Led by Microsoft Corp., the computer industry has been trying for years to invade the living room with PCs designed to serve up TV, music, home movies and photos. So far, the makers of standalone set-top boxes have held their ground both in desired features and price.
But the battle to become your entertainment center hub is starting to get interesting.
With the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition, PC makers are armed with their strongest weapon yet – one that just doesn’t just mimic TiVo recorders, DVD players and other gadgets but merges their features into a single program.
The software takes advantage of the fact that a PC – unlike most set-top boxes – is well connected, high-powered and open. Media Center PCs play well with other computers and push the envelope of what’s possible when a home is networked.
Still, the living room PC does carry some old burdens. You probably never had to update the virus protection of your DVD player or had to restart your stereo because it froze up. The last time my old analog TV crashed was when it fell off its stand.
The latest Media Center software version is far more polished than the program’s earlier generations, and glitches were relatively rare after I installed updates. Overall, the features far outweighed any problems.
For more than a month, I’ve been testing a Hewlett-Packard Co. z545-b Digital Entertainment Center ($1,899) on HP’s 42-inch plasma TV ($3,999). I’ve also been watching content from the PC in another room from a TV that’s wirelessly connected through HP’s Media Center Extender ($299).
If I were designing a fancy new entertainment center, I wouldn’t mind paying extra for the borrowed HP unit, precisely because it looks nothing like a PC. The z545-b closely resembles one of the very high-end components it’s likely to be elbowing out of the living room. It’s got a black, brushed aluminum case and a slick front display that identifies what’s playing.
Behind its well-concealed front doors are slots and ports for connecting USB and FireWire devices like cameras, camcorders and printers as well as memory cards used in cameras. There’s a double-layer DVD burner and room for HP’s slide-in external hard drive.
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