TiVo? What TiVo? Media Centers Presented for your Consideration

[Hooch Tan]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://lifehacker.com/5462275/which-media-center-is-right-for-you-boxee-xbmc-and-windows-media-center-compared' target='_blank'>http://lifehacker.com/5462275/which...center-compared</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"We focused on three widely available, and generally popular, media centers for our comparison and review. We're certainly aware there are many alternatives out there, as free software or stand-alone hardware boxes, but these are the three media centers that receive ongoing development, and can be installed on the widest number of TV-connected computers."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1265137037.usr20447.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>The whole media center market is becoming very crowded.&nbsp; My main complaint about them though, is that in Canada, our online options are still quite limited, unless you want to go the route of finding stuff that fell out of the back of a bit bucket.&nbsp; As such, I am stuck with media center choices that can record TV signals.&nbsp; The media centers that record are much smaller in selection, and the hardware options provided by my cable or satellite provider is less than stellar.&nbsp; I am actually partial to Windows Media Center, largely because it is easy to set up, use and manage.&nbsp; It was designed with the idiot in mind, and I like not having to pour over details anymore.&nbsp; However, I can see that once I can shrug off the cable/satellite tether, options like XBMC become considerably more attractive.&nbsp; What is everyone using these days and why did you pick it?</p>

[EscapePod]

I also prefer Media Center, although, I occasionally pull HD off the air with the software that came with the Hauppauge tuner (depending on the PC and OS).

[Jon Childs]

I am surprised they didn't mention MythTV. I haven't looked at this for a while, but didn't MythTV used to be the most popular open source one? It did live TV and DVR functionality too if I recall.

[Rob Alexander]

What Tivo, indeed. Two of the three cannot do the basic thing that Tivo does so well. I've never looked for alternatives to my Tivo because it works and works well. Never a problem, never a lockup. I have a lifetime subscription (which paid for itself years ago), so I really have no incentive to look elsewhere for cable-based DVR.

Of course that's not to say that WMC isn't nice. Now that we can buy cable card tuners for our PCs, I can see WMC as a viable alternative to Tivo. (Of course, cable cards are about to go the way of HD-DVD, so I may have to rethink things soon.) But neither of the other two could replace my Tivo in any way. They don't do the primary thing Tivo is for. And I don't really need them in addition. The things that these products provide are pretty much already taken care of anyway. Tivo does my TV and my DLNA-based Samsung TV will pull media from my computers to play music, videos, YouTube, etc.

[Jason Dunn]

...and my DLNA-based Samsung TV will pull media from my computers to play music, videos, YouTube, etc.

Indeed - but that's the kicker. People don't go out and buy new HDTVs (generally) to stream media, they buy new HDTVs when their old HDTVs break down. Product like Boxee fill in the gap for those of us that already have perfectly fine HDTVs but want to add streaming media into the mix. :)

Myself, I'm looking at Boxee largely because the Xbox 360 is so stupidly loud, and so stupidly limited in the video formats it can play back from my Windows Home Server.