[mythtv-users] Zap2it Labs Shutting Down?

[Fedor Pikus]

On 6/20/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 12:00:56PM -0700, Srikant Sharma wrote:
> >    I assume their (zap2it/TMS) major complaint is the abuse of their facility
> >    and the load on their servers.
>
> I believe this not to be their primary complaint.
>
> As I understand it, their primary complaint (about MythTV users, at
> least) appears to be that commercial packagers of Myth were setting up
> cookie-cutter boxes and selling them to end users with (presumably) the
> *same* Z2L account configured into them.
>
> Since Z2L's motivation for giving it away for free (aside from the
> screen scraping problem) was that it provided them useful penetration
> numbers and research, which this practice interfered with -- and since
> they *charge* commercial PVR software makers for that privilege -- they
> were annoyed.

So basically, if I buy a PC and install MythTV on it myself, it's ok,
but if I buy a PC with MythTV pre-installed, it's a problem? What if I
buy it, but then update it with new MythTv myself? What if I bought a
Dell and paid someone to install MythTv on it?

Z2L indeed charge commercial PVR makers, but commercial PVR makers
download the data themselves and resell it to PVR owners, so there is
a difference. Commercial PVRs are forever tied to the PVR vendor, PVR
vendors make money from service. If I buy a prebuilt MythTv box, I
don't have to talk to the builder ever again, so the builder makes
money only from the box, just like Dell does.

-- 
Fedor G Pikus (fpikus at gmail.com)
http://www.pikus.net
http://wild-light.com