[mythtv-users] prebuilt pvrs for developers benefit?

[Chris Petersen]

> I could help some. I was the CEO of a biotech startup
> here in the SF Bay area. (We actually worked up on
> Columbia St in Seattle.) I could help get the legal
> structure in place, float a draft of a business plan
> to interested players and *might* get some support
> from some local VC that are always interested. It
> might be cool to see how it would work in Seattle as a
> pilot and then move it around to other cities if it
> made sense. Let me know if you have interest.

Not sure how much VC or legal structure would be needed for a small
scale venture.  Legal advice for dealing with CSS and such would be
somewhat of a concern, but we can get around that by just not providing
that feature for DVD playing.

I've checked with one of the owners here, and SiMech would probably be
able to provide hardware (we're semi-competitive price-wise - better
than retail, not always better than places like newegg, but definitely
convenient), and possibly room to offer the class (there are security
issues here, but can think about those later).

There are several logistical issues, though....

Minor hardware questions...  Do you do PVR-250 type cards, or software
cards?  What about HDTV?  What motherboard/enclosure do we go with?
Etc...

And more importantly, though many people have analog cable, a LOT of
people in the $1000-for-a-PVR-and-class bracket will have digital or
satellite setups (hence the HDTV question).  This means that they'll
need an IR Blaster type thing or USB/Serial interface to their box,
which means we'd need to know what kind of box everyone has, and know
how to interface with each one, without the ability to test anything
during the class itself (unless we can somehow find a location that has
one of each type of TV service).  This is the biggest issue I can forsee
at the moment.

-Chris