others... 
Personally, I record a handful movies (all the good ones eventually show up and can be cherry picked), the odd really good TV series, some nature programs and the grand tour highlights; all of which go into the archive to be watched at leisure.
The system I have put together allows the whole family, local and remote, to record to or watch from the archive at will whatever they wish.

[Morat]

I for one would dispense with the whole lot but the household needs are subservient to others... 
Personally, I record a handful movies (all the good ones eventually show up and can be cherry picked), the odd really good TV series, some nature programs and the grand tour highlights; all of which go into the archive to be watched at leisure.
The system I have put together allows the whole family, local and remote, to record to or watch from the archive at will whatever they wish.

Those are pretty much exactly my requirements too, with the addition of Mrs Morat needing a library of well watched movies to help with insomnia. And Formula One. I think what I'm really after is a way to turn Freeview into a streaming service, plus we don't have _any_ disk based video devices any more and I'd like to be able to swap some box sets without bothering to rip them all.

I might start by looking through the scrap pile at work, most are small form factor i5 with integrated video but some might have a spare PCIe slot. I really can't remember.