Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
The idea of selling Myth boxes occured to me to, but I also though a $500 price point was about the upper limit, at least for a frontent/backend. Unfortunately, it's damn near impossible to build one for that without using older and/or used parts. The way I think this could work is by shooting for a smaller niche market with bigger integrated systems across a whole house. Think $3,000+ for backend, multiple front-ends, installation, and 1-year service. The issue here is that every installation would have to be different depending on different conditions. Chances are that anyone interested in this would already have an existing network that Myth would have to fit into. You'd have to be prepared to outfit the front-ends with wireless cards, or to run ethernet cable all over the house. If I was ready to drop $3k on some tv gizmo, I wouldn't want loose cables running all over my house, which means more trouble and more expense. The biggest problem, I think, is that the barriers to entry are quite high -- a potential client would need to have broadband internet, cable tv (as it is much simpler to set up than satellite, particularly with multiple tuners), and be technically savvy enough to understand basically how the system works, such that any problems could be described, if not repaired, by the client. Such people are likely to have the skills to set up their own systems. Still, I think there are opportunities. On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 01:03:19 -0500, Gabe Rubin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At the price range of 1K, who is your target audience? If I pay that > much for something tv related, I want it to work out of the box. Who > is going to pay that much of a premium? I think $500 might be the > price break point, esp if you are not fully functional and full > support, otherwise it is a hobbyist device...and the hobbyists are > here already ;) > > -- > Email me if you want a gmail account, I have invites. > > > ___ > mythtv-users mailing list > mythtv-users@mythtv.org > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users > > > ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Sat, Jan 15, 2005 at 10:56:22PM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 12:53:48PM -0800, Brad Templeton wrote: > > in the clear, on disk or on plain digital outputs. (IIRC, you can > > make it available as QAM or ATSC again, with the broadcast flag intact. > > For a variety of reasons, a cheap ATSC modulator card would be a neat > > thing for PVRs, providing high quality output to HDTVs over RF. I > > find this highly ironic. In the old days, using RF from your VCR to > > your TV was the deprecrated approach. Today, it would be great, a > > simple cheap cable with high quality signal bundling multiple > > channels of audio and video together at perfect digital quality!) > > I noticed you've mentioned this a few times. Do you think it would be > better than DVI + S/PDIF, both of which are commonly available on PCs > today? DVI is uncompressed, hard to make work, and can only be sent over a cable of limited length. (For example you might not be able to run it to a ceiling projector.) For reasons unknown to me, many TVs treat the DVI signal as just a digitized analog one -- it still has sync, it does not contain the aspect ratio information or any data streams etc. ATSC sends the original signal you recorded in the first place. It keeps the signal in its original compressed digital form -- possibly as created in the studio that shot the show -- until the last moment, which is the right thing to do. Sending mp2 (by atsc or firewire) means the PVR needs minimal CPU to watch. (It still may need cpu, but not real time, for transcode and other such events.) > > It also means that your output signal must be MPEG2, even for the Myth > menus, your X desktop etc. Encoding MPEG2 is CPU-intensive. Indeed. My understanding is that the mpeg2 standard used includes a bitmap overlay channel which is not difficult to encode, for use in doing on-screen display etc. One could encode the backgrounds in mp2 and the menus and text using this channel. However, I don't know if you would want to use it as a full time X display. With firewire (now called dtvlink) there is another alternative called DV. DV is for camcorders and is very lightly compressed. In theory it should not be too CPU intensive to make a full X-server for that when doing non-video display. It is likely that the ideal setup would consist of both an mpeg2 streaming method (with OSD overlay ability) over via ATSC or Firewire, and an analog display ability (over vga or DVI). This is possible with the firewire because it includes a control channel so you can tell the TV, "OK, now display the video I am sending you over the firewire. Now switch back to the analog input" and so on. If you had this, you could do an HDTV PVR with the top quality, and minimal hardware in the box. The signal would be as good as it could be, no skips or jitters, even if your computer is busy transcoding etc. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Sat, Jan 15, 2005 at 10:52:36PM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 10:27:26PM -0800, Brad Templeton wrote: > > if you do it cheap you will see: > > > [..] > > PC-HDTV card: $190(For SDTV and 2nd tuner) > > WINTV-PVR-250 $130 > > On an unrelated note, is digital TV coverage in the USA decent enough > that you would be able to forget analog TV sometime soon? Well... yes and no. In this area (SF Bay) all the OTA stations have gone digital, and that's true in many areas. However for most people a large part of TV is no longer in the broadcast sector, and comes only from cable or satellite. In addition for those reverting back to broadcast antennas from cable, it's a bit of an adventure unless all the stations are in the same direction and/or you live close to the transmitters. On the other hand, soon the pc-hdtv card, according to rumours, will support QAM, and be able to pick up the digital signals of the local channels from cable TV, so no antenna adventures, but you still can't tune the cable channels. In June, the broadcast flag tribulations begin -- illegal to sell cards that just give you the raw mpeg stream in the clear. A couple of years after that, however, Moore's law gives us hardware cards that can encode component video or DVI. Then the push will come from the studios to get rid of component video and DVI. (They are already fully underway with DVI, almost all new TV sets have HDMI instead, which is backwards compatible with DVI.) Uncertain how that battle will go. > > In Australia we have SDTV and HDTV on digital. Some networks don't > transmit all programs on their HD channels, but everything is on SDTV at > least. The bitrates are quite reasonable (~3-5Gb per hour). Here, the stations, when they transmit SD, still do it as HD, ie. they upsample the 480i signal into a 1080i encoding, putting bars on the side of it! I find this incredibly stupid, and it means your recordings are giant. Some, but not all of the stations, also do another subchannel with the show in 480i, so you can record that. (I wish they did it 480p, because the 1080i upsampled signal, while huge, is a bit better in quality than the 480i digital signal.) Ideally you would want a smart transcoder that spotted a 1080i signal upsampled to HD, and re-converted it to a 480p mp4 or something. > > I can't tell if your stations there (USA) are transmitting both SDTV and > HDTV on digital? If you have SDTV on digital, why would you include an > analog card like the PVR-250? Because it's only the stations. Almost everybody also wants cable channels. The pcHDTV can in theory record your cable channels (with the no-compression frame grabber) over the svideo port by controlling a digital cable box or other tuner over irblaster, but very few folks are doing this from what I understand. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 12:53:48PM -0800, Brad Templeton wrote: > in the clear, on disk or on plain digital outputs. (IIRC, you can > make it available as QAM or ATSC again, with the broadcast flag intact. > For a variety of reasons, a cheap ATSC modulator card would be a neat > thing for PVRs, providing high quality output to HDTVs over RF. I > find this highly ironic. In the old days, using RF from your VCR to > your TV was the deprecrated approach. Today, it would be great, a > simple cheap cable with high quality signal bundling multiple > channels of audio and video together at perfect digital quality!) I noticed you've mentioned this a few times. Do you think it would be better than DVI + S/PDIF, both of which are commonly available on PCs today? It also means that your output signal must be MPEG2, even for the Myth menus, your X desktop etc. Encoding MPEG2 is CPU-intensive. cheers Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 10:27:26PM -0800, Brad Templeton wrote: > if you do it cheap you will see: > [..] > PC-HDTV card: $190(For SDTV and 2nd tuner) > WINTV-PVR-250 $130 On an unrelated note, is digital TV coverage in the USA decent enough that you would be able to forget analog TV sometime soon? In Australia we have SDTV and HDTV on digital. Some networks don't transmit all programs on their HD channels, but everything is on SDTV at least. The bitrates are quite reasonable (~3-5Gb per hour). My Myth installation has two DVB-T cards. I would only add an analog capture card if I wanted to capture analog cable TV. For free-to-air, DVB-T is obvious - the cards are cheap and require very little CPU. I can't tell if your stations there (USA) are transmitting both SDTV and HDTV on digital? If you have SDTV on digital, why would you include an analog card like the PVR-250? Admittedly for me, Myth was as much a way to get a DVB-T set top box as a PVR. Now STBs are cheap, but they weren't 1 year ago when I purchased my Myth hardware. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Thursday 13 January 2005 02:12 am, Chris Petersen wrote: > This is all turning into something a lot more complex than I originally > intended. Things have been a bit hectic at work lately, so I'm going to > put things on hold for awhile until I can sit down with someone who > understands the supply chain and future availability of things like > cpu's (I'm just the coder, not a sales guy). Heh. Doing a reference design is non-trivial. Instead of working from a retail/off-the-shelf perspective, one possible course of action would be to go at things from a chip/motherboard point of view. One could (conceivably) think about the tuners/demuxers/i2c-thingy's that work at the PVR-250 and/or the HD-3000/air2pc level. Add in a standard CPU socket plus north/south/etc & video/sound out, and then look for bids. Someone like flextronics could probably get back to you with a ballpark figure without an excessive amount of work on either side. That ballpark would, as an outside guess, look roughly like a $100,000 quote to produce something akin to 2,000 boards at $500/per. That unit price would, of course, decline substantially with higher volumes. At a low 6 figure level ($100,000 + plus barebones staffing, bare website, outsourced fulfillment, etc.) one could think about actually raising money from the core myth community (e.g. 10-20 people putting in ~$2,000 each). That's less than a nice HDTV flatscreen per person. Please note that you cannot legally solicit investment funds in the US without jumping through a huge number of legal hoops (heh, land of the free, home of the brave, etc.). Even if the reference design is a "failure" (ie. 20 investors end up with hardware worth $500 after having put in $2,000 each), there is still enormous scope to re-purpose the reference design expertise. Transmeta, for one, is obviously looking to save their skin by making (myth-based?) set-top boxes. There is also, of course, the distinct possibility of burning through hundreds of thousands of dollars, humming and hawing about the nature of the universe, and ending up with jack squat. Ain't the free market messy? - thor ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Fri, Jan 14, 2005 at 02:15:41AM -0500, Maverick wrote: > can't assemble the hardware and install the software, they will goto > the local electronics store, spend $200 on a tivo, buy a lifetime > subscription, and leave the other $500 in the bank. To be strict, the $1000 is for an HD-Mythbox, and an HDTivo is also $1000 plus DirectTv subscription (though it has 4 tuners.) > > I just don't see an advantage in marketing pre-assembled or "canned" > hardware to geeks who have the knowledge to make their own exactly the > way they want. Actually, I do see one. As you can tell by reading guides like the Myth-tv-ology guide to Myth on Fedora or similar guides for Debian, there are still quite a number of steps to getting up and running. So I think a lot of people might like a hard disk which has all of that done and ready to go, since you want a new hard disk in a mythbox anyway. This is indeed what I have done for myself, in that if I wish a new mythbox, I don't repeat the procedure, I clone an existing one. That applies even with different hardware, since while the cloned disk has drivers for the pcHDTV, wintv-pvr and nvidia graphics cards on it (which are the most common choices for anybody building a new box), kudzu is quite able to reconfigure to the other hardware that changes on the new box (network etc.) though it likes to erase your xorg.conf. Of course, one could also make a distro on DVD with all this rather than requiring you to get a hard disk. > ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
While I do agree that a reference design would be fantastic, especially for newcomers, but my point is: What can an unsupported $1000 piece of hardware do someone that they can't just do for themselves? Current PVR makers (Tivo, Replay, etc) have an advantage software/setup wise because all the hardware for each model is the same. Obviously us Myth'ers don't have that advantage, but we do have the hardware database as a reference of what has worked for other people. I think what might be more of a contribution to the community is a current listing for "buy this hardware, use this setup guide & scripts" and you'll have a working machine, baring that you can assemble the hardware. Quite frankly, it's highly likely that if they can't assemble the hardware and install the software, they will goto the local electronics store, spend $200 on a tivo, buy a lifetime subscription, and leave the other $500 in the bank. I just don't see an advantage in marketing pre-assembled or "canned" hardware to geeks who have the knowledge to make their own exactly the way they want. I do think a list of exactly what to buy if you want certain features would be great. Maybe even worth having a page on mythtv.org about it. Could even have different "models" if you will at various price points. The $500 model would have basic hardware (350), and the $1000 model could have the HDTV added, etc. Just my 2 cents, -Kenneth > Dude, you didn't read far enough. > > Later on he says, "Then you, as knowledgeable mythtv admins can turn > around and offer your consulting services to prospective interested > parties to help them set up the mythbox (and will let you instruct them > in setting up their own personal account at zap2it, and explain how the > surveys work, etc.)." > > In other words, you could turn around and resell it along with your > support. Or sell your services and the box at cost, or do it all for > free and they only pay for the hardware - whatever! I think that it is > a cool idea. > > In fact, I like the idea of a "reference design". Hardware that has > already been deemed the best combination for a mythbox packaged up along > with the inital install and burn in. Could offer some options such as > multiple tuners, bigger disks, and so on... > > I know that many people agonize over what hardware to get - look at all > the questions on this list. I know that I did and I certainly ended up > with more work than I planned once I tried to put all mine together and > get all drivers working together nicely. Admittedly, I went a harder > route with a streamlined Gentoo install (still working on it - heh). > > Hell, newbies on list might opt just to pick up one of these > "preapproved" setups - could link to it directly from the mythtv site if > it is a truly altruistic offer. At least they won't be bitten by > unexpected problems such as a PVR-250MCE requiring patches, messing with > lirc, and so on. I'd buy one (assuming it looks good and specs are > nice) if I hadn't already sunk my $1000 building my own from scratch. > > Also, if they source everything at cheaper bulk prices, it would be the > best bang for your buck. Most of us are stuck with buying parts retail > or reusing old hardware. > > So far the only negative points I have are: > 1) you're stuck with the hardware offered. > 2) if you aren't using one yourself, it makes it more difficult to > administer someone else's (recover from catastrophic disk crash, for > example) > > Ian. > > ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 08:49:30AM -0700, Brandon Beattie wrote: > > Then there's the whole broadcast flag issue with the hdtv stuff. I > > don't think anyone really knows what's going to happen to the linux hdtv > > market come June. > > I suggest you speak/email to Wendy Zeltzer of EFF (Who is on this list) or > read EFF's pages this issue. She knows exactly what will happen. :) > I'm out of touch on this area slightly because I'm not following the > court case. But if you sell the PC's before July, there's nothing to > worry about. After that it will be illegal to *sell* fully built cards. > (All components together, microcode included, etc.) If you build your > own you're fine. Hmm, interesting though isn't it? Indeed. What's going to be illegal to sell is a device which will record over the air digital TV, and in spite of the broadcast flag being set to forbid it, still makes the full res digital video available in the clear, on disk or on plain digital outputs. (IIRC, you can make it available as QAM or ATSC again, with the broadcast flag intact. For a variety of reasons, a cheap ATSC modulator card would be a neat thing for PVRs, providing high quality output to HDTVs over RF. I find this highly ironic. In the old days, using RF from your VCR to your TV was the deprecrated approach. Today, it would be great, a simple cheap cable with high quality signal bundling multiple channels of audio and video together at perfect digital quality!) The prediction is there should be a run of purchases of cards just before the deadline. Those who purchase their cards before that will be fine in using them after the deadline. We were doing some research on whether the cards could undergo private sale after the fact, they almost surely can be given away. And of course, we continue to spend a great deal of effort trying to fight the rules in the first place, both here, and the new rules for DVB being promoted overseas, and a similar rule for ATSC in Canada. That's our biggest effort, we have folks like Cory Doctorow travelling the world going to standards meetings to deflect these efforts. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 08:56:27AM -0700, Brandon Beattie wrote: > XvMC only doesn't work if you seek. Also, it still takes about a 2ghz > system for displaying the video *only* if you're transcoding... read > below.. Well, if by seek you mean jump to other parts of the show with skip-ahead or commercial skip, that's a big "only if" -- to me this is a big part of what PVRs are about. > > 1280x720 takes about a 1.9 ghz system. You also only would save a > slight bit of space because you would only be transcoding 1080i, which > would be a pro since you would not be de-interlacing in real time. A Hmm. My own tests showed saving a fair bit more than that. One reason is that mp4 is smaller than mp2 at the same quality. You might also be transcoding your 1080i down to 30fps, which is still better than movie speed, though perhaps you would want your sports to stay at 60fps, but you definitely need to deinterlace. Of course the more artifacts you want to tolerate, the more you can drop the quality on an mp4, and get a lot more recordings on your disk. con though is myth isn't smart enough yet to transcode to different Right, though I had always presumed that the more folks worked with HDTV, the more aware it will become of dealing with different resolutions, aspect ratios and frame rates. If there's a handy attribute extractor out there, it would actually be pretty easy for me to write a smart transcoder that queries the videos and changes the rules it feeds to mencoder based on their parameters as an independent script. (And presumably not too hard to eventually integrate it into myth.) > If you're transcoding, you're using a LOT of cpu, and so you can't watch > HD and transcode at the same time with good results on a slower PC. It > takes about 3.5x as long to transcode HD to 1024x576 in my tests (amd > 2500) as the shows running length. This means if you have a slower > system and record just 4-6 shows a day your system may be maxed out > 24/7. Yes, this would be a call for having another CPU to do the work. And while not present in the design for a pre-built box above, I have always been fond of the remote frontend approach which fortunately would be able to do that. Of course that's expensive -- unless, like many of us, you already have a server machine that's up all the time to use as backend, and are buying/building only the frontend box. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
A PVR is less needing of "enterprise-grad ram" (whatever that is. The main goal is that it not fail.) Yes, it is. But I doubt that my company would be willing to work up new relationships with RAM vendors just to sell a couple of little/no profit myth boxes. As for what makes it "enterprise-grade," you'd have to ask the techs. I just know that you can't just take any old DIMM, pop it into a 1u dual xeon (or opteron) server, and expect that it'll work fine (sometimes, one size of one brand will work in one slot but not another, or another size of the same brand won't cut it at all). -Chris ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
> If you could build a working xvmc system, it would change the price of > the package. You would not longer need to buy a modern generation, ie. new, > machine, as I would expect that the prior generation (sub-2ghz) would > do HDTV with xvmc. Have people with the faster epia systems had them > display hdtv? Prior-generation hardware is of course often not simply > cheap, but hanging around spare, ie. free. XvMC only doesn't work if you seek. Also, it still takes about a 2ghz system for displaying the video *only* if you're transcoding... read below.. > Hard to escape the need for a big disk. Though since almost all HDTVs > owned by budget conscious people are no more than 1280x720, you can plan > to transcode down all HDTV to this resolution mp4 -- but then xmvc is out. > I don't have the figures on how much CPU it takes to play 1280x720 mp4. 1280x720 takes about a 1.9 ghz system. You also only would save a slight bit of space because you would only be transcoding 1080i, which would be a pro since you would not be de-interlacing in real time. A con though is myth isn't smart enough yet to transcode to different resolutions based on the original resolution.. so you would transcode 480i/480p video to 720p, which would take up more space.. If you're transcoding, you're using a LOT of cpu, and so you can't watch HD and transcode at the same time with good results on a slower PC. It takes about 3.5x as long to transcode HD to 1024x576 in my tests (amd 2500) as the shows running length. This means if you have a slower system and record just 4-6 shows a day your system may be maxed out 24/7. --Brandon ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
> Then there's the whole broadcast flag issue with the hdtv stuff. I > don't think anyone really knows what's going to happen to the linux hdtv > market come June. I suggest you speak/email to Wendy Zeltzer of EFF (Who is on this list) or read EFF's pages this issue. She knows exactly what will happen. :) I'm out of touch on this area slightly because I'm not following the court case. But if you sell the PC's before July, there's nothing to worry about. After that it will be illegal to *sell* fully built cards. (All components together, microcode included, etc.) If you build your own you're fine. Hmm, interesting though isn't it? --Brandon ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 11:12:29PM -0800, Chris Petersen wrote: > >A decent HD box is pricey, but not that pricey. However, typically > >if you do it cheap you will see: > > Yes, unfortunately, my company can't do it "cheap" -- no special sales, > no rebates on parts, and since we really only deal with enterprise-grade > stuff like RAM, that tends to cost more than people expect. Plus, you'd A PVR is less needing of "enterprise-grad ram" (whatever that is. The main goal is that it not fail.) If you could build a working xvmc system, it would change the price of the package. You would not longer need to buy a modern generation, ie. new, machine, as I would expect that the prior generation (sub-2ghz) would do HDTV with xvmc. Have people with the faster epia systems had them display hdtv? Prior-generation hardware is of course often not simply cheap, but hanging around spare, ie. free. Hard to escape the need for a big disk. Though since almost all HDTVs owned by budget conscious people are no more than 1280x720, you can plan to transcode down all HDTV to this resolution mp4 -- but then xmvc is out. I don't have the figures on how much CPU it takes to play 1280x720 mp4. Of course if you want to sell new boxes, the ability to use older ones is not an asset. But it does make it productive to sell a kit, with the cards, and a hard disk with the software pre-installed and ready to run after kudzu reconfigures the hardware. That's one place I would see a market, folks who would gladly pay an extra $100 rather than hand-build to one of the many installation instruction sets. pcHDTV type cards will drop in price of course. They are actually, in their way, simpler than hardware encoder cards. This needs to happen because the comparable hardware, like hdtivo, has 2 ATSC tuners in it, on top of the 2 satellite tuners. A 4-tuner HD-Mythbox is currently a pretty expensive proposition just for the tuners. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
A decent HD box is pricey, but not that pricey. However, typically if you do it cheap you will see: Yes, unfortunately, my company can't do it "cheap" -- no special sales, no rebates on parts, and since we really only deal with enterprise-grade stuff like RAM, that tends to cost more than people expect. Plus, you'd be surprised at how easy it is to get parts below wholesale cost from places like newegg (due to some nifty tricks in volume purchasing), which we wouldn't be able to pull off unless machines were selling like crazy (which I don't expect them to). We'd also run into supply issues if we started trying to push older hardware like my beloved asus pundit. I need to talk with people at work to figure out what's going on with cpu's -- all I know is that intel is going to be killing off the socket 478 stuff, which leads me to believe that AMD will be doing the same with their equivalent line of athlons. Which means no old/cheap processors. This is all turning into something a lot more complex than I originally intended. Things have been a bit hectic at work lately, so I'm going to put things on hold for awhile until I can sit down with someone who understands the supply chain and future availability of things like cpu's (I'm just the coder, not a sales guy). Then there's the whole broadcast flag issue with the hdtv stuff. I don't think anyone really knows what's going to happen to the linux hdtv market come June. Your off-list email from earlier today has given me a lot to think about for the market segment, too, as well as about knopmyth (which I admitedly don't know much about). Like you said, optimally, there should be an offering of different servers.. sd, sd+hd, hd, and frontend-only. Not necessarily different machines (although it'd be sweet to be able to offer a $300-ish diskless frontend-only box), since most of that can be handled through configuration options, but a lot of options to consider. -Chris ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 01:03:19AM -0500, Gabe Rubin wrote: > At the price range of 1K, who is your target audience? If I pay that > much for something tv related, I want it to work out of the box. Who > is going to pay that much of a premium? I think $500 might be the > price break point, esp if you are not fully functional and full > support, otherwise it is a hobbyist device...and the hobbyists are > here already ;) A decent HD box is pricey, but not that pricey. However, typically if you do it cheap you will see: P4-3ghz plus motherboard: $200 250gb hard drive: $140 Cheap Case: $60 Nvidia 5200 card: $60 PC-HDTV card: $190(For SDTV and 2nd tuner) WINTV-PVR-250 $130 512MB Ram: $70 Linux & Mythtv Priceless Total: 850 That's doing it on the cheap, though not the cheapest. For example, I got the P4+MB for less at a special sale, the drives cheaper with rebate, though I bought a more expensive case. I got the pcHDTV in a large bulk purchase. It was work to get my parts as cheaply as I did in many cases. Chances are you want a premium low-noise case, fancy cooling fans etc. With the work to assemble and slightly better parts it can easily be $1000. You could drop the wintv-250 card, or perhaps shortly get a 150 card with the brand new drivers for just $84 (as I have done), but in reality the pcHDTV isn't enough since it has just one RF input. (Though it could do digi-cable and HDTV on the same card but who wants tht?) Of course, Mythtv and Linux have the ability to run on older hardware you have lying around, which is part of the attraction. I can make a nice SDTV PVR for you by adding little more than a bigger drive and perhaps a pvr-350 card, or a pvr-150 card and a $30 TV-out card to your PC. Use the pvr-150-mce and now we're talking just about $150 in add-ons. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
At the price range of 1K, who is your target audience? If I pay that much for something tv related, I want it to work out of the box. Who is going to pay that much of a premium? I think $500 might be the price break point, esp if you are not fully functional and full support, otherwise it is a hobbyist device...and the hobbyists are here already ;) -- Email me if you want a gmail account, I have invites. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
Maverick wrote: We have no desire to provide software support (or deal with zap2it I think you answered your own question right there. Someone who is interested in spending $1000 to record HDTV, and who doesn't have enough knowledge/experience to build their own Myth box, will want service, support and a warranty. I believe that's one reason TiVo has been successful, my mom can use it and if she has a question, they have a number to call. MythTV isn't "my mom" kind of simple, just trying to have her login to a website and sign up for zap2it would far exceed her abilities... Maybe I misunderstood your target market, -Kenneth Dude, you didn't read far enough. Later on he says, "Then you, as knowledgeable mythtv admins can turn around and offer your consulting services to prospective interested parties to help them set up the mythbox (and will let you instruct them in setting up their own personal account at zap2it, and explain how the surveys work, etc.)." In other words, you could turn around and resell it along with your support. Or sell your services and the box at cost, or do it all for free and they only pay for the hardware - whatever! I think that it is a cool idea. In fact, I like the idea of a "reference design". Hardware that has already been deemed the best combination for a mythbox packaged up along with the inital install and burn in. Could offer some options such as multiple tuners, bigger disks, and so on... I know that many people agonize over what hardware to get - look at all the questions on this list. I know that I did and I certainly ended up with more work than I planned once I tried to put all mine together and get all drivers working together nicely. Admittedly, I went a harder route with a streamlined Gentoo install (still working on it - heh). Hell, newbies on list might opt just to pick up one of these "preapproved" setups - could link to it directly from the mythtv site if it is a truly altruistic offer. At least they won't be bitten by unexpected problems such as a PVR-250MCE requiring patches, messing with lirc, and so on. I'd buy one (assuming it looks good and specs are nice) if I hadn't already sunk my $1000 building my own from scratch. Also, if they source everything at cheaper bulk prices, it would be the best bang for your buck. Most of us are stuck with buying parts retail or reusing old hardware. So far the only negative points I have are: 1) you're stuck with the hardware offered. 2) if you aren't using one yourself, it makes it more difficult to administer someone else's (recover from catastrophic disk crash, for example) Ian. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
> We have no desire to provide software support (or deal with zap2it I think you answered your own question right there. Someone who is interested in spending $1000 to record HDTV, and who doesn't have enough knowledge/experience to build their own Myth box, will want service, support and a warranty. I believe that's one reason TiVo has been successful, my mom can use it and if she has a question, they have a number to call. MythTV isn't "my mom" kind of simple, just trying to have her login to a website and sign up for zap2it would far exceed her abilities... Maybe I misunderstood your target market, -Kenneth ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
I wouldn't be able to reliably troubleshoot a users issue without knowing that I possessed the same hardware. So, you'd have to provide me with one of those boxes. :) Yeah, well, I doubt that even *I* could get one without paying for it. Gotta have something to go in our break room next to the plasma tv that's showing up at some point, so a development box will likely end up there instead of next to my tv at home. :( -Chris ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
RE: [mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea
I wouldn't be able to reliably troubleshoot a users issue without knowing that I possessed the same hardware. So, you'd have to provide me with one of those boxes. :) Garry W. Cook, CCNA Network Infrastructure Manager MACTEC, Inc. - http://www.mactec.com/ 303.273.5050 (Office) - 720.220.1862 (Mobile) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > As some of you may know, I work for a systems integrator > (siliconmechanics.com). Though we specialize in servers, > many of us are > OSS and linux fanatics, and some of us have wanted to do something to > "give back" to the OSS community. Since I love mythtv, I > thought it'd > be a good place to start. My idea is this... > > We have no desire to provide software support (or deal with zap2it > licensing issues), but we're one of the best out there for hardware > support and reliable systems. Since this is a "give back" kind of > thing, and "desktops" aren't moneymakers, we don't really care about > making money off of them (just enough to cover labor and > support costs). > > I've been working with people in the irc channel to try to > come up with > good hardware platforms (2 systems -- amd vs intel), and as > per my boss' > request, am aiming around the $1000 retail price range (high-end, I > know) for a system capable of HDTV output. > > We considered a lower-end box, but the cheapest I could come > up with was > around $600 using near-obselete hardware like a pundit (remember, we > can't buy hard drives with rebates, etc). Might as well pay more and > get a much nicer system in a more appropriate-looking htpc > case (I like > the silverstone ones best, at the moment) > > Anyway, we'd install fedora with mythtv and ivtv (and/or dvb/pchdtv) > drivers, make sure it all works (short of configuring zap2it -- I > don't want to get tangled in their license as a commercial entity). > Then you, as knowledgeable mythtv admins can turn around and offer > your consulting services to prospective interested parties to help > them set up the mythbox (and will let you instruct them in setting up > their > own personal > account at zap2it, and explain how the surveys work, etc.). > > My question to you is, "Does anyone think this sounds like a > worthwhile endeavor?" Would anyone actually take us up on the offer? > > If so, please email me with questions/comments. I don't > really want to > push this unless it's something that people would actually be > interested in. > > -Chris > ___ > mythtv-users mailing list > mythtv-users@mythtv.org > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
