It's not that I'm bitter about Media Center. It's more that I'm bitterly disappointed. And, as in the parental sense, sometimes being disappointed at something is far more piercing than just being overtly angry.
So what's the big let down? It's that most of the Media Center products that are on the streets right now miss the point by so much it's embarrassing.
Perhaps I've been spoiled by my expectations. I was lucky enough to be one of a scoop of journalists (which is the collective noun for journalists, or so I hear) to take a tour of Microsoft's digital home over in Redmond at the end of 2003.
One of the key features of this Jetson's Paradise was Media Center, and in this case it truly lived up to its name (if not it's spelling, which is another embarrassment...). It was at the centre of the home entertainment features, and permeated throughout the house without any physical PC sullying the decor.
Now, I certainly didn't expect Media Center 2005 to be Jetson's-level quite yet, but I also didn't expect it to be as clumsily implemented as it has been. I've been playing around with a couple of Media Center PCs for a few weeks now, and I'm simply astonished at how inadequate they are as 'Media Centers'.
First off, the 'out of box experience' is far from ideal. I should be able to liberate it from its plastic wrapping and just plug it in to my telly, DVD player and stereo, and boom, I'm off! No such luck. Not only did both the PCs lack an adequate set up guide, I eventually realised they really had to be hooked up as conventional PCs with a monitor for me to get them configured properly to run with my TV. Moreover, one of the systems didn't even have TV out!
Furthermore, both of these Media Centers came in PC cases. One of them was nearly half a metre high and the other one had a wired keyboard and mouse. They both had PC speaker sets, one of which was two small desktop stereo speakers. Then there was the fact they both lacked the kinds of audio/visual inputs and outputs you'd expect from a home entertainment unit.
In truth, I was totally astonished that these PCs were even delivered with Media Center. They were obviously just textbook home entertainment/multimedia PCs that had Media Center shoehorned into them, with little care or innovation included.
I don't necessarily blame Microsoft for this sorry state. It's obviously the vendors that have missed the point and not created the right PC upon which to run Media Center. Then again, it was Microsoft that decided not to sell Media Center in boxed form, and only allow authorised manufacturers to sell PCs with Media Center pre-installed. So, you'd think Microsoft would have invested more in educating the select vendors as to what Media Center actually is.
However, the problem could run even deeper than this. I can see two clear and quite distinct futures for Media Center, and even in its best implementation today, the current incarnation seems to be going down the wrong path. What we have right now is an operating system for an appliance that sits next to your TV, and replaces your stereo, DVD player and VCR. The other Media Center is more like the digital home exhibit in Redmond. In this vision the device next to your telly is a discreet thin client extender with the Media Center server quietly tucked away somewhere and connected to everything using wireless.
In the first implementation, Media Center should be a simple and slick device that you plug in where you want it, and it works like a glorified PVR. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is what we'll get with the Xbox2 - just add gaming to your TV, DVD, music, internet etc, and you're done. With the second vision of Media Center, the extenders are not processing powerhouses, they are just thin clients with a few hardware decoding chips, and it's the Media Center PC in your closet that's doing all the work. This is where Intel sees things going, and is why it's pushing dual-core CPUs and virtualisation as technologies for the digital home. I'm not entirely sure which way things will go, and it's even possible the future could be a combination of these two visions.
Even while I'm sadly disappointed with the current crop of Media Center PCs, I am hopeful. In my opinion, the PVR is the next killer app, and they'll experience a faster uptake than even DVDs. In this case, people will take a serious look at Media Center, and if someone can deliver one that works out of the box and is not much more expensive than a normal PVR, then it'll very likely sell. Furthermore, I've already seen some prototype chassis in Taiwan that do look like set top DVD players, and even though Microsoft hasn't issued a date for media extenders, I imagine they can't be far off (although that may be wishful thinking).