RE: RE: Windows XP Media Center Edition Review

["Kenneth Watt" <kwatt@xxxxxxx>]

> I think that there are a few issues that it can do that Tivo etc
are
not
> able to.

Yes there is, but it's not a fair comparison as both TiVo and Replay
are
dedicated devices with one purpose in life, to be a PVR. They are
designed for that purpose alone from the ground up, this is not.

> Ability to share recordings over the network. Not sure if it can
cope
with
> 2 or 3 shows playing from the same pc. (prob held up by HD speed?)

Well TiVo can with the Turbonet card, Replay can out of the box.

Recording or playing more than one stream at a time I would say, given
that the review indicates that with a 2.53Ghz (IIRC) P4 that it
struggles with paused TV, I doubt very much that it could or will cope
with that.

> Ability to play music as well.

As can any PC!

> Ability to be a Digital Picture frame

As can any PC!

> Basically it seems like we are entering the age of convergence
with
PVR's,
> mp3 players etc. No longer will we have to have many boxes to
perform
many
> functions.

Agreed. However having said that the implementation, for the moment,
seems very poor indeed and this Windows Media Centre (which I was
really
hoping would be good) would appear to be a bit pants. It is still in
its
infancy so maybe things will improve, but using XP as a core and
running
a power hungry application on top of a power hungry OS is just, IMO,
asking for trouble.

The trouble with convergence, as I see it, is that whilst one bit of
the
device in question may be great if the rest is pants then it's really
not much use other than niche markets where space saving is the major
issue. If they want these devices to be mass-market then they have to
be
good, easy and reliable and, as far as I can see, this is none of the
above it's just a Win XP P4 box with some add-ons.

K.




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