More on PCs and TVs

I got a couple of good replies to my recent post on the debut of Windows XP Media Center 2005.

First, a note about what I use. I have what could politely be called a Frankenstein media system. I’ve upgraded an old TiVo to give it lots of storage capacity. The TiVo is connected to the big-screen TV in the den and is also connected to a device called a MediaCaster, which distributes its signal over the coax throughout the house. In the living room, the bedroom, and my office, I have infrared collectors that take the IR from any remote control and send it to the components in the den.

So in any room, I can tune to the channel I designated for TiVo (channel 65, but I could have chosen any channel from 65-80) and watch the signal from the TiVo, just as if I were sitting in the den. (I bought extra TiVo remotes on eBay, so I can control everything from any room without having to carry the lone remote around.)

This is a very workable system for Judy and me. The AVCast component performs some of the functions of the Media Center Extender, and it allows us to get the most out of our TiVo.

Meanwhile, in the office I have three PCs: my main work machine, a test machine, and a server. The server has a collection of 11,000 songs on it, ripped mostly in 192-bit WMA format, with about 15-20% in MP3 format. I’ll describe how I use those in another post.

The test computer has an ATI All-in-Wonder video card in it, with a TV tuner. It’s connected to the cable without a decoder box, so it gets roughly 60-70 unscrambled cable channels. I use SnapStream Beyond TV 3.5 (just upgraded from the older SnapStream version this week), which is just superb, much better than the buggy, mediocre Multimedia Center software that ATI ships with its cards. Beyond TV has a full set of digital video recorder features and an integrated program guide, so I can record programming here as well. With a 200GB drive, I have lots of room to record stuff. I have an ATI Remote Wonder, which works with the Snapstream software, and a 15-inch flat-screen, so I can use the TV features without sitting in front of the PC.

Unfortunately, neither of these video systems does HDTV, and upgrading to that capability means upsetting the fragile ecosystem I’ve created here. I’ll write more about the options and the compromises associated with each one in a later post.