Extender for Windows Media Center no match for Apple TV
Published 8:01 pm Friday, February 15, 2008
Here’s the formula for the gadget of the year: A device that delivers Internet video on the TV.
It sounds simple, but no one has really cracked this market, which should be huge. Apple Inc., Sony Corp., Netgear Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc. are some of the big tech names angling in on it.
Of course, this isn’t a party Microsoft Corp. is going to stay away from. The software juggernaut has supplied hardware partners such as Cisco Systems Inc. and D-Link Corp. with updated software and blueprints for the Extender for Windows Media Center, a box you put in your entertainment center and connect to your TV.
You control the extender with a remote, gaining access not only to the movies, music and photos stored on the PC, but also to some free Web videos and subscription movie services.
The first generation of extenders came out in 2005 for use with Windows XP, causing little excitement. The updated boxes, which work only with Windows Vista, started coming out in January. I tested the Linksys DMA 2200 (made by Cisco).
It worked basically as advertised, but for a number of reasons, I think this generation of extenders will be met with as little enthusiasm as the first one. I expect we’ll find that some other company, like Apple, will be the one to really spark people’s interest in this category.
The main flaw is Microsoft’s approach: It makes the software, and lets others build the hardware and provide services such as Web video. It’s nice of Microsoft to let others get a piece of the action, but it makes for a confusing, poorly integrated mess of a system. You can’t afford that in this category, which consumers are only just figuring out.
Speaking of figuring things out, Apple didn’t exactly help by naming its competing extender, which came out last year, the “Apple TV.” But that device is dead easy to use, because Apple makes the software and the hardware. It sells the movies that play on it.
The remotes for these devices are perhaps the best illustration of their differences. The Apple TV’s remote has six buttons. The DMA 2200’s remote has 48, many of them with cryptic little symbols that I never mastered. There’s a large numeric keypad, which I never used, while the oft-used Back button is tiny.
The Apple TV lets you watch iTunes movies and YouTube videos. The Windows extender shows some clips selected by Microsoft, and works with Web movie rental services such as Vongo, each of which has its own, sometimes confusing interface. For instance, I tried to use Showtime’s application, which sells episodes of “Weeds” and other shows for $1.99 each, but could never figure out how to register for the service. No “Weeds” for me.
The funny thing is that Microsoft has its own online video rental service that’s easy to use and works well, but it’s only for the Xbox 360 game console.
The 360 also can do everything an extender can, and it’s only a little more expensive, so it looks like a good value. But the console’s cooling fans sound like a miniature vacuum cleaner, so it’s understandable if people who are not gamers balk at putting one in their entertainment centers.
Unlike most Xbox 360 models and the Apple TV, the extenders don’t have their own hard drives — all the content is streamed from the PC the moment before it’s shown on the TV set. That means connection speed is critical.
