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Microsoft Media Center 2005 Reviewed
Thomas Hawk writes "Microsoft is set to release their new Media Center 2005 by none other than Bill Gates himself in Los Angeles tomorrow. In advance of this announcement, the New York Times (registration required) is running
an article on the new product today. The article says that the quality of the MCE television has generally been received as inferior to rival and competitor TiVo. I wrote a review on the new MCE 2005 last week called MCE 2005, Underwhelmed. I'm offering
continuing media coverage of MCE 2005."
So far, the record of Media Center PC's is mixed. Since they were introduced in 2002, computers using the first two versions of this software have been slow sellers. IDC, which had forecast sales of 1.5 million of them this year, now sees sales at 550,000 units for all of 2004.
Roger Kay, a vice president of IDC, says sales of Media Center PC's have lagged because they are buggy, too hard to use, and often too noisy to put in a living room. And even among the small group of users, they haven't developed the fanatical following of TiVo, the stand-alone video recorder.
"I haven't been in some placid home where the people who use Media Center PC's think it is great and a part of their life," Mr. Kay said.
Stephen Baker, the director of industry analysis at the NPD Group, a research firm, is skeptical even of the existing sales of Media Center PC's. "A lot of their sales have been accidental," he said. "Someone wants to buy the best PC out there, and this is the one with all the bells and whistles"
The media extender device may give Microsoft its desired beachhead in the living room. But those devices are emerging technology and have an initial price tag of about $250. A recorder from TiVo, by contrast, can be bought for less than $100 after rebates, although it has a fee of $12.95 a month, which the Windows system does not.
http://www.busyweather.com/
For Linux, there's MythTV and Freevo. They're both free, and I've heard good things about both of them.
I'm planning to get a mini-ITX form-factor computer and install Linux and one of the above to use as a media box. I'd also like to put some games and possibly Stepmania on it. That would be a nice setup.
Anyone care to share any personal experiences with MythTV or Freevo?
http://www.mythtv.org/
http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
http://freshmeat.net/projects/knoppmyth/
Maybe give you a start.
However, I'm very picky about noise, and I've been able to silence drives very successfully. Get a modern quiet one, turn on acoustic management, and soft-mount it. Either suspend it with bungees, rest it on sorbothane foam, or at least use rubber grommets in the drive cage. There are all sorts of discussions about this on www.silentpcreview.com.
I'm amazed by how much bungee-suspension has silenced my hard drive. You have to tackle cooling on a free-suspended drive without the heatsink-effect of a case, but that's not too hard.
Much more difficult than hard drives, I think, is eliminating fan noise while cooling a modern machine. To have quiet fans, you need low airflow (and good fans), so you've got to work hard to make the case airflow as free as possible. Difficult with small HTPC cases particularly, but not impossible.
OF course, MythTV doesn't have a monthly fee- add in 3 years at 12 per month or so for a decent length of use comparison. And don't forget that MythTV allows customization and add ons (MythGame, MythMusic, MythPhone, add in a larger HD anytime, throw on an ftp server to access your files at a friends house, etc). Plus it can be used as a normal PC when not recording. While it may be more, you also get a lot more functionality for it.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Oh sure, MythTV has a lot going for it. And it is very easy to accidentially include addons like a big HDD or a DVD writer in the cost when comparing to a TiVo, which is hardly an accurate comparison.
But TiVo is available as a lifetime subscription for less than the cost of a mythtv box.
Unless you upgrade from MC 2004 to 2005 (and have previously joined a domain) you can not join a domain with MC 2005.
This is because MC 2005 is cheaper than XP Pro, and MSFT doesn't want corporations abandoning XP Pro sales.
Obviously, you and I have been listening to different desktop PCs and XBoxes... I'd go for an X-box for this purpose in an instant, if every one I've heard wasn't so noisy. Silence is in the ear of the beholder. They're also harder to silence. Small quiet fans just don't exist, and the Xbox has a small fan (50, 60mm or something?).
Oddly enough, I have two xboxes here that have extremely different fan volumes. One of them is far newer than the other, and came for free with our new van.
The old one makes such a loud noise that the top volume on the TV can't drown it out. The new one makes such a small noise that you can hardly hear it, even when there's no other sound in the room. The buttons on the front of the new one also move less and are nicer, but that besides the point.