[mythtv-users] re:MythTV production run

[mythtvyahoomike at hotmail.com]

     It's amazing that Tivo still loses money when it has more than 1
million subscribers(that's more than $100M!) with less than 300 employers.
I don't think Tivo make profit from selling hardware,  but I don't think it
loses either.  One reason I believe is the high cost in the states.



Your numbers seem reasonable, if you put as much effort in as Tivo did. Tivo
is the market leader, and they spent about 5 years to get to their first
profitable quarter (2004 Q4). Sony has sold about twice as many copies of
Everquest as Tivo has sold subscriptions in the same first 5 years. And Tivo
doesn't even make the hardware. More people play online games with their PS2
than own a Tivo unit. I sure hope the DVR market starts to grow rapidly,
it's
been dismally slow so far. ;)

Sources:
http://www.tivo.com/pdfs/reports/Q4_FY04_release.pdf
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=2038&page=1
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?article_no=2038&page=3

> The only difficulty seems to be writing drivers for specialized capture
> card/mpeg encoder/mpeg decoder, which should be done in about 1 man-year.
> For stability consideration, many  features could (should?) be removed
from
> mythtv.  Even so, an overhaul on mythtv would take about 5 man-year or
> maybe less?   So the financial  requirement is not that high either.
Ok,
> Cable companies would not allow you to advertise mythtv, like what
happened
> to Tivo, but there are many other ways to advertise like
> newspapers/radio/mails/.... When the startup company is small, the big
> companies would not bother to sue you.

I'm not sure I would count on that. Big companies often sue small companies
simply to give a competitor the burden of defense costs.

I assume the man-year numbers are grabbed from thin air. Also, don't forget
the hardware costs of creating that specialized capture hardware.

>   Any other major hurdles for a startup company?  Anyone interested in
this
> topic?

I think the showstopper (pun intended :) is the hardware cost. Selling a
MythTV-based DVR product based on general purpose PC hardware is just not
going to compete cost-effectively with the growing options from cable and
satellite service providers and other DVR competition.

If you have the resources to have a custom single-board platform designed
and
manufactured in quantity to be the heart of a MythTV box for a cost well
under $100 per unit then after the manhours, production, packaging,
marketing
and distribution you just might profit a few dollar on each unit at some
pricepoint that will encourage success.

I won't be investing, but I'll certainly be watching any of you who do! :)

>
> Thanks
>
> Mike
>
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