[mythtv-users] commercially-produced mythboxes -- an idea

[Brad Templeton]

On Fri, Jan 14, 2005 at 02:15:41AM -0500, Maverick wrote:
> can't assemble the hardware and install the software, they will goto
> the local electronics store, spend $200 on a tivo, buy a lifetime
> subscription, and leave the other $500 in the bank.

To be strict, the $1000 is for an HD-Mythbox, and an HDTivo is also
$1000 plus DirectTv subscription (though it has 4 tuners.)
> 
> I just don't see an advantage in marketing pre-assembled or "canned"
> hardware to geeks who have the knowledge to make their own exactly the
> way they want.

Actually, I do see one.  As you can tell by reading guides like
the Myth-tv-ology guide to Myth on Fedora or similar guides for Debian,
there are still quite a number of steps to getting up and running.

So I think a lot of people might like a hard disk which has all of
that done and ready to go, since you want a new hard disk in a mythbox
anyway.

This is indeed what I have done for myself, in that if I wish a new
mythbox, I don't repeat the procedure, I clone an existing one.  That
applies even with different hardware, since while the cloned disk has
drivers for the pcHDTV, wintv-pvr and nvidia graphics cards on it
(which are the most common choices for anybody building a new box),
kudzu is quite able to reconfigure to the other hardware that changes
on the new box (network etc.) though it likes to erase your xorg.conf.

Of course, one could also make a distro on DVD with all this rather
than requiring you to get a hard disk.
>