[mythtv-users] Why cant we make a STB?

[Daniel Kristjansson]

On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 17:01 -0700, Brian Wood wrote:
> Things like UL and FCC certification require a lot of money and time. This is 
> the sort of "invisible" cost to making your own hardware device that most 
> people ae totally unaware of.

FCC cert yes, but you can avoid the UL cert by using a UL approved
external power-supply.

The real reason why we don't just grab a few developers and HW geeks
and make a cute little device is because it requires you to start a
real business.. and one with significant challenges such as tapping
distribution channels. If you were to do that, then the MythTV frontend
market looks pretty small, uPnP is much bigger; but there is lots of
competition in the uPnP market and little product differentiation
since sigma makes the chip in practically all of them. If you were
already making a uPnP device, upping the specs a little bit so it
could run a real myth frontend would tap a new auxiliary market for
very little additional cost; but starting a new HW company from
scratch is not something you just whip up in a couple weekends. ;^)

-- Daniel