[mythtv-users] Upgrade Options for $150

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Wed Jan 24 05:01:02 UTC 2007


On Jan 23, 2007, at 9:28 PM, Yan Seiner wrote:

>
> Yeah well, ours *charges* $15 to take a CRT.

That would make sense only if you were in California. These days the  
re-cycling fee is collected when you buy the product though.
>
> Seriously, though, you will have to spring for a decent video card, a
> DVD player, and a modern LCD display.  Those just aren't hitting the
> recyclers yet.
>
> But still, you can pick up a loaded PC for very little.  Since I don't
> want Windows, they pull the pre-loaded drive, install a wiped  
> drive, and
> I save $30.

I've known folks to buy an old PC just to get the MS license, it's  
cheaper than buying the OS, or at least qualifies you for the  
"upgrade" price instead of the new machine cost. This is true of some  
old Macs as well. Then there's the MPEG "tax" on the DVD drives,  
which most Linux users cheerfully ignore. That software that came  
with your DVD drive is really just a license to use MPEG. The $30 DVD  
players have about $20 of MPEG license fees attached, they are really  
just giving you the player so they can sell you disks, the cost is  
just the license fees plus shipping.

>
> Expect to see a windfall when Vista hits the shelves.  All those 3  
> GHz,
> 1GB RAM, 256 MB Video card boat anchors....  :-)

If it weren't for a certain bloated OS most consumers could get by  
just fine with an 8088 CPU. Except for HD playback, de-interlace and  
transcode even Myth users don't need much CPU, but a lot of disk I/O  
bandwidth.

The manufacturers have to sell new machines, and I bet they are  
salivating at the Vista "requirements", but the truth is for most  
consumer tasks a 33Mhz. 386 is more than enough. Myth users are a  
partial exception, as are some gamers.

There are third-world people who would be thrilled to have what we  
throw away, but of course their problems are more basic, like eating  
and getting power to run the machine.

But we're getting even more OT than is usual even here :-)



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