Bill Gates, Entertainment God?

ppgreat sent in a wired story about the home of the future sort of story discussing A/V in a Microsoft Media Player 9 future. As seems to always be the case, there's a lot of cool stuff in there, but more than a few eyebrow raises.

Comments

Re:Bill don't make any more Win Medias...

[RLiegh]

What are you talking about? I have media player 9 and I'm able to turn off DRM just fine.

In fact, it's the same place in both 8 and nine, AFAIK.

Are you trolling, or just objecting to DRM being there at all? If it's the latter, you have to realise that having it there, and able to be turned off is a quite reasonable compromise to both the users, and to the content providers [who otherwise wouldn't share their content for -reasonable- fear of pirating.]

Moderators read this post before +1 parent...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the middle stands Microsoft, determined to navigate these extremes. In the face of a rapidly maturing business market, Microsoft needs to find a way to persuade consumers to upgrade their PCs as Michel genly eases his cock into Rob Maldas rectum.

You DO get lots for your money

[kylef]

The HP Windows Media Center PC 854 (currently $1199 from hp.com) has some pretty high-end features that would never wind up on an Xbox:

• 512 megs RAM
• GeForce4 MX440 with 128 megs of DDR RAM and Tv-out
• a P4 2.53 Ghz "Northwood" cpu
• eMuzed TV tuner with built-in Mpeg2 hardware encoder
• 120 gigabyte hard drive
• DVD Burner
• cool Media Center remote control
• 5.1 channel digital audio
• Firewire and USB2.0 for all your peripherals, video or otherwise

Plus, you get Windows XP Media Center edition with the Media Center app and its "10-foot" UI experience, Windows MovieMaker 2, and video drivers that have been extensively tested for this particular hardware configuration. In fact, it seems the primary reason MS isn't releasing MCE as a retail OS product is that they want to ensure a higher quality standard for Media Center PCs by doing extensive in-house driver and hardware testing before OEM deployment approval.

Want it now?!

[cesman]

Then why not build it yourself with Mister House and MythTV? While I haven't used Mister House, it appears to have a great deal of built in functionality. If it doesn't have the functionality you seek, add it! It is Open Source! Then there is MythTV! Simply put MythTV rules! I recorded my favorites show, rip MY CDs, local weather at a glance and many more! My Myth boxen fits in my entertainment center and is connected to my surrond sound receiver, which sounds great!

Since 0.8 (0.9 was released a few days ago!), Myth has a separate front/backend! Record a show in your living room(or perhaps the basement) and watch it anywhere in your house(of course you'll need a frontend box attached to your TV or a computer running Linux)!