Mailing List Archive

> The way I see it, there's got to be a market: when it's already set up,
> MythTV is easy enough for your average joe to use, and once you've
> bought it, you aren't required to pay a subscription fee to keep using
> it.

Being someone who works in the systems market (servers, mostly), I'd
warn you to be careful (since I've talked this exact thing over with one
of my bosses, who is interested in the idea). The main things you'll
have to take into consideration are (other than legalities like MPEG4
licensing fees) labor and support value...

take a system that costs you about $550 (wholesale - keep in mind that
you can't get rebate-type deals on any hardware, etc.). Then take into
account that it took you an hour and a half to build it, and another
half hour to install things into it (slower if you haven't made up an
image with something like redhat's kickstart). that's another $50 to
the cost (since most of the builders at my place make $25/hour).

Then you have to actually MAKE some money on the box, so you add another
15-20% to the cost of the machine as retail. That places the price of
your machine at about $700. Then you have to support it, which means
hiring a few phone people, or setting up a contract with a phone support
agency. And train them. And be ready to have a coder or two on hand to
fix bugs that Isaac isn't going to want to fix.

Will people pay $700 for a machine when they can pay $200 + $13/month
for something that does just as good (most people won't want/need the
extra features in Myth)? You'd be limited to the geek-types who know
what they're missing, but would be more inclined to build their own
machines from scratch.

(ok, yes, I've given this a LOT of thought)

> Who knows, maybe we could make something of this; or maybe it's just a
> dream of mine.

Not to discourage you, by any means. I think this is a great idea,
though from what I've seen, it's more the kind of thing you'd do for
people who want more than a commercial system can offer. But none of
this can really happen until MythTV is done and has a good support
system behind it - which is why I'm going to do my best to help out with
the project and make that come to pass.

-Chris

adam i. howard wrote:

>I don't know if anyone has really brought it up yet
>
<http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/mailarc/gforum.cgi?post=58784>
<http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/mailarc/gforum.cgi?post=59758>

>we could share our best practices here
>
Or better yet set up a (shared) website for your customers, together
with a mailing list where you share your experiences and discuss. Or
start a business together.

>or even put together a good HOW-TO, from choosing good hardware to setting up mythTV
>
Yes, that would be helpful for others as well. But don't post it on your
business site ;-).

Ben Bucksch

--snip--

>take a system that costs you about $550 (wholesale - keep in mind that
>you can't get rebate-type deals on any hardware, etc.). Then take into
>account that it took you an hour and a half to build it, and another
>half hour to install things into it (slower if you haven't made up an
>image with something like redhat's kickstart). that's another $50 to
>the cost (since most of the builders at my place make $25/hour).

Would it really cost this much wholesale? From newegg.com:

Core (Intel):
$58 micro-ATX motherboard w/ onboard sound, video, lan (N82E16813141103)
$55 1.7Ghz celeron (N82E16819112169)
= $113

Core (AMD):
$47 micro-ATX motherboard w/ onboard sound, video, lan (N82E16813138201)
$61 Athlon XP 1800+ retail (N82E16819103353)
= $108

Components:
$18 RAM: 128mb DDR PC2100 (N82E16820150522)
$114 WD 120g hard drive (N82E16822144107)
$39 XFX GeForce2 MX400 w/ composite and svideo (N82E16814150019)
$45 ATI Radeon VE (N82E16815116304)
~$30 Case
~$20 IR blaster/receiver
= $266

Total: ~$400 (with shipping)

Now I put the case cheaply because I work at a computer store and I can get
them
for pretty cheap there. And I know enough electronics that I can solder the IR
blaster/receiver or get my dad to do it for me and get those parts from a
surplus
store that's local here (HSC Electronics if you're in Sacramento). Keep in
mind that
this comes with a 120 gig hard drive too. Tivo comes with a 40 gig one for $250
and you can upgrade to the 80 gig one for $350?

>Then you have to actually MAKE some money on the box, so you add another
>15-20% to the cost of the machine as retail. That places the price of
>your machine at about $700. Then you have to support it, which means
>hiring a few phone people, or setting up a contract with a phone support
>agency. And train them. And be ready to have a coder or two on hand to
>fix bugs that Isaac isn't going to want to fix.

>Will people pay $700 for a machine when they can pay $200 + $13/month
>for something that does just as good (most people won't want/need the
>extra features in Myth)? You'd be limited to the geek-types who know
>what they're missing, but would be more inclined to build their own
>machines from scratch.

Why would you need to add another 15-20% to the cost? Isn't that what you're
charging $25/hour to set the thing up? Maybe if you want to run a business off
of this, but the impression I got was that it would be more like a service
to make
a little bit of money, like the people that make the IR blasters and sell them.

Even charging $500 for the above setup without any "support" to add features
and such, just pointing to this list, that's the same price as getting the $250
tivo with the $249 lifetime service. Not to mention that, but it also has
2-3x more
recording time than the $250 tivo, and it's still a computer when you're
done with
it (and a pretty decent one, I might add). You can't really turn a tivo into a
windows box if you don't like it, can you? Not to mention the other neat
features
it has that tivo doesn't, like the auto-commercial skip, the ability to
burn vcd's and
transfer the recordings to other computers, and the easy frontend/backend
setup.

And if people don't have a router already, they can throw in a second NIC and
let it be a router for them too which shouldn't peg the CPU at all,
although this
is still kind of nerdy to do :)

My two cents,
Kevin

Ahh, my second FreePlayTV reference. FreePlayTV.org (which as far as I
can tell is pretty much a few extra notes on installation that the
MythTV Installation guide missed) used to sell completed units. If
anyone's serious about making em, go email the FreePlay guys and ask why
they stopped. They might be able to tell you of some pitfalls they fell
into that you could avoid.

Ah, this was my dream, too...

unfortunately, I just don't see it as feasible, mainly from a support
standpoint. Unless you're prepared to give *lots* of support (costing you
*lots* of time) to your customers, it won't work. Keep in mind that the
likely consumer base will be people not comfortable or familiar with a
terminal prompt, much less any Linux commands. They probably couldn't even
install a new rpm. Those that could would probably just take the plunge and
build their own Myth box (just read the list archives!).

Even assuming that Myth itself was rock-solid stable (in a perfect world
needing no support), the big issue (the real killer as far as I'm concerned)
is TV listing data. Until there is a reliable, free & open source for TV
listing data, Myth will only be for those able to support the installation
themselves. What would happen if you sold 20 of these boxen, then Zap2It
changed their format and broke XMLTV? That's 20 customers with (virtually)
useless Myth boxes, all waiting for you to come and install a new version of
XMLTV (assuming there is one!) Or worse yet, what if Zap2It went away, and
the XMLTV project was 'down' for a while trying to find another source?
Again, none of these issues deter us from using Myth, but if you're going to
sell a pre-configured STB, you need to eliminate that risk for your
customers, because they're not going to be able to hack their box (again, if
they could, they wouldn't be buying it from you!). Tivo and the other
commercial PVRs solved the problem by maintaining their own listing services
(for a fee).

I would really like to see this community push for an open standard for
electronic TV listing data. Since the company that compiles the composite
listing data (at least for the U.S.) does not want its data redistributed
electronically, the next best scenario would be for all TV providers to use
a standard electronic format. Then you would only need to grab the feed
from your local provider, not some central data source. Of course, this
seems just as unlikely, as the local cable companies want to lock you in to
*their* products and services, so they're not likely to provide an open data
feed. So, it seems that, for the forseeable future, we're destined to live
off of a web-scraping utility like XMLTV. The only stable solution would be
for a Myth-based listing service that actually bought the listing data &
provided an open feed. How much would you be willing to pay for that?

-JAC

On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 10:47:19AM -0400, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
> Until there is a reliable, free & open source for TV listing data,
> Myth will only be for those able to support the installation
> themselves.

Of course, anybody undertaking an effort to sell pre-built,
pre-configured MythTV boxen should also seek a commercial source of EPG
information. It's out there and publicly available, however it's not
cheap. I once inquired to a company about Canadian listings and it was
going to be almost $100 USD per month for access to the raw EPG data.

Mike.

Joseph A. Caputo wrote:

>Unless you're prepared to give *lots* of support (costing you *lots* of time) to your customers, it won't work.
>
Unless you're able to decline any support. Not sure, if that's legal or
feasible.

>Even assuming that Myth itself was rock-solid stable (in a perfect world needing no support), the big issue (the real killer as far as I'm concerned) is TV listing data.
>
If the current grabber breaks and you can't write a new one in time,
you'd have to pay a few bucks for that data, I guess.

>That's 20 customers with (virtually) useless Myth boxes, all waiting for you to come and install a new version of XMLTV (assuming there is one!)
>
eh, there is no need to "come". You can remote-administrate the boxes
(if you told your customers!) or better yet auto-update the boxes with
apt-get or whatever, with one "source" being your server. Just upload a
new package to your server, the boxes grab it and install it
automatically, and that's it. Unless you messed it up.

>Or worse yet, what if Zap2It went away, and the XMLTV project was 'down' for a while trying to find another source?
>
You have a few days to write a new grabber, because it always grabs a
whole week. If there are 2-3 days missing at the end 1-2 times a year,
that's tolerable IMHO.

>How much would you be willing to pay for that?
>
Even if MythTV is not suitable for a mass market (I think it may), it's
still for a niche market: for those who

* want to archive their recordings (!) on CD or huge harddrives in a
common format
* can't place new cables and have to use wireless LAN (from backend
to frontend or from satelite dish to apartment). Even if they
*can* place cables, that's often several hundred dollars when done
by a professional, and that easily eats up the cost difference.
* dislike commercial control like ads, forced recordings etc.
* want to have quality otherwise not found in commercial products:
o absolutely silent (no fan, no disk, because of separate backend)
o custom design case
o high quality video/audio compression
o DVB (or later HDTV) for best TV quality, incl. recordings
o a music archive with high end quality and without CD
changing (usually perfect reading with cdparanoia, lossless
compression with flac, digital out for external DA) (This
last feature alone might be a reason for some high end
freaks to shell out 1000 bucks, if you can convince them of
the (factual) quality)
* Several frontends accessing the same data
* Tons of other reasons, see previous threads why people don't use
TiVo or ReplayTV. BTW: I don't think they are available in Europe
at all. At least I haven't seen them here, IIRC. IIRC, I have seen
similar products, starting at 400 Euro, though.

> Ah, this was my dream, too...
>
> unfortunately, I just don't see it as feasible, mainly from a support
> standpoint. Unless you're prepared to give *lots* of support (costing you
> *lots* of time) to your customers, it won't work. Keep in mind that the
> likely consumer base will be people not comfortable or familiar with a
> terminal prompt, much less any Linux commands. They probably couldn't
even
> install a new rpm. Those that could would probably just take the plunge
and
> build their own Myth box (just read the list archives!).

Actually there are also people like myself who have lots of experience with
linux (I am a unix sysadmin), but not too much time to tinker or knowledge
about MythTV itself. I'd love to be able to just buy a prepackaged box that
has known good drivers for all components and know that a good deal of
people have same hardware combination. In an event of future problems, I do
not have to debug by myself.

As for support, An easy way to reduce amount of support is to standardize
hardware and software configurations and build our own distribution. It's
not as duffucult as it sounds, it will essentially be a stripped down redhat
(or even plain redhat with a kickstart script) and create a "MythUpdate"
user interface module that will Install/Uninstall/Update/Verify RPMS's over
the network. You can even use something like apt4rpm to download rpm's from
multiple locations. You can alert users when new packages are available and
allow them to manually seelct the updates they want via a pretty little
menu.

> Even assuming that Myth itself was rock-solid stable (in a perfect world
> needing no support), the big issue (the real killer as far as I'm
concerned)
> is TV listing data. Until there is a reliable, free & open source for TV
> listing data, Myth will only be for those able to support the installation
> themselves. What would happen if you sold 20 of these boxen, then Zap2It
> ...
> they could, they wouldn't be buying it from you!). Tivo and the other
> commercial PVRs solved the problem by maintaining their own listing
services
> (for a fee).

Having a fee based listing alternative to xmltv is NOT a bad thing in
itself. As long as the fee is for a single easily replacable module, it can
be a choice, yet not forced onto the users. If XMLTV goes out for a while,
you can always use the pay service while working on alternatives. Also if
the quality of listings is better, I bet many people would choose to pay.

-M

Mike Frisch wrote:

>I once inquired to a company about Canadian listings and it was
>going to be almost $100 USD per month for access to the raw EPG data.
>
hah! That *is* cheap, if that includes redistribution. Cheap enough that
we could use it for XMLTV, if enough people pay $5/month. TV Movie, the
source that I grab, costs commercially from 600 Eur/month (minimal data)
to 5000 Eur/month (the amount of data I get).

>> Having a fee based listing alternative to xmltv is NOT a bad thing in
>> itself. As long as the fee is for a single easily replacable
>> module, it can
>> be a choice, yet not forced onto the users. If XMLTV goes out for a
>> while, you can always use the pay service while working on
>> alternatives. Also if the quality of listings is better, I bet many
>> people would choose to pay.
>
> I agree; I would certainly pay a nominal fee for a more permanent &
> reliable source of EPG data. Actually, what would be great would be a
> free/premium type service. For instance, check out some of the dynamic
> dns services like dyndns.org. Their basic service is free (they do take
> donations, both $$ and equipment), plus they have extra premium services
> that pay the bills.
>
> I would not be averse to seeing a company form around MythTV. It would
> contribute back to the Myth open source base, provide 'basic' free
> listing data (maybe just a couple of days' worth, like the new
> stripped-down OEM Tivo service...), plus sell pre-configured boxes and
> premium services for subscribers only. It would actually resemble Tivo,
> (or maybe like OpenOffice vs. StarOffice), except it would be Myth,
> meaning: open, full user control of recorded data, no restrictions on
> hacking/tinkering. Okay, maybe the premium/preconfigure version would
> have the commercial-skipping disabled, just to keep the MPAA off our
> backs (but you could easily reenable it by downloading the source code).
> I dunno, I'm just rambling. If I could start or work for such a
> company, I'd be a happy camper. Unfortunately (or fortunately,
> depending how you look at it), my current job pays far too well, and
> with a wife, 2 kids & a house, such a venture would be too big a risk
> for me.
>
> -JAC

So what would be required in setting up a "co-op" of listing consumers?
Anyone know what costs are associated with getting the listings from
Zap2It?

Hardware/networking/database/code stuff is easy enough to setup if we can
get the data in a more pure format...

Ian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Ben Bucksch
> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 12:51 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Sell mythtv "set-top" boxes
>
>
> >Unless you're prepared to give *lots* of support (costing you
> *lots* of time) to your customers, it won't work.
> >
> Unless you're able to decline any support. Not sure, if that's legal or
> feasible.

Of course you can decline support. It's just that you'd alienate the bulk
of your potential customers.

> eh, there is no need to "come". You can remote-administrate the boxes
> (if you told your customers!)

That depends on the customer's network setup. They may not have a dedicated
internet connection, they may be behind a firewall, or they may not have a
static IP address. Or, they may just not want to grant you access to their
box, which is one of the reasons they chose Myth over Tivo to begin with!

> or better yet auto-update the boxes with
> apt-get or whatever, with one "source" being your server. Just upload a
> new package to your server, the boxes grab it and install it
> automatically, and that's it. Unless you messed it up.

Takes time (and time == money) to get a system like this running smoothly.

> Even if MythTV is not suitable for a mass market (I think it may), it's
> still for a niche market

You don't have to sell me on the virtues of Myth; I'm sold! It's just that
I think the level of effort required to make a Myth box into a viable,
supported consumer-grade product is well above the level of a small business
(i.e., hobby or side venture). If I want to sell a few pre-configured boxes
to some of my friends who are not afraid of the possibility of temporary
outages due to XMLTV issues, who don't mind allowing me access to their box
to do maintenance/upgrades, that's fine. Establishing myself as a
_business_ with a _product_ is a completely different matter. I'm not
saying it would be completely infeasible, it would just take time &
resources that I do not have. If someone with more time and a more
entrepreneurial spirit than I have is willing to do it & has the resources
(possibly $$ for listings data), more power to them!

-JAC

> Having a fee based listing alternative to xmltv is NOT a bad thing in
> itself. As long as the fee is for a single easily replacable
> module, it can
> be a choice, yet not forced onto the users. If XMLTV goes out for a while,
> you can always use the pay service while working on alternatives. Also if
> the quality of listings is better, I bet many people would choose to pay.

I agree; I would certainly pay a nominal fee for a more permanent & reliable
source of EPG data. Actually, what would be great would be a free/premium
type service. For instance, check out some of the dynamic dns services like
dyndns.org. Their basic service is free (they do take donations, both $$
and equipment), plus they have extra premium services that pay the bills.

I would not be averse to seeing a company form around MythTV. It would
contribute back to the Myth open source base, provide 'basic' free listing
data (maybe just a couple of days' worth, like the new stripped-down OEM
Tivo service...), plus sell pre-configured boxes and premium services for
subscribers only. It would actually resemble Tivo, (or maybe like
OpenOffice vs. StarOffice), except it would be Myth, meaning: open, full
user control of recorded data, no restrictions on hacking/tinkering. Okay,
maybe the premium/preconfigure version would have the commercial-skipping
disabled, just to keep the MPAA off our backs (but you could easily reenable
it by downloading the source code). I dunno, I'm just rambling. If I could
start or work for such a company, I'd be a happy camper. Unfortunately (or
fortunately, depending how you look at it), my current job pays far too
well, and with a wife, 2 kids & a house, such a venture would be too big a
risk for me.

-JAC

Joseph A. Caputo wrote:

>Of course you can decline support.
>
Not sure about Germany/Europe. If a product has a problem and you reject
support, they get their money back, I think.

>>You can remote-administrate the boxes (if you told your customers!)
>>
>>
>they may just not want to grant you access to their box
>
Thus "if you told your customers!" (assuming they didn't decline).

>Takes time (and time == money) to get a system like this running smoothly.
>
Well, yes. If you want to do it professionally (smooth operation for
your customers), you'll have to invest at least a month of work, if not
several. You'd also have to make MythTV much more stable (quirky, bugs,
crashes).

>the level of effort required to make a Myth box into a viable,
>supported consumer-grade product is well above the level of a small business (i.e., hobby or side venture).
>
You cannot create consumer-grade products from 0 to launch within 5
hours in your garage, yes. That's true for pretty much any product.

>If I want to sell a few pre-configured boxes to some of my friends..., that's fine.
>
>Establishing myself as a _business_ with a _product_ is a completely different matter.
>
Of course. But you were talking about reliable sources etc., that's why
I assumed you spoke about consumer-grade products (just as I did in my
mail weeks ago).

I think both approaches are viable, the friends one of course on a much
smaller scale and probably with less profit.

I suspect the realities of providing support will confound an idea of this
sort.

The first part is hardware. Do you stand behind it or not? Granted, bad
components are comparatively rare these days ... but in the past 2 years,
I've encountered a defective motherboard (bad IDE controller), 2 bad AverTV
cards, a bad Linksys NIC, and bad RAM. And that's in a setting where I
build about a half dozen machines per year. (All replaced under warranty,
BTW, except the Aver cards, since Aver won't accept warranty claims based
on Linux failures.)

If you try to charge your customers $25 per hour to replace bad components
you supplied to them, I strongly suspect you won't be in business for very
long. And in a Myth setting, diagnosing hardware problems can be tricky and
time consuming, since Myth seems to fail in uninformative ways when the
problem is, as was in the case of the AverTV problems, at the level of the
bttv driver.

Second, as to cost, your calculation was:

At 03:09 AM 5/15/2003 -0700, Kevin hjelden wrote:
>Would it really cost this much wholesale? From newegg.com:
>
>Core (Intel):
>$58 micro-ATX motherboard w/ onboard sound, video, lan (N82E16813141103)
>$55 1.7Ghz celeron (N82E16819112169)
>= $113
>
>Core (AMD):
>$47 micro-ATX motherboard w/ onboard sound, video, lan (N82E16813138201)
>$61 Athlon XP 1800+ retail (N82E16819103353)
>= $108
>
>Components:
>$18 RAM: 128mb DDR PC2100 (N82E16820150522)
>$114 WD 120g hard drive (N82E16822144107)
>$39 XFX GeForce2 MX400 w/ composite and svideo (N82E16814150019)
>$45 ATI Radeon VE (N82E16815116304)
>~$30 Case
>~$20 IR blaster/receiver
>= $266
>
>Total: ~$400 (with shipping)

OK. The only thing I quarrel with here is using 128 MB of RAM. 256 MB
provides better performance, in my exierience (more gbuffer room, mainly).
Oh, add in $15 for an sVideo-to-RCA adapter for the nVidia card. I can't
actually find the entry for the ATI Radeon VE, but the price is about right
for inexpensive vidcap cards.

But ...

>Why would you need to add another 15-20% to the cost? Isn't that what you're
>charging $25/hour to set the thing up? Maybe if you want to run a business off
>of this, but the impression I got was that it would be more like a service
>to make
>a little bit of money, like the people that make the IR blasters and sell
>them.

Well, how many $25 hours do you have in mind here? There is time spent
shopping for the parts, ordering and receiving them, building the box,
installing the OS and Myth, doing burn-in tests (I hope), possibly bringing
the machine on site and configuring it, and doing any post-sale support
(see warranty issues, above, if nothing else) you think necessary. A
business would need better documentation than we accept from people who are
working for free, too ... creating that is a fixed cost you need to recover
somehow.

I'd guess that a small-scale operation would involve about 4 hours per
host, and that only if you were pretty hard-hearted about user support (not
impossible ... Fry's seems to thrive on a low price/lousy service business
model). And it assumes you buy, not build, the IR Blaster (How long does it
take to build one? I'd guess an hour, but I've never tried).

Since 4 x $25 = $100, or 25% of your estimated parts cost, you seem to be
in the same price range as "add another 15-20% to the cost".

>Even charging $500 for the above setup without any "support" to add features
>and such, just pointing to this list, that's the same price as getting the
>$250
>tivo with the $249 lifetime service. Not to mention that, but it also has
>2-3x more
>recording time than the $250 tivo, and it's still a computer when you're
>done with
>it (and a pretty decent one, I might add). You can't really turn a tivo into a
>windows box if you don't like it, can you? Not to mention the other neat
>features
>it has that tivo doesn't, like the auto-commercial skip, the ability to
>burn vcd's and
>transfer the recordings to other computers, and the easy frontend/backend
>setup.

If you are talking about selling to technically unsophisticated users, then
you shouldn't assume they'd be able to repurpose the system at a future
time ... especially one that lacks any removable storage (just how do you
install *any* version of Windows on a system with no floppy and no CD
drive?). Anyway, a 1.7 GHz Celeron isn't state of the art *today* ... two
years from now, it won't be anything very attractive at all.

You can't burn VCDs on a host that lacks a CD burner, as your configuration
does ... and the re-encoding hoops one has to jump through seem a bit
demanding for the target audience anyway. Myth setup isn't bad, but is it
really *easier* than TiVo? (I've never set up a TiVo, so I don't really
know, but I'm a skeptic on that one.)

>And if people don't have a router already, they can throw in a second NIC and
>let it be a router for them too which shouldn't peg the CPU at all,
>although this
>is still kind of nerdy to do :)

If "they" are knowledgeable enough that can do this, then they are not your
target market. And the security issues this arrangement raises are not
trivial. These days, a standalone Linksys router costs less than a NIC and
an hour of install time ... I've been building and using Linux-based
routers for years, and I can't convert a host into a router in less than an
hour.

Others have raised some of the right issues as regards remote support
(especially with any customer who lacks a 24/7, static-IP Internet
connection), upgrades, codec license fees, and accommodating changes in the
source for TV listings. None of it is unmanageable ... but managing all of
it takes time (and perhaps extra expense for your Internet connection) ...
more of those $25 hours that have to be covered somehow (unless you really
view this activity as either a hobby or philanthropy so are willing to do a
lot of unpaid work ... just to let other people watch TV more easily).

Me, I wouldn't touch it unless I could figure out a way to make a decent
living at it. So far, I can't.

My understanding is that Zap2It cannot electronically redistribute (other
than putting it up on a web page) the listing data, as it is prohibited by
Tribune Media (the company that they & just about everyone else buy the data
from). (Actually I seem to recall that Zap2It is actually a subsidiary of
Tribune, but either way they will not (openly) electronically redistribute
the data). There was a thread about this a few weeks ago, when gist.com
shut down their XML feed. I seem to recall one poster in the know quoting
$10,000/month as the cost for the raw EPG data from Tribune.

-JAC

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Ian Bishop
> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 1:28 PM
> To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
> Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] Sell mythtv 'set-top' boxes
>
>
> So what would be required in setting up a "co-op" of listing consumers?
> Anyone know what costs are associated with getting the listings from
> Zap2It?
>
> Hardware/networking/database/code stuff is easy enough to setup if we can
> get the data in a more pure format...
>
> Ian

>I suspect the realities of providing support will confound an idea of this
>sort.
>
>The first part is hardware. Do you stand behind it or not? Granted, bad
>components are comparatively rare these days ... but in the past 2 years,
>I've encountered a defective motherboard (bad IDE controller), 2 bad
>AverTV cards, a bad Linksys NIC, and bad RAM. And that's in a setting
>where I build about a half dozen machines per year. (All replaced under
>warranty, BTW, except the Aver cards, since Aver won't accept warranty
>claims based on Linux failures.)
>
>If you try to charge your customers $25 per hour to replace bad components
>you supplied to them, I strongly suspect you won't be in business for very
>long. And in a Myth setting, diagnosing hardware problems can be tricky
>and time consuming, since Myth seems to fail in uninformative ways when
>the problem is, as was in the case of the AverTV problems, at the level of
>the bttv driver.
This is true. I buy on the order of 1-2 computers a year and have yet to
get any failed hardware other than ones caused by my own misdoing.

>Second, as to cost, your calculation was:
>>Would it really cost this much wholesale? From newegg.com:
>>
>>Core (Intel):
>>$58 micro-ATX motherboard w/ onboard sound, video, lan (N82E16813141103)
>>$55 1.7Ghz celeron (N82E16819112169)
>>= $113
>>
>>Core (AMD):
>>$47 micro-ATX motherboard w/ onboard sound, video, lan (N82E16813138201)
>>$61 Athlon XP 1800+ retail (N82E16819103353)
>>= $108
>>
>>Components:
>>$18 RAM: 128mb DDR PC2100 (N82E16820150522)
>>$114 WD 120g hard drive (N82E16822144107)
>>$39 XFX GeForce2 MX400 w/ composite and svideo (N82E16814150019)
>>$45 ATI Radeon VE (N82E16815116304)
>>~$30 Case
>>~$20 IR blaster/receiver
>>= $266
>>
>>Total: ~$400 (with shipping)
>
>OK. The only thing I quarrel with here is using 128 MB of RAM. 256 MB
>provides better performance, in my exierience (more gbuffer room, mainly).
>Oh, add in $15 for an sVideo-to-RCA adapter for the nVidia card. I can't
>actually find the entry for the ATI Radeon VE, but the price is about
>right for inexpensive vidcap cards.

Actually the nvidia card had a composite out too. I was surprised that I
didn't see it when I first looked for a card, as I paid $20 at radio shack
for mine since nowhere else around here had one.

>But ...
>
>>Why would you need to add another 15-20% to the cost? Isn't that what you're
>>charging $25/hour to set the thing up? Maybe if you want to run a
>>business off
>>of this, but the impression I got was that it would be more like a
>>service to make
>>a little bit of money, like the people that make the IR blasters and sell
>>them.
>
>Well, how many $25 hours do you have in mind here? There is time spent
>shopping for the parts, ordering and receiving them, building the box,
>installing the OS and Myth, doing burn-in tests (I hope), possibly
>bringing the machine on site and configuring it, and doing any post-sale
>support (see warranty issues, above, if nothing else) you think necessary.
>A business would need better documentation than we accept from people who
>are working for free, too ... creating that is a fixed cost you need to
>recover somehow.
>
>I'd guess that a small-scale operation would involve about 4 hours per
>host, and that only if you were pretty hard-hearted about user support
>(not impossible ... Fry's seems to thrive on a low price/lousy service
>business model). And it assumes you buy, not build, the IR Blaster (How
>long does it take to build one? I'd guess an hour, but I've never tried).
>
>Since 4 x $25 = $100, or 25% of your estimated parts cost, you seem to be
>in the same price range as "add another 15-20% to the cost".

Well, I was implying that you wouldn't do both of adding 15-20% to the
cost, and charge for labor. Of course, see below.

>>Even charging $500 for the above setup without any "support" to add features
>>and such, just pointing to this list, that's the same price as getting
>>the $250
>>tivo with the $249 lifetime service. Not to mention that, but it also has
>>2-3x more
>>recording time than the $250 tivo, and it's still a computer when you're
>>done with
>>it (and a pretty decent one, I might add). You can't really turn a tivo
>>into a
>>windows box if you don't like it, can you? Not to mention the other neat
>>features
>>it has that tivo doesn't, like the auto-commercial skip, the ability to
>>burn vcd's and
>>transfer the recordings to other computers, and the easy frontend/backend
>>setup.
>
>If you are talking about selling to technically unsophisticated users,
>then you shouldn't assume they'd be able to repurpose the system at a
>future time ... especially one that lacks any removable storage (just how
>do you install *any* version of Windows on a system with no floppy and no
>CD drive?). Anyway, a 1.7 GHz Celeron isn't state of the art *today* ...
>two years from now, it won't be anything very attractive at all.
Or a keyboard/mouse :). And my mom is using a 333mhz machine today, so it
certainly won't be a gaming machine, but it should be enough to check email
and browse the web.

>You can't burn VCDs on a host that lacks a CD burner, as your
>configuration does ... and the re-encoding hoops one has to jump through
>seem a bit demanding for the target audience anyway. Myth setup isn't bad,
>but is it really *easier* than TiVo? (I've never set up a TiVo, so I don't
>really know, but I'm a skeptic on that one.)

Actually that last part was poorly worded. I meant to imply that it was
easy to have separate boxes for backend/frontend. And, in my case I can
burn them, simply convert them to vcd's in spare cycles and then transfer
them to my machine with a burner over the network.

>>And if people don't have a router already, they can throw in a second NIC and
>>let it be a router for them too which shouldn't peg the CPU at all,
>>although this
>>is still kind of nerdy to do :)
>
>If "they" are knowledgeable enough that can do this, then they are not
>your target market. And the security issues this arrangement raises are
>not trivial. These days, a standalone Linksys router costs less than a NIC
>and an hour of install time ... I've been building and using Linux-based
>routers for years, and I can't convert a host into a router in less than
>an hour.
Well, it was just a benefit over tivo that I was listing. Not necessarily
feasable though.

>Others have raised some of the right issues as regards remote support
>(especially with any customer who lacks a 24/7, static-IP Internet
>connection), upgrades, codec license fees, and accommodating changes in
>the source for TV listings. None of it is unmanageable ... but managing
>all of it takes time (and perhaps extra expense for your Internet
>connection) ... more of those $25 hours that have to be covered somehow
>(unless you really view this activity as either a hobby or philanthropy so
>are willing to do a lot of unpaid work ... just to let other people watch
>TV more easily).
Well, I guess my target audience was different than yours. I was mainly
targeting the people that have some know-how, but don't know which kind of
setup to get. Probably because I had a heck of a time shopping for all the
components trying to get which one I finally decided on. Maybe an
"official" shopping cart of items to get at newegg would be good enough for
me. (yes, I saw the hardware section of the web site, but it wasn't
"complete" enough). Either that, or are too lazy or unknowledgeable of
linux to do it. Before this, I've only used shells at my workplace and set
up my linux router box, so I didn't really have any knowledge of X at all.
However, if I didn't set it up, I wouldn't be able to debug problems and
such, so it's a catch 22.

>Me, I wouldn't touch it unless I could figure out a way to make a decent
>living at it. So far, I can't.
Understood.

Kevin

On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 06:53:44PM +0200, Ben Bucksch wrote:
> Mike Frisch wrote:
>
> >I once inquired to a company about Canadian listings and it was
> >going to be almost $100 USD per month for access to the raw EPG data.
> >
> hah! That *is* cheap, if that includes redistribution. Cheap enough that
> we could use it for XMLTV, if enough people pay $5/month. TV Movie, the
> source that I grab, costs commercially from 600 Eur/month (minimal data)
> to 5000 Eur/month (the amount of data I get).

No, that was a single user license...

You could offer a pre-assembled HTPC box in a nice case 'ready to install
your pvr software of choice'. Then you could call it 'Myth compatible' and
include a Linux distro all set up for Myth on a CD. The purchaser could
then install Myth with the understanding they would be supporting it
themselves, or they could install Windows and Showshifter or any other
software they wanted.

The Myth user would be getting proven hardware and the knowledge that there
were others out there with the same set up, but it would still be a
'project' and they would be supporting it themselves. Your market would
still be do-it-yourselfers, but much less experience would be necessary to
get started. I think there are lots of people out there that would love a
'kit' like this.


> Hello,
>
> I don't know if anyone has really brought it up yet, but what with the
> discussions comparing MythTV to Tivo or ReplayTV, it got me thinking:
> what if we started selling pre-configured MythTV systems, based on the
> Pundit or some other small system?
>
> The way I see it, there's got to be a market: when it's already set up,
> MythTV is easy enough for your average joe to use, and once you've
> bought it, you aren't required to pay a subscription fee to keep using
> it.
>
> I can't see myself making a business out of selling or supporting
> systems like these, but I'm thinking I could definitely put together a
> few and make some extra money, enough to actually build a decent system
> that can handle MythTV well ;)
>
> What's everyone else's thoughts on this? I'm thinking that there's
> plenty enough room for anyone interested in doing this that there
> wouldn't really be much in the way of competition to deal with, so that
> we could share our best practices here, or even put together a good
> HOW-TO, from choosing good hardware to setting up mythTV (and any other
> modules).
>
> Who knows, maybe we could make something of this; or maybe it's just a
> dream of mine.
>
> Adam
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> --
> This message was sent with an unlicensed evaluation version of
> Novell NetMail. Please see http://www.netmail.com/ for details.
>

The only thing is, you really don't make that much money selling PC hardware
because the markup is so low, unless you're the size of Dell and can get the
really, really steep bulk parts discounts. So, while it might be cool to
get your entire LUG set up with identical Myth boxes for a nominal fee each,
it probably wouldn't amount to much more than beer money. Tivo & the other
commercial PVRs understand this; that's why they're subscribtion-based. Do
you really think they could survive solely on profits from the STB unit
sales?

-JAC

PS- I think it might be time to kill this thread, or at least take it
off-list.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Jon Hoyt
> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 1:03 AM
> To: MythTV List
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Sell mythtv "set-top" boxes
>
>
> You could offer a pre-assembled HTPC box in a nice case 'ready to install
> your pvr software of choice'. Then you could call it 'Myth
> compatible' and
> include a Linux distro all set up for Myth on a CD. The purchaser could
> then install Myth with the understanding they would be supporting it
> themselves, or they could install Windows and Showshifter or any other
> software they wanted.
>

> From: Jon Hoyt <samika@myrealbox.com>
> To: MythTV List <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Sell mythtv "set-top" boxes
>
> You could offer a pre-assembled HTPC box in a nice case 'ready to
> install your pvr software of choice'. Then you could call it 'Myth
> compatible' and include a Linux distro all set up for Myth on a CD.


This sounds probably like the best I could do out of my garage. But
since this targets more the "do it yourself" crowd, they just might do
that after they get the idea from any "advertising" I do. And if that's
the case, I'd probably have to go with a fairly low price markup on the
hardware in order to coax them to buy from me instead of build it
themselves. Still, I could make a few bucks selling a few systems like
these (probably enough to pay for one of my own), plus I'd get the
experience too... At this point, this is almost exactly what I'm
looking for :)

Also, this is the best solution I've seen so far for the problems
people have mentioned with having to support the systems, and
supporting the TV listings data. You could even offer a MythTV install
CD along with the hardware, but offer no support on it.

> The purchaser could then install Myth with the understanding they
> would be supporting it themselves, or they could install Windows and
> Showshifter or any other software they wanted.
>
> The Myth user would be getting proven hardware and the knowledge that
> there were others out there with the same set up, but it would still
> be a 'project' and they would be supporting it themselves. Your
> market would still be do-it-yourselfers, but much less experience
> would be necessary to get started. I think there are lots of people
> out there that would love a 'kit' like this.

This has turned out to be a great (and very informative) discussion!

Adam

On Fri, 2003-05-16 at 09:47, adam i. howard wrote:
> > From: Jon Hoyt <samika@myrealbox.com>
> > To: MythTV List <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
> > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Sell mythtv "set-top" boxes
> >
> > You could offer a pre-assembled HTPC box in a nice case 'ready to
> > install your pvr software of choice'. Then you could call it 'Myth
> > compatible' and include a Linux distro all set up for Myth on a CD.
>
>
> This sounds probably like the best I could do out of my garage. But


Another option is to partner with a local electronics store. Preferrably
one with a name like "BIG SCREEN BONANZA" or "ED'S PREMIUM ELECTRONICS".
If they had people coming in to buy a whole system, but these people
wanted more than TiVo could offer, MythTV would be a great alternative!
A decent box, some PVR-250's, and a monster 120GB disk would work great.
People buying a big system would be willing to pay probably $500 - $800
depending on the features. Heck with MythMusic, MythWeather, MythGame,
etc, the demo would probably suck people right in. You could even setup
a theme for the store.

And the best part of all? These stores generally charge for
installation. You could get in on that with the Myth box.. hooking it up
to their internet connection and such. Since these are always custom
jobs, and they're usually wiring up speakers.. it would be no big deal
to also run some CAT-5, or setup a WAP, etc. etc.

The biggest hurdle would still be the schedule data. I like the idea of
finding a way to turn a TiVo subscription into a MythTV source if Zap2it
becomes unreliable.

Another hurdle that I haven't seen discussed is the mp3/mpeg4 patent
situation. I know that mp3 encoders and players are subject to some
fees. What about mpeg4?

This is one reason(among many) that I've been wondering how hard it
would be to switch to Ogg Vorbis for audio, and Ogg Theora for video.

--
Clint Byrum <cbyrum@spamaps.org>

After I've shown my myth setup to friends, the almost unanimous response
is "Wow.. can you put one of those together for me?" Might be a
lucrative deal :).

On Wed, 2003-05-14 at 21:34, adam i. howard wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I don't know if anyone has really brought it up yet, but what with the
> discussions comparing MythTV to Tivo or ReplayTV, it got me thinking:
> what if we started selling pre-configured MythTV systems, based on the
> Pundit or some other small system?
>
> The way I see it, there's got to be a market: when it's already set up,
> MythTV is easy enough for your average joe to use, and once you've
> bought it, you aren't required to pay a subscription fee to keep using
> it.
>
> I can't see myself making a business out of selling or supporting
> systems like these, but I'm thinking I could definitely put together a
> few and make some extra money, enough to actually build a decent system
> that can handle MythTV well ;)
>
> What's everyone else's thoughts on this? I'm thinking that there's
> plenty enough room for anyone interested in doing this that there
> wouldn't really be much in the way of competition to deal with, so that
> we could share our best practices here, or even put together a good
> HOW-TO, from choosing good hardware to setting up mythTV (and any other
> modules).
>
> Who knows, maybe we could make something of this; or maybe it's just a
> dream of mine.
>
> Adam
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

This is an interesting discussion thread. I would guess that there a lots of
technically capably people willing to buy a preconfigured, open source linux
based "Media" box.

I think the collective group of people here would greatly benefit from the
shared experience of all of us that have hacked together a MythTV box, so I
would like to gather the responses from people on configurations :

1) Best Celeron mobo with (full-duplex) integrated audio and accelerated
2D/3D?

2) Best Duron/XP mobo with (full-duplex) integrated audio and accelerated
2D/3D?

3) IR Transmitter and Receiver configurations (cheapest)?
* IRDA chip or GPIO controlled custom circuits will probably fit the
bill

4) Cheapest/Best (stable) Tuner/MPEG encoder/decoder board?

I have built 4 different MythTV boxes each with it's own issues, and my best
(bang for your buck) system runs around $350 retail. Toss in a DVD-RW to
archive media away, and for ~$550 you've got a decent HTPC.

We don't have to make a business around this. Just arriving at a some
optimally configured systems could really save time for people putting
together their own systems (or providing a starting place for system
builders).

It would be nice to build a custom distro for our Standard box that we could
all collectively build and refine. I would contribute hosting for a project
on TeraMech. I can also have CDs made quite cheaply to distribute distros,
since I wouldn'd want to chew up all my BW.

- Victor

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Hoyt" <samika@myrealbox.com>
To: "MythTV List" <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 10:02 PM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Sell mythtv "set-top" boxes


> You could offer a pre-assembled HTPC box in a nice case 'ready to install
> your pvr software of choice'. Then you could call it 'Myth compatible'
and
> include a Linux distro all set up for Myth on a CD. The purchaser could
> then install Myth with the understanding they would be supporting it
> themselves, or they could install Windows and Showshifter or any other
> software they wanted.
>
> The Myth user would be getting proven hardware and the knowledge that
there
> were others out there with the same set up, but it would still be a
> 'project' and they would be supporting it themselves. Your market would
> still be do-it-yourselfers, but much less experience would be necessary to
> get started. I think there are lots of people out there that would love a
> 'kit' like this.
>
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I don't know if anyone has really brought it up yet, but what with the
> > discussions comparing MythTV to Tivo or ReplayTV, it got me thinking:
> > what if we started selling pre-configured MythTV systems, based on the
> > Pundit or some other small system?
> >
> > The way I see it, there's got to be a market: when it's already set up,
> > MythTV is easy enough for your average joe to use, and once you've
> > bought it, you aren't required to pay a subscription fee to keep using
> > it.
> >
> > I can't see myself making a business out of selling or supporting
> > systems like these, but I'm thinking I could definitely put together a
> > few and make some extra money, enough to actually build a decent system
> > that can handle MythTV well ;)
> >
> > What's everyone else's thoughts on this? I'm thinking that there's
> > plenty enough room for anyone interested in doing this that there
> > wouldn't really be much in the way of competition to deal with, so that
> > we could share our best practices here, or even put together a good
> > HOW-TO, from choosing good hardware to setting up mythTV (and any other
> > modules).
> >
> > Who knows, maybe we could make something of this; or maybe it's just a
> > dream of mine.
> >
> > Adam
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users@snowman.net
> > http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> > --
> > This message was sent with an unlicensed evaluation version of
> > Novell NetMail. Please see http://www.netmail.com/ for details.
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

This is pretty close to what I was looking for in my "Database of working
systems" question.

A list of "turnkey" hardware to purchase plus a single ISO to download with
all of the software I needed would have been nice.

Has making a custom Knoppix disk with the latest MythTV software and
everything else that's needed been discussed to death yet?

Victor wrote:
>This is an interesting discussion thread. I would guess that there a lots of
>technically capably people willing to buy a preconfigured, open source linux
>based "Media" box.
>
>I think the collective group of people here would greatly benefit from the
>shared experience of all of us that have hacked together a MythTV box, so I
>would like to gather the responses from people on configurations :
>
>1) Best Celeron mobo with (full-duplex) integrated audio and accelerated
>2D/3D?
>
>2) Best Duron/XP mobo with (full-duplex) integrated audio and accelerated
>2D/3D?
>
>3) IR Transmitter and Receiver configurations (cheapest)?
>* IRDA chip or GPIO controlled custom circuits will probably fit the
>bill
>
>4) Cheapest/Best (stable) Tuner/MPEG encoder/decoder board?
>
>I have built 4 different MythTV boxes each with it's own issues, and my best
>(bang for your buck) system runs around $350 retail. Toss in a DVD-RW to
>archive media away, and for ~$550 you've got a decent HTPC.
>
>We don't have to make a business around this. Just arriving at a some
>optimally configured systems could really save time for people putting
>together their own systems (or providing a starting place for system
>builders).
>
>It would be nice to build a custom distro for our Standard box that we could
>all collectively build and refine. I would contribute hosting for a project
>on TeraMech. I can also have CDs made quite cheaply to distribute distros,
>since I wouldn'd want to chew up all my BW.
>
>- Victor