I was wondering why there is no retailer that sells a MythTv system complete with video card, tuner, working remote, etc. Is there some rule related to the GNU that would prevent that?

I know most of the users in this forum enjoy playing with their own hardware solutions. But it seems like someone would have tried to bring MythTv to the masses. Since there is no monthly fee it seems like a good percentage of Tivo users would convert.

Thanks.

Ahhh, but someone is...
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13020

In the same vein, I am curious why no one seems to sell dedicated frontend and backend systems. The Dragon is nice (not perfect for everyone) but it seems like it should be easy to make dedicated frontends and backends the same way. I would even say that they should be able to use much of the same hardware from the Dragon.

I understand the difficult with backends as people have such diversified storage and capture needs.

But the frontend? If someone was selling a system that had a CPU powerful enough for 1080p, compact flash storage, optional DVD drive, and analog/digital audio/video outs, that installed seamlessly in 10 minutes using KnoppMyth, I'm betting a lot of people would pick it up. If it would decode 1080p h.264 video realtime, you've pretty much got your needs met for the next 5+ years.

The component list would look something like this:
1x Stereo component sized chassis
1x Core 2 Duo (low power version)
1x Motherboard (Nice with onboard NIC/audio/video with analog/digital outs) [1]
1x 512MB DDR stick
1x 1GB Compact Flash card
1x Power supply (possibly external brick)
1x IR Receiver (and/or RF)
1x DVD-ROM drive (optional. An RW drive would probably cost the same)

That meets the needs of ~80% of all front end users for the next 5 years[2], and all with just some fans for moving parts. If a person could buy just that, know that it installs easily with any KnoppMyth, and has a single contact for support, most people in the need would.


*[1] A motherboard with this much onboard may not be functionally feasible to get working with Linux. Some sort of hardware assisted decoding might be required on the motherboard for decoding the video, such as onboard nVidia or Intel graphics chips, or some other solution.

*[2] I'm making the assumption that all video will eventually be 1080p, and that it will all be encoded with h.264 for maximum reasonable storage efficiency. I also assume that 1080p@60fps will be the maximum consumer available video format available for at least 5 years, and that h.264 will be the most complex video codec commonly used during that same 5 years. This is the industries' plan, but the unexpected can always happen.

Atamido, you may want to take a look at the last couple of pages of http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4220. Human, nharris and others seem to be brainstorming of sorts...

Ah, someone is playing with the system because it mostly works now.

There's also the Hannibal. I don't know much about it, someone just sent me the link to it today. It looks pretty sweet, but I'm not crazy about the Celeron processor.

Ok. It is good news that there are a few retailers out there. One problem I see is that the Knoppmyth Reference Platform has just one certified configuration after the first post about it was made over a year ago. In order to take off I think we need at least a handful of certified platforms. And then hopefully more reatilers will show up.

Also. I'm not sure the retailers are marketing this as a Tivo alternative. I think that is where the oppotunity is.

Joe user who might be slightly technie but a Windows Geek instead of Linux might see something like this appeal to him because he knows he won't have the monthy fee that he would with Tivo. And he has more freedom to mess around if he gets motivated to learn a few Linux tricks.

It isn't easy to get retailers interested in KRP. If they do get interested after a while, I simply stop hearing from them... Kudos to Mythic.tv for contacting me and on the Dragons.

It is, but we're the only ones who help improve KnoppMyth And we're one of very few who publish their system specifications, so you know what you're getting. It's also never been clear to me how they expect their customers to upgrade to the latest software. KnoppMyth includes built-in upgrade functionality which is very easy to use. On a pre-installed system, how can non-Linux-gurus upgrade?

Also, someone mentioned the Hannibal eariler - I saw an analysis of its hardware costs, and it was something like $450 in parts for the $900 system cost. If we wanted to make something as low-end as the Hannibal, we could probably sell it for $550, but we're not currently interested in supporting analog television.

Since Dragon 1.0 launched, it was updated for Dragon 1.1, and now there's Dragon 2.0. So really there have been three configurations within the Dragon line.

That's the inverse of how it works, though. The vendors (so far, just us) come up with the platforms and work with the other KnoppMyth developers to make it all work smoothly. There are currently not reference platform designs looking for manufacturers. If you want to help KnoppMyth and the KRP concept take off, please help spread the word about both. We have some digg stories that need to be dugg:
http://digg.com/linux_unix/KnoppMyth_Re ... _Announced
http://digg.com/linux_unix/KnoppMyth_R5 ... able_today

It would be deceptive to do this, since it's not a drop-in replacement for a Tivo when digital content is concerned. You can't just put a MythTV box in place of your DirecTivo or your HD Tivo and expect it to work like the Tivo does. What we do in our Dragon summary is compare Tivo and MythTV in terms of features and cost, but it'd be deceptive to make it seem like it's going to work the same as Tivo. By the same token, it would be deceptive of Tivo to claim that it could do all the things MythTV can do.

This is what we do emphasize. The Tivo is a single-purpose device. When you don't want to use it as a DVR anymore, you can let it collect dust or you can sell it. A MythTV box can be turned into your desktop PC, you can make it into a file server, you can even (gasp) run Windows on it, you can use it as a home security computer, a videoconferencing system, and so on ad infinitum. And some of these things can even be done concurrently with it also being your DVR.

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