Re: RE: RE: Windows XP Media Center Edition Review

["BEN.MCCORMACK" <ben.mccormack@xxxxxxx>]

At the end of the day things like this should be putting a smile on our
faces, large companies are finally getting into 'Home Media Computers', we
will no longer have to bolt solutions together.

This raises the point that will we need this group in lets say 5 years time
when 'Home Media Computers' mature and they have the ability to do PVR,
music and picture playback and Home Automation systems have a more common
signalling system, so that your 'Home Media PC' could interface with your
lighting controller and also Comfort. Maybe I am just dreaming but this may
not be too far off?


Not wanthing to argue with you but I did not think that Tivo could share
recordings between boxes via Turbonet or have I missed something?

I was hoping that these media PCs would do the sharing like any normal
fileshare/NFS share and this should not consume huge amounts of CPU.

Cheers

Ben

> > 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.
> http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
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