HP Exits Media Center Business

MCE writes "The first big adapter of Microsoft's Media Center Edition is quietly dropping MCE. HP is ceasing production of its Digital Entertainment Center, the only real success story for Media Center PCs in a living-room form factor. As the first company to embrace Microsoft's MCE, at a time when the platform was still half-baked, HP was simply spent by the time Vista rolled around. Now the company will put its resources into MediaSmart, a new line of TVs with a digital media adapter (not an MCE) built in. HP insists that its departure is not a statement about the viability of the Media Center platform."

Comments

Makes sense to me

[heybiff]

After having my DEC for five months I've figured out a few things: MCE sucks ass, MCE breaks REAL easy: even allowing automatic updates to run is enough to break it, the media guide is the worst I've ever used, and extended warranties rock. I've had to send back my DEC for both software and hardware issues, and I'm going to purchase an extended warranty for as long as I try to keep it. HP is gonna pay out the ass for Microsoft's mistakes.

On a good day it's an excellent device; all the features you would want, a very nice look and feel, and more than enough oomph out of the box to record two signals and play a DVD at the same time. It's just the "not finished-ness" of MCE. NO plans to sample Vista either.

Hp, my machine is broke, I'll be calling when I get an hour or two to go through the song and dance with your tech support again.

HeyBiff