Vista Media Center Review

Here’s a nice blog review of Vista Media Center. Worth a read if you are considering the upgrade from XP MCE.

“Media center is ready for the big time, and I highly recommend it become the central entertainment hub of your home. With extenders in any of your major entertainment areas, you now have access to everything. All your music, all your TV, pictures, even video library is now available everywhere from a centralized location.

Multiple sattelite DVR’s is always a huge hassle (let’s see, which one did I record that show on again?), it’s low def, no music library, etc. Besides, with free over the air HD, it’s a no brainer to spend $50, and a little time on your roof. What a lot of people don’t realise is, that most of the HD you can get on sattelite and cable, you can get for free, over the air, and recorded directly into media center. (about 95% of the TV my family watches comes from the major networks, which provide free over-the-air HD. (Mostly Fox.) 24, Prison Break, American Idol, Bones, etc.) Also, for a lot less money than you think, you can toss in home automation and control it through your media center experience. Everything from turning off any lights in the house, to open the garage door, viewing security cameras, just about anything you could ever want.

Key Changes between Vista MC & XP MCE Rollup2;

• Completely re-designed UI
• Native HD support
• Can handle multiple ATSC (HD) tuners without the need for analogue tuners
• Built in MPEG 2 decoder. (You no longer need a 3rd party one.)
• Old Extenders will no longer work with Vista MC. Currently the Xbox 360 is the only extender that will work with Vista MC that I am aware of.

http://windowsconnected.com/