Windows Media Center Extenders reviewed
posted Oct 25th 2004 2:00AM
For those of you interested in Windows Media Center but who have no
interest in putting a PC in your living room (which we suspect is a lot more people than most nerds would like to
admit), Windows Media Center Extenders deliver the best of both worlds. Media Center Extenders are components that you
fit into your AV rack, and they do just what you'd think they do—they extend Windows Media Center to that entertainment
center. You can install up to five of these on one Media Center PC server, and they come in a variety of configuations,
from small boxes to component-style rack pieces. The review points out that a few obvious things are missing, like a
DVD player and media card reader to make things a bit easier, but overall, they seem very positive on something we're
all likely to see a lot more of in the future.
The link to the "review" is actually a link to a link of the article. The actual article is here: http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/mce.asp
Secondly, this is a "review" in the same sense of asking one of George W.'s cronies to do an evaluation of his performance as president. The article, though portrayed as a "review", is written by Paul Thurrot, a Microsoft superfanboy. This is the same Paul Thurrot who unilaterly declared WMA the best audio format in existence without quoting any surveys, studies or even anything other than his own opinion -- then proceeded to label the authors of comments questioning his statement as ignorant.
He writes, for example: "My young children--now ages 6 and 3--know nothing of commercials, and never ask for every silly little toy or sugary foodstuff that bombards children in other homes." Well, very nice, except MCE has no commercial filter (at least AFAIK).
If you're looking for a real review, you'll need to look further; if, however, you're looking for advertising copy, you'll find it here.
Microsoft suck, yeh, yeh, yeh. Just use your Mac and be quite.
Look this is a great idea, but poorly implemented. The digital media craze was created by the younger set. If highschool and college students had not started downloading MP3's the media and news agencies would never have informed the world about the technologies potential.
Now, finally tech companies are going to capitalize on this market. The solution by Microsoft is great, but to require a new computer that runs Microsoft Media Center to enable these extenders to operate is the definition of a bad idea. This will alienate the same market that started the intrest in it by over pricing. Young people will have an Xbox and will pony up the money to convert it to an extender device, but Microsoft's assumption that these young people will also go out and drop $900 bucks on a new MCE PC is stupid! Microsoft should create new embeded software that can be installed on third party network harddrives. This will allow the extenders to connect to these network area storage devices and stream them directly between the two devices while not tying up the customers PC's. In the end it will allow customers to enter this market for $300 dollars instead of $1500 dollars and this small change will be the difference between slow sales and flooding the market like Microsoft loves to do.
I didn't notice whether the article mentioned that the extender will only work with 4:3 TV's.
Thanks for the background, Mike.
I read Paul Thurrot's article several days ago and it's pretty good. It's the only information I've found on the Internet that actually tells the reader about a real-life experience with Windows Media Center. If you don't like something (Microsoft or Paul Thurrot) maybe you should spend some time explaining why you don't like it, instead of serving up a bunch of empty criticism.