Well, I have to disagree. I hate seeing myself at photos, anywhere.

Otherwise, I agree. Showing photos on the TV is a killer application for Media Center.

One reason is their lack of control over hardware. They have influence over the market, but can’t make a seamlessly integrated media PC.

The other reason is the poor quality of their software. And I don’t just mean bugs and lack of security. They’re making flashy designs instead of intuitive ones. They make software that says, “Hey! Look what I can do!” instead of, “Let me work with you to get the job done.”

The only reason Apple hasn’t already created the living room multimedia PC market is because they haven’t tried. They made the basis of the software and soon it’ll come with every new Apple. Once Apple includes a few more features and they see a little interest they’ll push the idea steadily into the minds of the average consumer. They’re preparing while they know the time isn’t quite right.

PVR functionality is one of the main sellling points for an MCE machine, and it simply can’t compete in that arena yet. We’ve been waiting eons for the ability to descramble digital cable and premium content (like HBO and Pay Per View). It’s hard to sell someone on the idea of a home theater PC that can’t compete with the shitty PVR they’re renting from their cable company when it comes to recording TV. I spent $1,000 dollars on this thing. I’d like to turn past channel 99, please.

Of course, I’m already hooked. I’ve been using an MCE PC for about a year and a half and I love it. I really get a kick out of watching my houseguest’s jaws hit the floor when I show them what it can do. I really enjoy watching recorded TV on my Xbox extender in my bedroom. That said, it’s extremely unfortunate that MCE has been hobbled by this for so long. It’s a fantastic piece of software that does a lot of great things, but personal video recording is the cornerstone that MCE is built on. Without CableCARD, it just limps out of the gate.

The promise of CableCARD 1.0 with Vista is a step in the right direction, but even that has its own issues. It locks the do-it-yourself market out, requiring home HTPC builders to buy a brand new system which will still lack many of the PVR features found in cable boxes today. (CableCARD 1.0 lacks the two-way comunication supported by the newer 2.0 standard, which is currently unsupported by Vista.) Ars Technica has a good write up on this here:

The living room PC: it’s not a myth, it’s a mess

I’m looking forward to the Vista Media Center, but I don’t think that it will be everything it’s cracked up to be without some serious CableCARD 2.0 support. Given their (MS and CableCARD’s) track record, that’s doubtful.

Of course, IPTV could change all that. Perhaps this is why MS is so interested in the technology.

Jeremiah. Yes, you’ve got it right. People want convergence. They just want it easily and attractively.

Russell, definitely wait. No sense in not with Vista so close.

Vern, Microsoft’s already got you. Just like they already got me. But we are a small segment of the market. We are early adopter tech geeks and we actually want our TV *more* complicated. We love tinkering. Mainstream users don’t. So they don’t really need to market to us with living room PCs so much. We’re a given. They need to figure out how to get the rest of the world.

Anonymous. I’m sure that there are good wireless keyboard/mouse combos. Personally I’ve gone wired right now because with four kids at home I’d never find my wireless mouse if I had it in the living room. I can barely keep the remote around as it is now.

Matt, yes, computers *are* too complex. But people have been willing to embrace them anyways for the home office/den. They don’t want to for their TV, but they will make the tradeoff for a PC that does their more traditional PC functions in their den. The key is to convince people that it’s then one simple step further to loop an XBox 360 into the equation and begin getting HDTV in their living room.

Microsoft of course needs to make this set up very very easy and simple, plug and play, and of course they do need to keep working at making the PC less complex overall in general.

re: “So why have living room PC based entertainment systems not taken off yet? There are three simple reasons for this. 1. People think computers are too complex. 2. People don’t want a big, bulky PC in their living room. and 3. The software for the living room PC is not quite ready. ” ——– I think #1 should say “Computers are too complex”. When most people can’t figure out where to plug the cables on a regular DVR, anything beyond that is too complex.

re: “Who wants to spend $1,000 buying a new PC just for the living room?” ——– But, also, who wants to spend this much for something that won’t deal with HD or with external set-top boxes very well? It’s a bad value proposition for someone interested in high quality audio/video.

And something else… my modest Media Center PC uses over 100W of electricity when idle, and uses this amount 24 x 7. This means that my Media Center uses more electricity every month than does my household fridge — more than 50% more! Put more simply, I spend $10/month to power my Media Center, while a set-top DVR uses drastically less.

I don’t now nor have I ever owned a gaming console.
Unless you count that Atari 28 years ago.

I have a PC in my living room now that, unless you think about it, doesn’t stand out at all. If I had a cabinet to hide it and the cable boxes in, it would be a no-brainer.

One of the biggest reasons I would never want the type of configuration you are referring to is this; stability. If the tv is fed from a personal computer used as a workstation, it’s entirely possible, and quite likely, that it will have problems often associated with PCs, such as virii or spyware, cirrupted registry, etc. If the box just sits and records tv and plays movies, the chances of those problems are reduced to next to nothing.

Another reason; drive space. I want my media center to have as much drive space as the motherboard will accomodate. As of right now, mine will accomodate 5250 GB. (7*750GB drives plus DVD drive). It doesn’t HAVE that much, but I would LIKE it to.

And you know what, it’s not even that powerful. It’s only an AMD Athlon XP 1600 (1.40GHz) w/ 640MB RAM. Runs like a champ recording tv. It also has ripped dvds on it using My Movies. Last time I looked, I had nearly 500 movies in it.

Plus I have nearly 10,000 songs and well over 6,000 pictures.

But, as I said, I am more the exception than the rule, but I am being overlooked. The biggest reason I am looking forward to Vista is Softsled.

Vista is able to read the feeds provided by Windows Media Connect. Therefore, my low-power bedroom media center, if running Vista, can access all the stuff on my main Media Center in the living room. That would be nice.

I think Microsoft has moved mostly in the right direction, but I think they are ignoring the portion of users who are not afraid to have the PC right THERE, right under the television.

I was looking at new PC’s this weekend, and you just told me why I will wait until next spring.