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The main reason fewer people are new users of LinHES today is
The forum data is wrong. 3%  3%  [ 1 ]
Competition from MythBuntu 18%  18%  [ 6 ]
Competition from Windows Media Center 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Competition from TiVo 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Competition from Cable/Satellite DVRs 24%  24%  [ 8 ]
Competition from Worlds of Warcraft, Farmville, etc. 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Competition from Hulu, Netflix, YouTube 6%  6%  [ 2 ]
There is a limited number of people interested 15%  15%  [ 5 ]
LinHES just works, so users don't need to join the forum. 6%  6%  [ 2 ]
Other 27%  27%  [ 9 ]
Total votes : 33

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 4:29 am 
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Posts: 9
I tried to get a very rough idea of how many KnoppMyth/LinHES users there are and how long it took to develop this base.

A review of the subscription dates of the members of this list shows the following data:

2003 Sept 7, Oct 33, Nov 113, Dec 111 total 264
2004 1817
2005 2465
2006 15712
2007 7428
2008 82
2009 297
2010 234
2011 59 so far

I am sure there are many reasons why forum membership might not be an accurate index of the number of users. If there is a correlation, it suggests that 50 times more people began to use KM in 2006-2007 than in 2009-2010. Is there some other reason why new users are not joining the forum now compared to back then?

Or, is it a real effect, caused by competition from Mythbuntu, WMC, or Cable/Satellite DVRs. Could the loss of free EPG data have made that big of a difference?

Thanks for your help.


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:22 am 
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I believe the "spike" in 2006/2007 was partly because, at the time, the forums required one to log on just to read them (I think it was because of server capacity issues).

That said, the seems to have been a decrease in forum traffic in the last few years.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 6:23 am 
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Off the top of my head, I would say the cable company move to encrypted digital, makes mythtv somewhat less useful. That and on demand streaming of a lot of shows directly to your computer.

It's still a great solution for over-the-air folks.


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 8:42 am 
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I said other, because there isn't a mass market for this by 'civilians'.

It still has to be kept running by a computer hobbiest.

I can't keep it running at remote sites for family members in a timely fashion, and they generally threw over the Mythbox for a less capable, but more reliable DVR in the satbox / cablebox. :cry:


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 9:27 am 
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Location: Virginia, USA
Would have to agree with snaproll and jzigmyth. As simple as it is relative to starting from scratch, it's still way more complicated than most people are capable of managing.

Examples: getting the HD-PVR working (which is the only way you can record digital cable channels), or getting HDMI audio working (I'd love it if it "just worked" instead of having to fiddle with multiple settings in multiple places)

Also, cable company DVRs have made it a lot easier to add storage, which removed a big advantage the DIY DVRs had.


Last edited by ceenvee703 on Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:23 am 
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ceenvee703 wrote:
Examples: getting the HD-PVR working (which is the only way you can record digital cable channels), or getting HDMI audio working (I'd still love it if it "just worked" instead of having to fiddle with multiple settings in multiple places)

Boy Howdy !

Quote:
Also, cable company DVRs have made it a lot easier to add storage, which removed a big advantage the DIY DVRs had.

Second that. USB plug in external drives... Many as ya want ....

The box DVRs lack the Mythbox data manipulation capabilities, but that is lost on 99% of people who want 'simple' ...


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 1:50 pm 
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I would say a combination of a couple of these many of which lead to $$$.

My first box (and probably many of yours) was an old PC that was collecting dust. I got a PVR150 with remote and connected the analog cable to it. Getting the KM working smoothly took some time but the hardware was easy and cheap.

More and more people have HD TVs and digital cable and expect HD quality. That means HD-PVR which means cable boxes which means channel changers just to get started. Plus you need a video card with DVI out and a larger hard drive.

I would say that it appears more daunting to start.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 2:05 pm 
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Agreed....

The current state of the Mythbox is excellent for HD OTA with HDHRs

Throw in Comcast :roll: and cable and sat boxes for your source and the difficulties will curl our hair... let alone 'civilians' ...... :lol:


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 9:03 pm 
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I 'd say some combination of people having other options, and cable providers encrypting content.

I recently replaced my LinHES box, but mostly so that it was more capable when it came to streaming content (one of those other options).

When Comcast started encrypting everything but the local "must carry, must not fart around with" OTA channels, I voted with my feet by dropped back the basic service tier (which is 95% those local OTA channels) and started watching more streaming content and buying stuff *I* wanted to see with the $$ that saved. So Comcast lost an easy $500 a year, the cable channel companies lost their % of the fees and viewership (which drives ad pricing which means $). Multiply by the number of people I've heard similar stories from and Cable companies are looking like the next dying "newspaper" business model.


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 2:30 pm 
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tjc wrote:
Multiply by the number of people I've heard similar stories from and Cable companies are looking like the next dying "newspaper" business model.


Thus the reason for the Comcast / NBC merger. Comcast didn't take their ball and go home - they bought the ball park.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 10:21 pm 
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I'd say that the encrypted channels thing is the biggest hurdle. I killed the cable due to lack of funds but I miss it dearly. There is hope on the Horizon the Ceton card looks promising they just need to get it down to the $99 level. WTF is going on with Netflix they haven't made a streaming app for Android and they refuse to make a streaming service for linux. I say refuse because the Google STB and half of the streaming boxes are running linux and they can stream Netflix just fine.
The other obstacle is the ease of use of torrents. anyone with the skills and patience to configure a mythtv box is very likely to be drawn to the ease and price of torrents.

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 1:42 am 
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I think anyone looking for a MythTV distro is finding Mythbuntu. The people that do find their way to the LinHES front-page don't get much information since it is very sparse on details.
It does not mention that you can configure the entire system with just the remote control, or mention any of the other benefits that seperate LinHES from other MythTV distros.

I also think people are leaving because they want their system to be a bit more flexible then what is possible using the LinHES Arch system. I just recently reformatted my frontend and was finally able to get Mythbuntu 11.04 on the atom system, so now I can also run Boxee on it.

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 5:01 am 
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I had noticed posts seem down over the last while, I assumed it was because LinHES just worked in most instances.

I think uteck has a point - when you visit pages for MythTV, Boxee, Media Portal et al. have lots of fancy graphics to entice you in.

Perhaps there is a need for a fancy front page to all this?

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 1:56 am 
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I think there are a lot of reasons. One that hasn't been mentioned is that it is very hard for the average user to enhance LinHES. This leads to fewer posts. It is very difficult for those outside of the dev team to participate. For example, adding email support to send health reports requires one to open a bug and wait for someone else to do it because the packages aren't in LinHES (that, or compiling from scratch which isn't for the average user).

I understand the philosophy of an appliance. Maybe LinHES fits a niche that will allow it to survive instead of disappearing against bigger competition. Mythbuntu is definitely not an appliance. However, I have had to regularly restore my mythbuntu disk from backup because a package was updated that broke something. That never used to happen with LinHES/Knoppmyth.

Hope no one is offended.... these are just opinions.

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 2:04 pm 
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We are venturing a bit off subject I suppose but I do agree with that the move to more to Arch and to an appliance has squashed some of the computer hacker fun that I had with KM. I really don't want this to be taken as a criticism of the devs and all the great work they have done. Nor do I want it to appear that I am unappreciative and second guessing their decisions. But when you read about new features and add ons, you want to play with getting them now. You don't want to create a bug report and wait. In the long run it probably gets us where we are trying to get but it sure seems slower.

Plus as a self proclaimed noob, I was just figuring out Knoppix and had to start all over again with Arch.

(end rant here)

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