JessZahn:

Someone did the math to say it would take 13 years to break even if you dedicate a new PC to Media Center versus get a Tivo or other DVR and pay a monthly fee; sure. But they don't do music, photos, and other services we have today and things that will be forthcoming. We're also working on creating an ecosystem with our extender V2s and Xbox 360 - in theory, you're going to have a PC in your office and you're going to buy a TV. If a TV comes out that is an Extender V2 itself, there's not really much incremental cost for you to connect them, right?

Hey Jess,

Sorry about any bad comments I have on this subject, don't take an offence to it, it's not directed at you or your team. Just what you get in features for different devices for their cost, or it's competitiveness vs, other options. I just had to comment on other thoughts that I have been thinking about here.

I am a "techy" person who likes to play with features (work in the computer field and support Microsoft clients and networks), and see new stuff, and I do love my media center PC for most of what it offers and how I can customize and how I watch "My TV".

As Media Center goes, if people like me are using it in a "TV" room or something like that, with out a desk in the room to use as part office, I would feel that it's used like I do, as a HTPC. 90% of the stuff I do on my VMC box is watch tv, live and recorded. The other 10% is 5% videos(dvd or divx clips), 3% music, 2% other content (MCE features, or 3rd party items)and maybe under 1% for pictures. So, I do use the other features but, not as much.

So in my wants, as well as a lot of other people is, programming options, more channels and more options on this end, especialy in HD content.

As for computer costs for Media Center, $2500 is way under the "real" numbers, because if I had to dump my PC to get cable cards, It's now around ($2500+my cost of my current machine)$4000 for me. And over 13 years, it will cost a lot more, as a new OS comes out every 4-5 years, and you'll need upgrades if you want new features. Not trying to go too deep into this as I know if I want to play, I have to pay, it's just the way it is.

The real questions on VMC are (keeping in mind how it competes with other products)... When Cable Card 2.0 comes out (2-way cable cards), how does one know that there will be support with out having to spend more $$ (as with Tivo your in the same boat or Cable PVR is a swap)? When the v2 extenders are out, when the next version of Media Center comes out, as users going to be stuck in the dark like they are with v1 extenders and MCE 2005 ?

In a nut shell to compete, You might get better programming options with a cable/directv PVR but, you wont get the extras. Media Center has great features but, not all there with programming, and you have to deal with driver problems (thanks Nvidia !).

Just my .02...sorry to vent, I do still love my VMC though...

The pc doesn't have to cost $2500, you can get a state of the working MCE pc for < $500...

There's also all of the added value in being able to do what you want (for the most part) with the content and the platform...

babgVant:

The pc doesn't have to cost $2500, you can get a state of the working MCE pc for < $500...

There's also all of the added value in being able to do what you want (for the most part) with the content and the platform...

Just to clear it up, the $2500 PC is a quote for a good spec'ed DUAL Cable card system. I agree with you, you could build a semi working Media Center PC for under $500 but, nothing that could use or run dual cable cards.

There is a good value with the system, I agree but, my point is video content is not all there yet..

DavidinCT:

Just to clear it up, the $2500 PC is a quote for a good spec'ed DUAL Cable card system. I agree with you, you could build a semi working Media Center PC for under $500 but, nothing that could use or run dual cable cards.

There is a good value with the system, I agree but, my point is video content is not all there yet..

sorry, I must have missed that...

for DCT systems, I don't think the value prop is there for MC

all the limitations of a closed system + huge startup cost + PC hassle > tivo $$$ (esp considering the tivo 3 series lite)

It's hard to quantify the cost and features to compare against a preconfigured box like Tivo.  The cost of an MCE PVR is anything from the cost of a tuner card (if you already have a PC and Windows XP MCE or Vista), all the way up to the cost of several tuners (possibly cablecard), a PC, big HDD for recording, and several MCE extenders (and maybe even new networking equipment to handle all the media streaming - gigabit switches, 802.11n access point, router, etc.).

That's the advantage of MCE - it scales to a wide array of options and price points to meet your needs rather than forcing you to take a one-size-fits-all box.

The disadvantage is that it's subject to the reliability/stability of your PC, but from what I've seen with other PVR STBs it's not usually any worse.

kballs:

That's the advantage of MCE - it scales to a wide array of options and price points to meet your needs rather than forcing you to take a one-size-fits-all box.

The disadvantage is that it's subject to the reliability/stability of your PC, but from what I've seen with other PVR STBs it's not usually any worse.

That's certainly true to an extent, but the main advantage of an MCE based system is often also the cause of it's biggest problems. It's really only cost effective if you have a pc already, for other things, and use the media elements as an additional function. The problem with this is that every time you add any additional software in order to make the pc more useful, you risk upsetting any stability you've worked hrad to achieve.

Prime example is that for a while now streaming for me (at least with the limited files types I'm allowed) has been ok for the most part, but all of a sudden tonight a fair number of video files are without sound when I try to stream to my 360. They worked perfectly a few days ago, and are fine when played on the pc, but no sound when streaming. No doubt I've installed something to cause this but I now I have the unenviable task of backtracking and trying to troubleshoot the problem.

Even if I did decide to go to the expense of having a dedicated Media Centre PC, on which I'd add nothing else once it's stable, I can't guarantee it will stay that way, because then there's the relentless barrage of Microsoft updates that amount to a monthly lottery as to whether they'll cause problems or not.

To be honest, it annoys me that I have a 360 sittinng there with all the processing power and potential to fulfill my needs but crippled by various restrictions. As I said before I'm currently looking into the possiblity of a Mac Mini hooked directly to my TV or possibly a cheap Linux box, armed with the relevant codecs, as the most cost effective options for doing something as basic as watching the TV shows and films I want to when I want to, without a load of unneccessary hassles.

tivos don't do video, pictures or music?  maybe not standalone but they can..   so can a couple stbs I recently looked at..  a couple other provider dvrs..   connect right up to WHS with almost no effort..   or any decent nas box including the $100-$300 ones from peopel like dlink and linksys. 

some things mce is still easier to use, but those areas need a revamping to make them even more easier to get around..    music is the one I care about and your close and its minor issues missing there and some easier nav and adding to "now playing" is needed but overall its better..    all my videos are either web only tv shows or music videos so mixed media is important, I'd rather see a video then just hear the song. 

tv features, your ahead of the standalones, but behind on everyone else..    Everything on mce is very upsold..  remotes for example, theres no real reason you coulnd't work with the remotes that everyone else it getting..  or serial/firewire control, or other ir hardware and interfacing into software like girder..   

My opinion, if you can't get somewhere in 3 clicks, its too hard to navigate.   If its related to where your at, it should be 2 clicks.  a huge amount of screen goes wasted.

accident:

  remotes for example, theres no real reason you coulnd't work with the remotes that everyone else it getting.. 

I really like the Microsoft remote, I wouldn't touch some of the crap others have put out. If theres one thing MS has always done well, its hardware. Both the MCE remote and the keyboard are really nicely made bits of kit.

Thats no reason not to support other hardware though, Id agree with that.

 

This is a really interesting subject, and something I have been thinking about a lot the last few months. The discussion here is (understandably) USA-centric, but it's worthwhile to consider Media Center's competitiveness in other markets as well. You guys think they're behind in the US, you should try using it in...well, pretty much any other country. The media features are great, but they're selling this as the solution for the livingroom, for watching TV:

• Virtually non-existent guide support - only a few channels, wrong data, breaks frequently with channels disappearing, etc. This is due (here in Spain) to the fact that they have contracted a British company to provide the guide data and it's obvious they don't understand the data they're providing, even to the point of mixing up title and description. The feedback form seems to go unnoticed. Times are off as much as two hours on some channels.
  
• No guide support for digital TV. DVB provides a guide for all the channels but since MCE is incapable of reading it, most of the channels in the MCE guide show "no data available".
  
• No support for teletext. Outside the US, teletext is used by lots of people, nearly every day. With digital TV, it simply doesn't exist in MCE.
  
• No subtitles. Many, many countries show programs brought from the US or other countries in their original language and supply subtitles in the local language. With digital TV, subtitles no longer work (they did with analog).
  
• No multi-language audio. Again, in many, many countries, the original and dubbed audio tracks are present in most digital broadcasts. The 129€ DVR they sell at the supermarket will record all these tracks and choose which I want to listen to any time during playback. Example: Lost is broadcast here dubbed in Spanish and in the original English. MCE only gets the dubbed, Spanish version. There is a registry-edit hack to force a particular language on all channels, but it only works with analog TV. This is much worse in countries like Switzerland and here in Catalunya where there are multiple languages spoken and not everyone understands the same language.
  

All of these features are supported in the cheap-o Chinese DVRs for sale all over the place. They're supported in the open-source MCE clones, and they're built-in to every TV set. A guy in my office bought a pretty expensive Acer Media Center PC a few months ago. He took it back, pissed, because "it only gets a couple of channels" - he's refering to the fact that there's no guide for 80% of the channels. This isn't competitive, with anything. I can walk into a supermarket and buy a DVR with a pretty sexy UI, dual digital tuners, free EPG (thanks to DVB), and a 400GB hard disk. For 249€.

This doesn't just affect a couple of podunk countries.

List of Countries Where Vista Media Center Sucks Compared To A 129€ No-Name DVR That Can Be Bought At Any Supermarket:

Albania
Andorra
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belgium
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Faroe Islands
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Mauritius
Namibia
Netherlands
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Cape Verde
Norway
Portugal
Ukraine
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brunei
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Cyprus
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Laos
Latvia
Macedonia
Malaysia
Myanmar
New Zealand
Poland
Romania
Serbia and Montenegro
Slovakia
Slovenia
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Turkey
Vietnam

So far, pleas for basic DVR functionality have fallen on deaf ears. And a little birdie who is in a position to know told me not to get my hopes up for anything like guide, subtitle, or audio track support in the upcoming beta.

This makes me really sad. I love VMC but they are never, ever going to get even 1% market share in the above countries until they get serious about these kinds of basic features.

DavidinCT:

. I wannt more HD channels, so the only way I can get them is with a cable card or DirecTV/Dish network with my Vista Media center PC.

at least you have the option, even if it's pricey
with no OTA HD in this area of the world, and my HDTV being delivered via IPTV I have no possible way to get it into my box until MS builds a solution for IPTV (or until hardware manufacturers come up with a HD capture card)

> remote

but for wider adoption, most tuners do have one packaged that will work..  and if they supported it, those who upgrade to the harmony type remotes don't need a different ir reciever or even could use the one built into their cases with a harmony or higher end remote.. 

Let me answer some of this, to the best of my ability given that I can't tell you everything that I know if I want to keep my job:

alanw:

• Virtually non-existent guide support - only a few channels, wrong data, breaks frequently with channels disappearing, etc. This is due (here in Spain) to the fact that they have contracted a British company to provide the guide data and it's obvious they don't understand the data they're providing, even to the point of mixing up title and description. The feedback form seems to go unnoticed. Times are off as much as two hours on some channels.

So, we're working on doing better at responding to feedback - so much so that I think you'll see something good happen here on TGB in the next few weeks. But in some countries, we just won't have guide data due to a whole bunch of reasons (depending on the country) - cost of the data, legal issues, business case, etc. In Spain, though...clearly there are issues we should fix, and we're building up the team here who works on those issues to address them better.

alanw:

• No guide support for digital TV. DVB provides a guide for all the channels but since MCE is incapable of reading it, most of the channels in the MCE guide show "no data available".
  
• No support for teletext. Outside the US, teletext is used by lots of people, nearly every day. With digital TV, it simply doesn't exist in MCE.
  
• No subtitles. Many, many countries show programs brought from the US or other countries in their original language and supply subtitles in the local language. With digital TV, subtitles no longer work (they did with analog).
  
• No multi-language audio. Again, in many, many countries, the original and dubbed audio tracks are present in most digital broadcasts. The 129€ DVR they sell at the supermarket will record all these tracks and choose which I want to listen to any time during playback. Example: Lost is broadcast here dubbed in Spanish and in the original English. MCE only gets the dubbed, Spanish version. There is a registry-edit hack to force a particular language on all channels, but it only works with analog TV. This is much worse in countries like Switzerland and here in Catalunya where there are multiple languages spoken and not everyone understands the same language.

These are all major features that we absolutely do care about - you can read other threads here where I've talked about how we know we need to do these things and we've built up teams outside of the US to work on them.

alanw:

So far, pleas for basic DVR functionality have fallen on deaf ears. And a little birdie who is in a position to know told me not to get my hopes up for anything like guide, subtitle, or audio track support in the upcoming beta.

Hmm. I wonder what your little birdie thinks we *are* doing? I can't say exactly what features are in any release, or any timeframe for such releases. But I can say that very, very few people know what we're doing - even our MVPs, much as I love them, don't know for sure. So unless your source works on this team, I would bet his/her opinions are just a guess, not fact.

Jess

Just a general question.

Why can't you say what features are due in any upcoming release, or give any (even hoped for) indicated timescales for such releases?

Here's an envorinment filled with actual customers, for the most part willing to invest in more products if only they knew what they'd be and when they'd be available. Without any indication we can only guess, or worse assume, that what we want wont be coming. In the absence of this information most people aren't going to sit around in hope, they're just going to go off and buy something else that either does the job they want, or has a roadmap that shows that it will at some point in the future.

I genuinely don't understand all this need for secrecy as most companies want their customers and potential customers to know what they have planned so that they will wait for their products rather than buy alternatives instead. Rightly or wrongly, not sharing this information leads people to believe that there really isn't much to be optimistic about.

That's a general position, but to put it into a real context, I have upwards of £2000 to spend now on Media equipment for myself, my brother and my parents. I could just about do this for myself with Microsoft/Windows based products and get much of what I want with a little tinkering and hassle. But neither my brother nor my parents stand a hope in hell of making it work without constant assistance every time it doesn't do as they expect, and that would be a lot. In the end, although less flexible, it's far easier, and cheaper, to just give them pvr/media boxes with usb hard drive options.

Untill the price of the OCCUR cards come down, I won't be using VMC for tv or tv recording. $600 for two cards is disgusting. A tivo series 3 is $300 and has two tuners. I will use VMC and an xbox 360 for all other media sharing around the house. You guys should come up with WHS with two OCCUR cards built in.

Thats it. Thats your Solution. Get manufactures to make WHS with 2 OCCUR cards for starting $500 w/ 250GB hard drive..

Jessica, thanks for the reply. I appreciate your candor.

I also realize that there are things which must be kept under wraps due to confidentiality agreements, announcement schedules, etc. I wonder if you could comment on why adding support for basic digital TV features is such a secret? It isn't as if all the competing products are going to scramble to beat MS to the punch, because they've already had these features for years. What would be the harm in just saying, "I can't commit to when, but rest assured we're going to fix this"?

Great news about the guide process, btw. :)