Re: Good idea, bad product
So long as those are over-the-air or standard cable probrams. No Digital Cable support; no Satellite support. You can buy or rent TiVO's with such built-in support from most cable and satellite providers.
It is far easier to convince a content provider to integrate with your recording device when they know that it is hard to pull recorded content off your device for use elsewhere. This is why you see no legal satellite or paid-cable decoder cards for PCs, and quite likely never will (not for many years, at least).
Again, I think that for these reasons amongst others, that's why TiVO functionality belongs in the ... TiVO ... instead of on your primary multi-purpose computer.
May or may not take off. Two constraints: 1) bandwidth (too few homes with broadband now, especially with 3Mbps-ish sustainable and reliable downstream allocations); 2) quality (I don't care what you say; DiVX and WMV "quality" essentially sucks. If you can get a movie down to 500-750MB without degrading the quality to sub-VHS as DiVX and WMV do, then you can start trying to sell that to me ... until then, I'd rather stop by Blockbuster on the way home).
While it would be nice to support these, I don't see the need for this going through my primary computer, or really, through any general-purpose computer at all. There are multiple set-top-box initiatives for streaming video, which are further along than any decent-quality PC-based streaming initiatives.
Again, it is far easier to get a content provider to stream to a set-top box with limitted output capabilities (ie, just to the TV or possibly to an internal TiVO-like HD) than it is to get them to agree to streaming their content out into the wilds of a fully-functioning computer system. If there is one rallying cry amongst content providers today, it is "Control!"
Which is done just as well and sometimes better with a "real" Digital Hub and a TiVO/HM setup. I don't think MS has innovated anything here.
Is there really a market for displaying your tax return on the TV screen? You're home budget?
This is the only reason I can sort of see a Media Center PC being useful. On the other hand, even better would be a non-primary connection between the PC and the TV (by non-primary I mean that this connection is not always active, and need not be incredibly high-bandwidth) that allows display on the big-screen TV when necessary but overall is out of the way and ignored the 99% of the time when I don't want my PC's view being mirrored on the TV.
I agree with you here. Yes, the "next generation" of TiVO or TiVO-like devices will better integrate with your computer (allowing off-device archival of files perhaps). Significantly many of these use cases are fulfilled by the Home Media Option of the TiVO 2 (about $50 I believe), which provides a connection for photosand music as well as the usual TiVO things. You have to wait for that type of thing. However, you'll have to wait a significantly smaller amount of time for that than for the Media Center to become cheap and usable.
You also mentioned an Internet connection. While I agree that an Internet connection can be useful for many purposes, I strongly hope you aren't suggesting the old idea of surfing the web from your couch ... the TV resolution is just far too small for a meaningful web-surfing experience. Now, drawing program lists from an online site, keeping you "favorite" channels online instead of in the local box, and even being able to send or stream a low-quality version of recorded content ... those are good uses of an Internet connection. Just dont suggest surfing the web ...
So long as those are over-the-air or standard cable probrams. No Digital Cable support; no Satellite support. You can buy or rent TiVO's with such built-in support from most cable and satellite providers.
It is far easier to convince a content provider to integrate with your recording device when they know that it is hard to pull recorded content off your device for use elsewhere. This is why you see no legal satellite or paid-cable decoder cards for PCs, and quite likely never will (not for many years, at least).
Again, I think that for these reasons amongst others, that's why TiVO functionality belongs in the ... TiVO ... instead of on your primary multi-purpose computer.
May or may not take off. Two constraints: 1) bandwidth (too few homes with broadband now, especially with 3Mbps-ish sustainable and reliable downstream allocations); 2) quality (I don't care what you say; DiVX and WMV "quality" essentially sucks. If you can get a movie down to 500-750MB without degrading the quality to sub-VHS as DiVX and WMV do, then you can start trying to sell that to me ... until then, I'd rather stop by Blockbuster on the way home).
While it would be nice to support these, I don't see the need for this going through my primary computer, or really, through any general-purpose computer at all. There are multiple set-top-box initiatives for streaming video, which are further along than any decent-quality PC-based streaming initiatives.
Again, it is far easier to get a content provider to stream to a set-top box with limitted output capabilities (ie, just to the TV or possibly to an internal TiVO-like HD) than it is to get them to agree to streaming their content out into the wilds of a fully-functioning computer system. If there is one rallying cry amongst content providers today, it is "Control!"
Which is done just as well and sometimes better with a "real" Digital Hub and a TiVO/HM setup. I don't think MS has innovated anything here.
Is there really a market for displaying your tax return on the TV screen? You're home budget?
This is the only reason I can sort of see a Media Center PC being useful. On the other hand, even better would be a non-primary connection between the PC and the TV (by non-primary I mean that this connection is not always active, and need not be incredibly high-bandwidth) that allows display on the big-screen TV when necessary but overall is out of the way and ignored the 99% of the time when I don't want my PC's view being mirrored on the TV.
I agree with you here. Yes, the "next generation" of TiVO or TiVO-like devices will better integrate with your computer (allowing off-device archival of files perhaps). Significantly many of these use cases are fulfilled by the Home Media Option of the TiVO 2 (about $50 I believe), which provides a connection for photosand music as well as the usual TiVO things. You have to wait for that type of thing. However, you'll have to wait a significantly smaller amount of time for that than for the Media Center to become cheap and usable.
You also mentioned an Internet connection. While I agree that an Internet connection can be useful for many purposes, I strongly hope you aren't suggesting the old idea of surfing the web from your couch ... the TV resolution is just far too small for a meaningful web-surfing experience. Now, drawing program lists from an online site, keeping you "favorite" channels online instead of in the local box, and even being able to send or stream a low-quality version of recorded content ... those are good uses of an Internet connection. Just dont suggest surfing the web ...
