[mythtv-users] Why cant we make a STB?

[Simon Hobson]

Udo van den Heuvel wrote:
>Mitch Gore wrote:
>>Why cant someone with the know how build some STB/Media Extended for MythTV?
>
>First think about one basic software issue:
>Memory leaks
>
>I guess you missed my posts about these?
>If you are going to produce STBs with MythTV hunderds, thousands, 
>etc people will be using this software. Not all of them will want to 
>dig into the stuff as we do. They expect stuff to work.
>So recording a few channels off of one multiplex should just work, 
>for weeks, months on end.
>
>And no, a nightly stop/start is not acceptable because their 
>favorite TV-show will be on at that time anyway.

Doesn't stop some of the big names dealing with it that way !

I know exactly what you mean - "consumers" expect a box that they 
take home, plug in, it works ... and keeps working. If it doesn't, 
then the scope for damage to reputation is immense.

A couple of years ago,  bought my parents a Panasonic Freeview PVR - 
nice specs, twin tuners, reasonable size hard disk, perm pretty well 
any combination of recording and viewing that doesn't exceed the 
hardware interfaces (ie you can record or watch any two channels off 
air, you can watch any recording including ones still recording, and 
you can play out stuff through the VCR/DVD scart socket - all at the 
same time).
Trouble was, it was many many months late, in short supply, and when 
it did arrive, it was bug ridden to the point of barely usable. In 
hindsight I should have just sent it back (like many did), but we 
waited for the broadcast software update - which was late, and didn't 
fix all the bugs, but it did make the box usable (mostly). Some of 
the lockups they dealt with by simply getting it to restart itself 
periodically !

But the thing is, Panasonic then abandoned the product - and the only 
reason they didn't get a good ravaging is that they sold so few 
boxes. But for those of us who did buy it, it's meant that in the 
future, I'll think carefully before buying anything technical from 
Panasonic.


So the thing is, if someone starts selling a "consumer" product, then 
expectations are very different. It has to "just work", "mostly 
works" and "restart occasionally" just don't do it. So if the product 
isn't 100% you'll get a lot of returns. Even if the returned boxes 
are not faulty - there's a cost to cleaning them up, restoring the 
disk to factory image, and putting in new packaging, before selling 
them at a discount as "grade B" product. But the damage to brand 
reputation can be enormous - how often have you heard that "Linux can 
never work on the desktop, I tried it once and it didn't work <insert 
reason>" ?


At the moment, my impression is that Myth is not there yet - OK for 
enthusiasts, but not polished and turnkey enough for the consumer 
market. That limits your market somewhat - there's a big difference 
between investing for a market of hundreds of thousands, or even 
millions, or boxed to the worldwide consumer market; and a few 
hundreds or thousands (if lucky) to the enthusiast market.

-- 
Simon Hobson

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