Anyone actually using the Windows XP Media Center PC successfully to serve as a PVR? Record scheduled programs? Pause live tv?
When I saw earlier reviews they said it was clunky and froze a lot with video…pretty much the way PC’s always do with video.
Anyone have one and love it?
Hellllooooo…anyone at all have xp media center?
I don’t have what you’re specifically asking about.
But this is as good a time as any to brag about what I do have. We’re currently using MythTV which runs on Linux. It functions exactly like TiVo.
It’s only been up and running for about 2-3 weeks in my house, and we’ve been refining it by changing the recording quality, etc. We were watching an episode of Monk the other day, and the machine was working really hard. That meant that the sound would skip occasionally. My SO (who’s the one who set this up) did a little tinkering and it’s so far been back to normal.
So at some point, we’re never going to need to move from in front of our PC’s.
I’ve not heard any truly wonderful things about PCs running XP Media Center.
The biggest problem comes from plain ol’ horsepower, or more often, lack thereof. TiVo uses dedicated hardware crafted and tuned for the purpose. The PC is doing it largely in CPU cycles.
What worries me more is the idea that Microsoft may readily be able to tell what I’ve been watching. Also, assuming the PC connects to the web now and them, or has an always-on broadband connection, what’s to keep Microsoft from disabling functions you’ve come to love such as commercial skip with next week’s hotfix? Don’t laugh - ReplayTV is doing just that.