Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

With the release of Vista and its media center software, a new era of high definition content was supposed to have been ushered in with the introduction of digital cable tuners. These tuners were supposed to turn your computer into a high-powered Tivo. Reality did not live up to the hype. The initial wave of digital cable tuners were expensive and not well supported by manufacturers.

Something interesting has happened over the last 6 months though, especially with the release of SP1. Vista has become a good operating system inspite of the perceived notion that it is a failure. Vista MCE also has become more stable along with the digital tuners. Sure there are still issues but they pale in comparison to the initial release of cable tuners. Most recent articles written about Vista’s media center and CableCards are for the most part positive. These include:

1. Ben Drawbaugh at his personal website
2. Andres at My Network Project.
3. CableCard thread at Avsforum. Reading all 57 (and growing) pages is interesting as it shows the progression of digital cable tuners.

Media centers are still not ready to be a mainstream product but they certainly fill a niche. With prices dropping to around $1,000 for a well equiped computer and two tuners, price is becoming less and less of a deterrent.