Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

I am excited about the potential Vista has to offer as a media center and ultimately a Tivo replacement, especially with the addition of CableCARD support. The one thing that could derail Microsoft is the extensive digital rights management integrated in Vista to view high definition television. Computerworld has a good editorial on the DRM integrated with Microsoft’s Vista. Everyone should read this article. Here is a brief snippet:

In a nutshell, this is the dilemma Microsoft faces as it prepares to launch Windows Vista. By any standard, Vista’s new DRM capabilities — aimed at protecting the rights of content owners by placing limits on how consumers can use digital media — hardly qualify as a selling point; after all, it’s hard to sing the praises of technology designed to make life harder for its users.

In the same vein, Charlie Owen, the PM for Vista’s media center, asked recently on his blog: What keeps you from upgrading to Windows Media Center? The comments of that post are worth taking the time to read. Also, take a look at the video of an interview with Charlie that shows Vista’s Media Center in action. It is an hour long video that is very informative about the features of Vista. The photo album integration looks sweet.

As you can see, Vista’s Media Center is very polished and comes close to rivaling Tivo’s interface. I keep thinking Vista’s Media Center is a house of cards though. None of the eye-candy is worth anything if the overall user experience is crap. Microsoft has caved into the pressure of the content providers, and has included some serious hardware DRM (HDCP), not to mention that CableLabs has to approve the configuration of every media center box. If HDTV is not fully integrated, a Vista box is a waste of time. Microsoft has so much riding on their CableCARD implementation. The comments on Charlie’s website highlight these issues. The frustrating thing to me is that I won’t be able to build my own media center using Vista becuase of the need for CableLabs approval. How much of a premium are manufacturers going to charge me for CableCARD support?
This  sums up why I am secretly rooting for Linux and MythTV. If I cannot watch HDTV reliably and somewhat cheaply with Vista’s Media Center, I will turn to MythTV, which is free by the way.