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."

Comments

Somewhat misleading customer satisfaction

[StateOfTheUnion]

From the NY times article Regardless of how they get Media Center computers, Mr. Brooks said people like them when they get them home. Microsoft's surveys, he said, found that more than 90 percent of the owners of the Media Center computers are satisfied with them, far more than the percentage of basic PC owners. Eight out of nine, he said, would recommend the product to a friend.

That doesn't surprise me but I think that the figure is intrinsically misleading . . . at only 3% of the market, these media PC's are probably primarily bought by the diehard enthusiast types. These are exactly the same group that would be most likely to be very satisfied with the product. The average Joe that is much more fickle and impatient currently wouldn't even consider buying one of these for his/her living room . . . at least not until they become much more mainstream . . .

I'm unimpressed

[El]

I've got a very expensive Sony Media Center PC. The program guide and remote control are nice, but the thing takes forever to switch channels, and video quality is poor (it appears to be dropping frames like crazy when receive standard broadcast TV with a lot of movement). Sure, I can pause live TV, but what good is that when it looks like crap? Of course, it is difficult to say how much of this is the fault of the software, and how much is because of the hardware -- but killing every other process running seems to help.

Re:What news, what news.

[reverseengineer]

Tivo --- Cheap, works, easy to use, easy to setup.
MythTV --- Cheap, works, easy to use, difficult to setup.
MCE --- Expensive, works, easy to use, modertly difficult to setup.

The only problem with your otherwise insightful analysis is that the MCE "works" only for a rather limited definition of "working" compared to the functionality of the other products on the market. It does less and costs more, and Microsoft's principal argument for you to purchase one seems to be, "Hey, we're Microsoft. You may be familiar with some of our other products."