If you wanted digital cable, you needed a cable box, and if you needed a cable box anyways you might as well just get the HD-DVR cable box from your provider rather than fumbling with an MCE setup that could only give you OTA HD channels.
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As HDTVs grew in popularity, being able to watch little more than standard definition on your brand spanking new media center PC was more than embarrassing it was the wrong DVR decision.ĭigital cable became the norm, and with it the power shifted back to the cable box. You could easily get an HD-DVR from cable companies and for a lot less money than a dedicated media center PC. If MCE was out during the late 90s, it wouldn't have been a problem, but when MCE 2005 made its debut with no more than OTA HDTV support, it was clear that MCE had lost its potential. Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005: Updated, but too little, too late At the peak of MCE's development, it lacked any HDTV support effectively, the most powerful DVR on the market could only let you watch analog TV. While MCE was being updated, the HD revolution also took place, with more and more cable providers offering HD content. Unfortunately, as MCE matured, it also grew more useless. With each subsequent version, MCE got better and better, there were fewer crashes, performance got better (mostly due to faster hardware out at the time), and the overall package grew more polished. Windows XP Media Center Edition: Original Editionĭespite the problems, MCE gained traction, and near the end of its time the majority of systems sold in retail were pre-loaded with MCE instead of Windows XP Home or Professional.
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In many ways, the performance and stability issues were worse under MCE because the software was so much more stressful than normal applications under XP and the impact was far greater your PC crashing may make you lose that document you were working on for several hours, but if it made you miss an episode of 24, there would be hell to pay.
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Then there was the issue of stability despite Microsoft's best attempts to control hardware and drivers used in MCE systems, they were still prone to crashes and performance issues just like any normal XP machine.
The problems of course could not be ignored MCE systems ran for at least $1500, compared to much lower rental costs from your cable company or lower ownership costs from companies like TiVo and ReplayTV. Originally only available to OEMs, the first iteration of MCE showed promise as an elegant and fast DVR, much better than anything prior on the PC and even better than set-top DVRs. Four years ago Microsoft introduced Windows XP Media Center Edition, a special edition of the popular OS that featured a Microsoft-designed "10 foot UI" for use in a TV setting.
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