Media Centers vs Everything Else |
| Created Date: 4/23/2008 |
| Last Modified Date: 4/23/2008 |
| Some people have a TiVo, buy tv shows for their iPods and rent movies to watch on their DVD players. Then they stream all of their content anywhere they want using proprietary hardware & software using a Slingbox. Imagine if all of these items could be done from one box and you may already own it.
This is what a media center is all about – unifying multimedia together. Other devices may be great at what they do but do not offer a great full solution. A TiVo is a device designed for one thing time shifting television. Essentially, it is a glorified VHS recorder/player. This is great for people who want to record and watch television but anything past that will be a ‘hack’ of a solution. TiVo, in recent years, now offers the ability of playing back television on computers around the house. However, these computers require special software and it must be done on a computer. On the media center, especially with Vista, you can transfer content to other extenders – such as an xBox 360 – with no special transcoding required. Also, you can share the television shows to other computers just buy sharing the Recorded TV shows directory on the network. Another area that information might want to go is to other devices. For instance, if you are going on a long trip you may want to take a tv show on the road. If you have a TiVo/DVR you might just want to buy the dvd set or download it from iTunes. These options are great but why should you double buy? You essentially are buying a license of the content (for your use) when you pay for cable/dish service. You are again buying a license for the content when purchasing it through iTunes. With a media center you can take this information and drop it (via transcode) to a Zune. This allows the user to be able to take their single purchased episode to be taken to remote places. |
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