The earliest reference I can find to “PiVo,” the first PC-based DVR I built, is from 2007. Although I had ripped DVDs to my hard drive prior to 2007, after I set up PiVo, I went all in. I decided the future of home entertainment would be streaming movies, both over the internet and locally. I spent years converting my 1,000+ DVD collection into digital files — first as AVI files, and later, as technology improved, to MP4 and MKV format. In 2011 we moved to our current house, and my little media streaming network hasn’t been the same since.… (read more)