[mythtv-users] prebuilt pvrs for developers benefit?

[Chris Petersen]

> Hardware can’t be bought from online resellers or retailers, 
> they'd have from distributors or manufactures? Deals would 
> have to be made, and purchase orders would have to be written 
> up. 

You've obviously never dealt with distributers/manufacturers on a small
scale.  I work for a relatively small (but still multi-million $$)
systems integrator (blatant plug: http://siliconmechanics.com) and I can
tell you that places like newegg are quite often cheaper than our
distributer's wholesale prices, since it's all about the quantity that
you buy.  So, though we have special pricing for rackmount cases,
motherboards, processors and RAM, our prices on things like video cards
(we deal mostly in high-end servers that don't need such things), sound
cards and desktop cases aren't so hot.

On the other hand, we also build machines for some companies with their
own branding on them.  This might be something to consider if you are
thinking of entering the market with a mythtv-based platform.  Find a
systems integrator willing to do all of the hardware work for you, so
you can concentrate on the software (and if they're cool like us, you
could even give them a disk image to load onto each system and reduce
your workload even further).

Anyway, just some stuff to consider.  Personally, I know that one of the
owners here has considered producing mythtv-based media boxes, and the
money just isn't there.  It's *much* easier to make money on a $2000
server with a standard OS, etc., than it is to deal with supporting both
hardware AND a software platform.

-Chris