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Comcast Offers Trial Of Microsoft TV Software
Anonymous Howard writes "Designtechnica has a news article about Comcast and Microsoft announcing an agreement to test digital TV services using the "Microsoft TV Interactive Program Guide (IPG)". The trial is scheduled to start this fall using Motorola DCT2000 set-top boxes. The software is designed to help network operators get more value from on-demand and other digital TV services." There are some more details in an article over at CNET News.
The current DCT software sucks. Every time you hit a button on the remote, you have to wait for the lousy software to (slowly) execute the command and refresh the screen before pressing another button. The vaunted EPG (electronic program guide) is a joke. It only shows half an hours worth of programs. They waste big chunks of screen space on ads. For a box that supposedly costs $750, they could have hired some real programmers to write the code.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
As an owner of a DishPlayer 7200, which ran this software - I can affirm - while it doesn't BSOD, up until about a year ago, this software was rife with serious, serious, issues. Every update they put out kept making the problems worse and worse. But finally, it seems they got it right. It's a slow box, but it's reasonably stable now.
The thing is, it was the WebTV client that caused most of the havoc, but I didn't even subscribe to WebTV - I was in it for the PVR functionality.
Supposedly the OS is a stripped-down FreeBSD. But that's just hearsay from DBSForums.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
http://www.microsoft.com/tv/ and don't forget to check out their ridiculous promo videos.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.