Media Center

Michael Gartenberg | October 01, 2003, 07:14 AM

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 has been officially released today and it is an impressive upgrade to an already impressive product. Even nice if you’re already an MCE customer this new upgrade is free from most vendors. (Yes, free. Microsoft and the hardware vendors really did the right thing here for their customers.) The improvements are subtle in some cases, bold in others and in many ways address the issues that made V1 feel more like a PC experience as opposed to a consumer electronics experience.

Pretty much every part of the UI has been tweaked, cleaned up and offers more options and flexibility without adding to clutter. The new online offerings add to the functionality. Movielink is live, Cinema Now is coming as is Napster. MSNBC offers news and headlines through the new UI and I expect to see more of these offerings. My colleague Joe Wilcox talks about some of the exciting possibilities that this opens up for content vendors. I agree, this whole genre opens up a range of opportunities for extending the system functionality and opening up the possibilities of what MCE can do as a platform.

Tip : If you own a Media Center XP machine and your computer has a DVD burner and didn’t come with a version of Primetime 1.1 from Sonic, go immediately to their website and download a copy. This program will give you 1-click access to DVD burning and let you archive your recorded content. Likewise, there are some very cool new power toys available on the Media Center website for enhanced functionality.

What’s the downside? None really. There are some things that still need to be tweaked for optimal use (for example I can’t copy pictures from my memory card to the PC in 10 foot mode, I still need to shell out to Windows for that, although I can view content on the card.) Bottom line, if you want this level of functionality and flexibility, MCE is a great offering. With major system vendors like HP, Gateway, Dell and Sony offering products, there’s a impressive level of choices in different form factors and price points. The biggest problem with MCE is that reviews don’t do proper justice to the experience. If you’re interested, go over to your retailer and take a close look at one. We think this is going to be a big success for MSFT. Watch for Media Center to become the standard OS on mid range consumer systems over the next 18 months.