Refurbished/Off Lease PCs

[235301]

I am thinking about building another PC based DVR. I am having trouble justifying the cost vs say TIVO or a cable DVR if I have to build a new machine. I am trying to find refurbished or off lease machines as a way of keeping the cost down. Does anyone have any recommendations for off-lease/refurbs? Note: I am in the US.

Thanks!

[Fatman_do]

You can match the same specs as your sig from various ebay stores. They usually sell Dell slim case boxes that may not have many PCI slot options. Prices usually are in the $180 range with 40gb hard drive, which you would have to replace with something larger, unless you use external (or NAS) storage.

I have been contemplating these for some time as well.

[highestbid]

You might also try
http://www.dellauction.com/cgi-bin/ncomm...MoreSubs=Y

[ilovejedd]

I tend to analyze costs on an annual basis.

Cable Company DVR ($15~$20/mo; $180~$240/yr)

• easy set-up
  
• small storage
  

TiVo HD ($250 upfront, $12.95/mo; $379~405 1st yr, $129~$155/yr after)

• easy set-up
  
• small storage
  
• upfront costs
  

HTPC (varies)

• relatively involved set-up
  
• large upfront costs
  
• extremely flexible
  

While it's hard to beat the cable company's DVR on cost, it's possible to get a fully-functional HTPC cheaper than the TiVo. The Dell Inspiron Zino HD ($229) makes for a decent HTPC, unfortunately, any tuners will have to be external. The Dell Inspiron 537s ($249) also seems to be a decent base for an HTPC. You can find some nice discounts on fully configured builds on Dell Outlet.

[235301]

I appreciate the feedback. I find the Zino pretty fascinating-does anyone have any experience running gpbvr on a Zino, especially with HD? And if so then are there recommended capture cards?

Thanks!

I tend to analyze costs on an annual basis.

Cable Company DVR ($15~$20/mo; $180~$240/yr)

• easy set-up
  
• small storage
  

TiVo HD ($250 upfront, $12.95/mo; $379~405 1st yr, $129~$155/yr after)

• easy set-up
  
• small storage
  
• upfront costs
  

HTPC (varies)

• relatively involved set-up
  
• large upfront costs
  
• extremely flexible
  

While it's hard to beat the cable company's DVR on cost, it's possible to get a fully-functional HTPC cheaper than the TiVo. The Dell Inspiron Zino HD ($229) makes for a decent HTPC, unfortunately, any tuners will have to be external. The Dell Inspiron 537s ($249) also seems to be a decent base for an HTPC. You can find some nice discounts on fully configured builds on Dell Outlet.

[highestbid]

I dont think anyone can justify gbpvr over a dvr STD on cost alone unless you are happy with the limited channels you can get QAM or unscrabled on basic cable. The problem with all the cost analysis is that even with HTPC in most places you still have to have a STB and if you want your HTPC to be able to tune 2 channels you have to have 2 STB's. The monthly cost of two STB's alone is generally as much or more than 1 dual channel DVR then add to that the cost of a dual tuner card (pvr-500 $50+) and a dual blaster (MCE remote $20+) plus a cheap off lease PC of say P4 3.0 1 gig will set you back another $200+ then might have to upgrade the video card another $20+
So for $300+ and the cost of 2 monthly rentals for non-dvr STB's ($11 each here in huntsville) you can pretty much do what a single DVR STB ($25 a month here in Huntsville) does. Oh yeah did I mention that getting to OnDemand or controling other special features is almost impossible thru an MCE remote? On top of all this add 100+ hours scouring thru this forum (everyone here is really helpful but there are 1,000's of posts) trying to get all the pieces to work together (especially controling dual STB's) and the cost of gbpvr FAR outweighs the annual cost of just getting a box from suddenlink. And you wont piss off your wife with a bunch of new stuff to learn.

All that being said I still use GBPVR in my office tho I am limited to a single channel because I'm not smart enough to control two STB's. All the issues aside being able to control most of the STB functions plus easy links to HULU desk top and Netflix makes having an HTPC worth all the trouble and cost in the end. I like the abilty to rearrange the TV listing, sort recorded programs, etc... And I am looking into alternatives to the MCE remote that might make dual STB's do-able.

I vote YES on gbpvr even with all the issues -- but not on a cost justified basis.

[ilovejedd]

Lots of places still have analog cable. For people who don't want digital-only channels and on-demand, an HTPC can be more economical. No need to rent a set-top box. An analog-only subscription also tends to be cheaper.

I find myself only watching a couple of programs from network TV so I just cancelled cable TV and shaved $100 off the cable bill. Right now, I just pay $65 for cable internet (20mbps) every month and rely on OTA, Hulu and Netflix for my viewing needs. The only thing I miss now that we've cancelled cable are Lakers games on ESPN and FSN. Pay TV is pretty much a necessity for sports.

Note, I never said anything about the HTPC beating a cable company DVR based on cost. I just mentioned it's possible to get one cheaper and a darned sight more flexible than the TiVo.

I don't know of anyone who uses the Zino HD with GB-PVR. However, it's just another PC. A better question would be how well does GB-PVR work with Windows Vista or 7 since those are the operating systems that the Zino ship with. I don't even know if Dell has Zino drivers for XP.

[HarryH3]

Look at the specs carefully on off-lease stuff. Much of what's out there needs memory and hard drive upgrades. IDE hard drives are hard to find in big capacities and more expensive than the SATA drives. PC-3200 memory is stupidly expensive. More and more software comes on DVD's instead of CD's, so you may need to purchase a DVD reader also. You can quickly spend a lot of money on an old system, trying to bring it up to usable specs. Watch for deals on Black Friday and you may get a modern, much faster system that already has most of the good stuff for about the same money you would spend "fixing" an older system.

[8ace]

hi - running a three week old $199 ebay Dell Optiplex (inc shipping) which more than adequately supports HD video both in and out.

the machine is

QUIET
Cheap
Capable - 1gbps LAN and fast SATA
Low power

Spec - 2gb RAM, Dual core pentium. Plenty of horsepower for regular stuff INCLUDING all your PVR needs!

[HarryH3]

8ace, you forgot to provide a link so others can get in on your deal.