Hello all. This is my first post as I am tired of paying $10 a month to charter in order to use my DVR and I want a reliable cheap DVR that I can modify when and how I want, I.E. KhoppMyth.

My biggest concern is that I am going to build me a computer from new parts and I do not want to buy hardware that will either restrict what I want to do with the box or will not work with KnoppMyth.

Here's what I want to be able to Do:
1) Watch live TV and record 2 other shows at the same time (SDTV, HD is not necessary)
2) Have a box that can stay on for weeks (if possible)
3) Use for DVD playback and Digital Audio output.

Here's what I am thinking as my base:
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 2000MHz HT
Mother Board: Any 939 MB with 2 channels PATA and 4 SATA Channels (more later)
RAM: Patriot 1GB or 2GB Kit (whichever one is needed)
TV Capture Cards: 1 Hauppauge PVR-350 and 2 Hauppage PVR-250's

From what I have read, there is trouble with SATA hard drives from boot. My first question is can you boot from a Regular IDE hard drive and use SATA hard drives for storage bypassing this problem?

My next question would be are there any suggestions on Video Cards, Cases, and Motherboards that are known working with KnoppMyth?

What I am hoping for is enough power from the Hardware where I can watch TV off the PVR-350's hardware decoder while two other encoders are there to record at any time (I am not even sure if this is possible). Thanks in advance for anyone able to help.

*More* than enough power. With those cards I reckon I could do it with my little PIII 866. The cards you spec'd are hardware encoders which take very little CPU to encode, and if you use the 350 tvout it takes very little CPU to play back as well. If you aren't going to do HDTV, its probably massive overkill.
1GB is more than ample RAM.
I think you can use the HD config you suggest, but may still need to do a manual install or add the SATA by hand after install.
Read the Tier 1 and 2 posts for hardware suggestions and also here:
http://knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=PickingComponents

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HP VL400 (PIII 866), Skystar2 2.6D, PVR350, Nvidia FX5200, 384MB, 200GB, KnoppMyth R5.5

What you have listed should work fine but here are a few things to consider:

1. Instead of 2 pvr-250s and a 350, I would prefer 2 pvr-500
With this setup you will only need two cable connection instead of three and you will have four tuners so if you have some buffering on shows there's an extra tuner (it seems you can never have enough )

2. Instead of using the s-video out on the pvr-350 use a NVIDIA based 6200 or 7200 video card with DVI or component out to the display
Since you want to watch DVDs you would be better off with a "high definition" output to the display also if you decided to try HDTV you’ll be ready.



If you’re looking for a smaller case this one might work out well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811129014

This is the one I use, works well and looks nice mixed in with the rest of my HT components
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811163044

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Backend System
XP2400
Nforce2 Abit NF7-S ver2
Intergrated nvidia sound and network
Nvidia 6200 DVI out to Projector
multiple drives using LVM
PVR - 500