Goodbye to XP Media Center

Our first Media Center PC was a Gateway that we bought back in the early part of the new millennium. It ran Windows XP Media Center Edition 2003, an operating system that you couldn't buy off the shelf - you had to buy a Media Center PC that came with it installed.

The system was expensive (around $1800) and slow and the OS was buggy and had to be rebooted every day, but we loved it anyway. Being able to record our favorite TV programs, store as many as we had hard drive space for, and play them back whenever we wanted - fast forwarding through the commercials - was just plain cool. Sure, we could have opted for a TiVO instead, but were turned off by the monthly fee and the limited number of shows you could save.

A few years later, in 2005, we replaced the single tuner Gateway with an HP Digital Entertainment Center that was more powerful, more compact, a nice black color that blended well with the rest of the home theater components (as opposed to the gold toned Gateway) and ran Windows XP Media Center 2005. This was the first version to support HDTV and it also greatly improved the display quality of standard TV through an S-video connection.

The biggest difference between the new system and the old one was that the HP had dual tuners. That meant we could record two shows at the same time. As luck would have it, even though we only had four or five programs per week that we were recording, two of them came on at exactly the same time. With the HP, that wasn't a problem.

By the time we bought our second one, we were hooked on Media Center and for the last several years, it's been the only way we watch TV. The time shifting aspect and the ability to cut out commercials is so useful that even on those rare occasions when our TV-watching time coincides with the time one of our favorite programs is actually showing, we wait and start watching it when it's about half-way done recording so we don't have to sit through the commercials. In today's busy world, the time saved by not watching the commercials can be better used doing other things, and being able to pause whenever you want - when the phone rings, when you need a bathroom break, or just because you feel like it - makes watching TV a much more enjoyable experience.

During the past three years, as we've enjoyed the main Media Center PC attached to our widescreen TV in the media room, we've also added several other Media Center computers to the home network. The first was a small HP slimline running XP MCE in the bedroom. Second was the "tank" - a 17" high powered HP laptop also running XP MCE. It's a great system to take on long trips and can be easily hooked up to a hotel TV to output to an S-video cable. Then came the Vista computers: my primary desktop runs Vista Ultimate and last January, after a bad experience with a cheap USB tuner, I got the fantastic AutumnWave OnAir Creator that works flawlessly with the Vista Media Center. Later that month, we bought an HP TouchSmart for the kitchen. It runs Vista Home Premium and has a built in tuner.

One thing we noticed right away is that, aside from any other problems it might have, Vista provides a more stable Media Center experience. Instead of running only on a dedicated edition of the OS that only comes installed on specific computers, as XP MCE did, the Vista Media Center application is built into the Home Premium and Ultimate editions, so now you can easily build your own Media Center PC or add PVR capabilities to any computer that runs those operating systems, as I did with the OnAir Creator for my Dell XPS. And unlike XP MCE, my Vista computers can run Media Center all day and night for weeks without it crashing or the system needing to be rebooted.

Now, although the increased stability is a welcome improvement, not everything about the Vista version of Media Center is better. My colleague Paul Thurrott has complained about everything from the new color (a darker blue) to the "boxes" in which menu items are displayed. None of those bother me, but I heartily agree with Paul about what he calls the "horizontal navigation" feature. In XP MCE, if you wanted to view your recorded TV programs, you got a nice vertical list. In Vista Media Center, you get thumbnails of each episode (which is sort of nice) that you scan through horizontally (which isn't). This means you can see far fewer items on the list at a time, and even more annoying, you no longer can see the date each program was recorded when you view the list - you have to highlight an individual show to see that information.

So I've had mixed feelings about switching to a Vista PC for our main media center. I'd love to have the rock solid stability I've experienced with Media Center on the Vista machines, but I wish I could have that and keep the old interface. For that reason (as well as the usual inertia that comes of having a million other things to do), we hadn't bothered to upgrade. Then last week, the worst happened. Our venerable Media Center PC died a sudden and tragic death.

One day it was plugging along as always, the next day it was dead as a doornail. Wouldn't come on at all. Checked the UPS into which it was plugged, tried plugging it into different outlets, etc. No joy. We figure the power supply gave up the ghost. Normally that might be a fairly simple fix, but since it's in a home theater style case, a standard size power supply won't fit. We were faced with a dilemma: do we try to find the appropriate part and attempt to fix the old guy, or do we see this as the impetus to finally upgrade, and say goodbye to XP MCE?

It wasn't an easy decision, but our love of new toys won out. So we started looking and quickly discovered that HP has apparently stopped making Media Centers in the home theater form factor. Dell doesn't sell anything in that format, either. Sony has its TP series, which is very cool looking with its round case, but also relatively expensive at $2999 for the dual tuner model, and for that price you only get a 2.10 GHz Core Duo processor, 256 MB GeForce video card and 500 GB hard drive. For less than $1600, I can get an HP (in a regular case) with a 2.5 GHz quad core processor, 512 MB GeForce video card and 750 GB hard drive. Both have the same amount of RAM, two tuners, and Blu Ray. The HP can be turned on its side to approximate the home theater form factor. Between the two, the choice seems like a no brainer.

Of course, upgrading computer components, especially in a home theater situation, is like remodeling your house. One upgrade leads to another and soon you have a cascading effect. You know what I mean: if you put new floors in the kitchen, suddenly the old countertops look worse than before and you find yourself replacing them too, and that means you need a new tile backsplash, and then you want new appliances, etc. Well, we've been doing fine with our outdated analog cable, regular DVD player and eight year old rear projection TV, but when we get this new system with a Blu Ray player, I have a feeling it's going to lead to a new 1080p HDTV, maybe an over the air HD antenna, and who knows what else?

I still have some ambivalence about the OS upgrade. Of course, I wasn't entirely happy with the switch from Media Center 2004 to 2005, either - mostly because the latter took away the ability for a Media Center PC to join a domain. Other than the horizontal navigation feature, my biggest gripe about Vista Media Center is that it doesn't support our old Media Center Extender. Luckily, we only have one of those and it's not used a lot, but I can imagine that people who have several of the XP compatible extenders would be very unhappy that they become useless if you upgrade to Vista.

One nice thing about the Vista version of Media Center is that it now supports up to four tuners. That means we can still have the dual tuner recording cable shows and attach an external USB tuner for OTR HD programming. It also supports Cable Card technology. And since Microsoft has opened up Media Center to third party developers with the WMC API, perhaps someone can create a plug- in that will bring back my vertical list of recorded programs. That would make me happy.

If you're a Windows Media Center fan, tell me what you think. Are you reluctant to make the switch from XP MCE to one of the Vista editions that includes Media Center? Why or why not? Have you experienced more instability in your XP Media Center systems than other computers running XP (or even the same computer dual booting a non-MCE edition of XP)? Do you think increased stability makes it worth upgrading? If you never bothered to buy or build an XP MCE PC, would you consider using Vista as a media center because the application comes with the most popular consumer edition (Vista Home Premium)? If you've used both XP and Vista Media Centers, which do you like bet? Do you have a different PVR application that you like better than either Media Center? post your opinions.