[mythtv-users] re:MythTV production run

[Brad Bitterman]

You're looking at around $30K to $50K to get production ready prototypes
built. That is what I have seen the cost range for building advanced digital
set-tops which are pretty much the same thing you need to run mythtv. 

If you use an SOC from a company like broadcom or conexant you might be able
to get your BOM cost below $80. Remember that the reason Tivo sells there
units so cheap is because they want to make money from the paid
subscription. Tivo doesn't make much money from the PVR unit.

- Brad

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of almyth at sbcglobal.net
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 9:16 PM
To: Bill at Explosivo.com; Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] re:MythTV production run

Hi Bill,


        I am thinking of how much it would cost to design or hire a company
to design a specialized  motherboard to cut cost like Tivo did, e.g, no
mouse/keyboard/VGA interfaces, with integrated tuner/mpeg en/decoders.
    Would you give us some ideas of how costly it was for your several small
projects? and how did you proceed?
 what tools/companies were involved ?   That would be greatly helpful.


Thanks,

Mike


Are you still doing the above "design specialized hardware to reduce costs"?
That would be a significant investment.  Then getting someone set up to
produce and troubleshoot a few boards would be costly.  I've been on a few
small design projects and the costs were significant even for seemingly
trivial (board was a few cm long, 1/4 cm wide).  Unless you are going to be
able to sell the aforementioned thousands, the payback would make it worth
just using COTS parts.  Micro boards, etc...

> Ok,
> Cable companies would not allow you to advertise mythtv, like what
happened
> to Tivo, but there are many other ways to advertise like

Cable companies are starting to develop ways to compete with Tivo...  Pretty
soon the Cable box will have a DVR built in for only a higher monthly fee.
Everything I read says Tivo is going to be in trouble from all the
competition coming along.

> newspapers/radio/mails/.... When the startup company is small, the big
> companies would not bother to sue you.

Either that or you never hear about the smaller companies getting sued or
stamped out by lawyers.  I'm sure the Microsoft media lawyers would just
drive by and slap you with a lawsuit just so they don't have to compete
sometime down the line.

>   Any other major hurdles for a startup company?  Anyone interested in
this
> topic?

The problem is that the market will soon be firmly established as the big
firms (Pioneer, Panasonic, JVC, Microsoft) finish their offerings.  Tivo has
a chance because they got backing and they were there first.   Myth is
probably a superior product but would take such backing to make it the way
your talking about.

This seemed decent about what else is going on in dvr land:
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/apr/04252004/business/160155.asp

The one thought that sounded good was building a real high end box...  If
you
did that, got some advertising in some of the audiophile magazines then
maybe
you could sell some high end system...  You know... DVR of the rich and
famous...

I'm interested from a thinking exercise point of view - not to actually
implement something.

Later

>
>
> Thanks
>
> Mike
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Getting married? Find tips, tools and the latest trends at MSN Life
Events.
> http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=married

- -- 

Bill Chmura

w. http://www.fistfullofcode.com
w. http://www.explosivo.com

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