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Windows Media Center Edition vs. The World

Posted by timothy on from the no-compelling-advantage dept.

sam_christ writes "An article in today's Investor's Business Daily (Google cache) and an article by TV industry pundit/predictions-huckster Philip Swann say the same thing: that Microsoft's Media Center Edition will be a big flop in 2005. Meanwhile, from what I can tell much more powerful alternatives to Microsoft's MCE bloatware are thriving: commercial products like Snapstream (see their 6-tuner Medusa PVR built for about $1200), Showshifter and open-source freeware like Mediaportal and MythTV. From what I've read about Microsoft MCE and all of its DRM and content restrictions, I have to agree with both of these articles."

6 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. None ready for primetime by hipsterdufus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Let's see:

    MythTv is at version .16
    MediaPortal is at version .0.1.0.3

    Do you really want to run what is essentially an alpha product? I don't. These people also are happy with the fact that it sorta works, but not all the way. If you had a high end media room with a 100" screen and a projector, the image quality is not where it should be. It proably looks great on your 17" lcd or 4:3 ratio 27" television.

    I'm not even sure what the snapstream product is. You can do everything it lists for the tv stuff with the software that comes with any pc tuner card.

    MCE 2004 was a disaster. Horrible product, run away as fast as you can. MCE 2005 is loads better, though not perfect yet. Numerous companies offer a ready-to-go unit ala a DVD player. Just plug and go. The HP z545 and the Alienware DHS series are great machines that you can setup just fine to output to a HDTV projector and it looks great. You can also play Doom on them and surf the net. Nice integration.

    Nobody YET offers a MCE with OTA or QAM HD support. You can add the card yourself (the ATI HDTV wonder is on the short list of cards supported by MCE) and you're good to go.

    Until you can buy a pre-made box from a company with Myth loaded and ready to rock, I don't think you'll see myth in the living room. Microsoft got a computer in every home, now it wants one in every living room connected to the tv. If MCE 2005 is where they are going, they are headed in the right direction.

  2. I feel your pain, but... by daveschroeder · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...Apple, in the form of Steve Jobs, has said numerous, numerous, numerous times, publicly and very specifically, that he doesn't believe in any kind of convergence, or any interactivity between TV and computers. As he has said numerous times: When you use a computer, you turn your mind on. When you watch TV, you turn your mind off. They two worlds are not compatible. Now, whether that's just gimmicky-speak, and whether it's ultimately true aside, Steve himself believes it. And on top of that, Steve, even as CEO of Pixar, is one of those "kill your television" types, so I don't see him getting behind a PVR/AV component type project.

    HOWEVER, some evidence points in other directions:

    AirPort Express: an AV component that lets you stream music from your computer to an analog or digital audio output on a wireless device that's part of your entertainment system

    iPod Photo: an increasingly large hard drive in a product that has a dock that is, in part, intended to be part of an entertainment system that has audio and composite video and S-video output (think iTunes Movie Store: download movie, sync with iPod, drop in dock that's hooked up to your TV, and play)

    New headless sub-$500 iMac: ThinkSecret is almost ALWAYS spot-on with these stories, so it's probably true. This could easily be an AV component IF it includes tuner capabilities, or some provision for adding them

    Apple/Motorola cell phone, possibly co-branded or even Apple-branded: Yes, this really is happening, folks. If an Apple VP talks about it to Forbes, it was explicitly approved by Jobs. This proves Apple is willing to branch out into other markets.

    With the "Digital Hub", Apple has addressed every possible kind of connectivity and device: scanners, printers, digital cameras, digital camcorders, phones, PDAs, the computer, movie editing, CD creation, music, DVD authoring, portable music players, etc. - everything, that is, EXCEPT TV. Yes, there are sticky issues here, of copyright, of rights management, etc., probably even worse than what was dealt with for the iTunes Music Store. Not to mention the problems of dealing with different TV reception standards in different countries, and the fact that you'd need to be able to DIRECTLY TUNE encrypted digital cable and satellite services, in all markets, to even begin to make this worthwhile for Apple. They're not going to have people hook up crap to random external equipment. So until there are universal standards (like CableCard) for allowing devices OTHER than set top boxes to tune the digital TV services, it just doesn't make sense.

    But if Apple made a device in this space, it would be the iPod of PVRs, and would have the ease of use, integration, and fabulous attention to detail and usability we've all come to expect from Apple.

    We can only hope...

    1. Re:I feel your pain, but... by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think you underestimate the value of Steve Jobs to Apple and overestimate the value of a PVR solution to it too.

      Apple, in case it had slipped your mind, was a rudderless ship before Steve Jobs rejoined the company. It was losing market share not only to IBM PC compatibles but to its own authorised clones. It took Jobs next to no time to reverse that slide, develop the iMac, kickstart OSX development and return Apple to its "insanely great" roots.

      Yes, the CEO's that Apple had during Jobs' absence from the company made it more profitable but Jobs has made Apple more popular too.

      More than anything, Jobs has positioned Apple and its products as accessable and desirable: Apply is now a company focused on style (the iMacs, the G3/G4/G5 designs compared to their predecessors, the iPod) and simplicity (again, the iMacs, OS X, the iPod).

      Frankly, it's hard to imagine Apple being where it is today without Jobs at the helm. I'd bet my life that Apple's board, its employees and the overwhelming majority of its shareholders and customers would agree with that sentiment. Certainly, it's hard to see someone like Gil Amelio, Apple's previous Chairman and CEO, steering such a successful course.

      Look around at the PC industry today. Who's the most innovative company out there? IBM's shedding its PC division, HP marriage with Compaq still looks like a bad deal, Dell doesn't innovate at all,Sony is obsessed with its own technology (Memory Stick, etc, although they finally caved in with regards to ATRAC vs MP3), and everyone else is small potatoes.

      Will Apple ever have a PVR product? My head says, yes, eventually they will. But it won't be until Apple is ready, and that won't be until it's confident that it has a killer product. In that regard, it'll be the same strategy as Apple adopted with the personal music player market: let everyone else spend their time and money selling the concept to the public and making the early mistakes and then jump in once it's got a bigger market to aim for with a more polished product (iPod plus iTunes).

      Frankly, there's more chance of Osama Bin Laden presenting himself at the front gate of the White House tomorrow than there is of Apple making the same mistake it's made once before and firing Jobs over his reluctance to jump into the PVR market.

      --

      "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
  3. PC in the office, movies in the living room... by jazzmanjac · · Score: 3, Informative
    Hauppauge's Media MVP let's you watch recordings that reside on your PC on your TV. I've got one and I love it. No PC's in my living room....

    Oh yeah... it runs linux.

    --
    Some cats swing, and others don't. Don't you be the kind that won't.
  4. Re:WinTV-PVR by EXrider · · Score: 3, Informative

    I might be wrong, but I don't think the elimination of the VHF and UHF spectrums will affect terrestrial analog cable. At least the FCC has no control over what's sent over a shielded copper cable, there's standards, but that's about it.

    So that leaves it in the cable company's hands, personally, if my cable company ends analog service, and forces me to purchase a cable box for each of my analog TVs, for anything more than $1 a month additional, they lose their appeal compared to satellite TV, and I'll be switching to satellite at that point.

    On the topic of tuner cards, don't do what I did and buy the damn Hauppauge PVR-150 if you plan to use it in Linux. There's no fully functional drivers available for it yet. There's a group working on drivers but last I heard (last week) one guy on the team disappeared, so they're stuck right now on the development. The PVR-250 is identical in functionality to the PVR-150, it just has more chips and costs more to manufacture, it's being replaced by the cheaper 150, the 250 supposedly works great in Linux.

    --
    grep -iw skynet /etc/services
  5. Re:Windows MCE won't be "mainstream" product. by raverbuzzy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Really? It runs fine on my old P3 933 w/ 512Mb RAM. Software cost's aside. I only had to spend $79 on a capture card, $30 on a remote and and extra $145 for an ATI's video card and HDTV dongle. It was easy to setup and the interface is great. I might give another PVR such as mythtv a try at sometime, but I never get round to it because MCE works great.