Psylent--a report back a week later. i made the mistake of installing that firmware update--it caused my linksys MCE to crash. fortunately Linksys had 24/7 tech support, and they sent me a new MCE free of charge (i had to send back the old one). the new one seems to be better in some respects--minor glitches seemed ironed out. however, it still does not play HBO movies. i don't know if that is the same as the "CGMS-A protected television content" for which the firmware update claims to enable playback. in any case, i did the firmware update on the new MCE as well, but it didn't change anything: can't watch HBO.
although the MCE is a grand step up from the Time Warner crap DVR and is well suited to my purposes (one of which is simply to experiment with these types of devices, but the more practical one is to wade through 8-hour segments on the Tennis Channel while i am jogging, which was impossible with the SciAtlanta device due to its slow FF speed and lack of commercial skip), it is still way too expensive for mainstream acceptance. but since it will be included free with the new Xbox 360 (which itself will be priced similarly to the current standalone MCE, not to mention terrible response time), the standalone units should drop precipitously in price. anybody who buys an Xbox360 will have a free Media Center Extender, which will allow them to replace a DVR when the Xbox is networked to a PC running MCE2005, or running Longhorn starting next year.
also, i imagine in a couple years they could include it free with new DVD players or other devices being attached to a TV, or even build it into TV sets directly.
i think the writing is on the wall for the standalone DVRs. |
