Cheap alternative to Tivo? (HD)

[InnocentBystander]

I've been itching to be able to record stuff in HD for some time now, but just can't bring myself to pay monthly for the horrific Scientific Atlanta machines that cablevision hands out when I've got Tivo. Yesterday I learned that Tivo was coming out with a series 3 lite, less bells and $300, not bad. Additionally I learned that the lifetime subscription on the Tivo my dad gave me can be tranfered for $200, but not after 2007.

So if I want the goodness of Tivo in HD without monthly payments I'll have to lay down $500 fairly soon. This is no small amount, one which I'd rather put towards other things. So before I go spending all sorts of crazy money I wanted to ask - are there any good alternatives?

I've got a spare socket A machine from 5 or 6 years ago that I have been meaning to put a flavor of linux or BSD on for about 6 months which could do this, but its a HUGE full tower and is a real eyesore that I wouldn't want in the living room. The only real requirement is that it works about as well as tivo and doesn't require a lot of setup or maintenance time.

[Vendetta]

Cheapass windows MCE machine? Would do the trick. Could hide it in a back room and stream media to a more pleasant looking device for the front room (laptop, 360, whatever).

[Alferd Packer]

Well, assuming you get a tuner card properly installed in a Linux box, you can try MythTV. I believe, however, that that is a tremendous pain in the ass if you're not Linux savvy. If you are, and you buy the right tuner card, you could probably turn it into a fun project.

[InnocentBystander]

Any suggestions on high def tuner cards? I'm fairly sure all those nice cheap looking ones don't do 1080p or even 720p (which would be good enough). How does windows MCE or MythTV compare to Tivo in terms of ease of use? Do I have to configure channel guides and stay on top of the cable listings?