Tivo comparison to Windows Media Center<< New Sony devices are not likely to hurt the iPod | Main | Bit Rate Balderdash >> Michael Gartenberg | July 07, 2004, 08:02 AM Interesting article from Eric Harrison on TiVo vs. Media Center. I've spent a lot of time with both of them (and a few others) over the last few months as we're wrapping up a major report on standalone DVRs such as MCE and TiVO. First, it seems Eric has a bad machine. That alone can mess up your results but even going beyond that, there are other issues that need to be balanced. First, the PC is more flexible. If I want to store and view my pictures, music and other video content, burn to DVD, copy to a portable media player and stream that content to other devices in my home, I can do that with the PC and not with the TiVo. The MCE EPG is also more flexible. Try and record the West Wing on TiVO, just the 7pm episodes shown on channel 44, not the other boradcasts. You can't do it. It's a snap on MCE. (why would you want to? to record a series according to airdates so you can watch the episodes in order). On the other hand, my TiVO never crashed, locked up, missed a scheduled record or any other annoying issue. Clearly the dedicated funcitonality makes for a more stable platform. Part of the MCE experience issue is that it's still a PC. You still need to exit to the shell to get some things done. You need to re-boot from time to time. If MCE is going to make inroads in the next year it needs to be able to shed the PC experience and live 24/7 as a consume electronics device.
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