Originally Posted by Yves:
“I would say a shortage of PVR boxes pre-Christmas would be an economic disaster for HUMAX.”
As other people have indicated, it just doesn't work like that. I can't go into all of the theoretical factors and forces (and I have to say theoretical, because my experience in this area is mainly academic), but being able to have sold more of a product, esp. when you have the one product desired by a market, is not ideal, but it isn't an economic disaster by any stretch. It will be far more annoying to the potential customers, but unless you move away from mainstream Freesat, there are no alternative products.
If Humax now said to the manufacturer "okay, we have now finished testing and it is ready for production, we want fifty thousand boxes ready for mid-November and one thousand boxes a week after that" then how the hell is the manufacturer going to produce those boxes without massive ramping-up costs to their production facility? How is that cost going to be absorbed? There will need to be training for people who, in mid-November, will all be let go once the initial batch has been produced. A very simplistic view, I know, and avoiding lots of other factors, but it is just one hurdle in the process.
Good luck to Humax, lets hope they get the balance right and both Humax and their customers are happy.