Yes, here it is:
http://www.ssw.com.au/daniel/Home/MediaCentre.aspx

As far as HDTV is concerned, the consumer electronic industry has turned HDTV technologies into a confusing quagmire. Over the AIR broadcast is like the only thing that is set in stone. They are soo worried about content protection to agree on one standard, such as ATSC. I dont think Microsoft is to blame for this. Joe Consumer walks into Bestbuy and thinks that he can get this awesome picture by just buying this great HDTV… Uh, yeah, about that… Sorry dude. He is in for a whole world of hurt, unless he is a techie.

I say kudo’s to MS for actually supporting the OTA atsc card. I’m not even aware of a PVR card that can input a non ATSC hdtv signal? I think satelite and cablecompanies only hand off hdmi or QAM…

Although certain things like playlists and some genres are almost bearable, the listing of a music collection by song, artist, and the search capability are essentially worthless.

My point is that, even forget about the blog for a second, instead of having a huge evangelist for the product showing everyone who comes to my home an amazing piece of software, instead everyone who visits my house (and the number is large) gets to see how slow the interface is irrespective of the actual size of their own personal mp3 library. This leaves a negative impression of the product despite my excitement over it when I show it to them. The word of mouth, personal blog buzz, showing the unit off to your family, friends and neighbors, etc. are all essential to generating interest and excitement regarding the product.

I own the HDTV TiVo and despite the cost, it is simply fantastic. I should receive a commission check from DirecTV as I’ve had many friends buy a unit after watching me demo mine. With 4 tuners, 250 gig drive, etc. etc. the unit is a triumph for home media. Once again I couldn’t believe how beautiful CSI Miami looked last night (the episode from 3 weeks ago that I’m just getting to now). This unit is less expensive than the MCE machine. The cable companies, while bad today, are quickly improving their offerings as evidenced by the latest box that Comcast is testing in Washington (by Microsoft no less). With the cable companies on the low end and the high end TiVo satellite on the high end MCE really has not found a suitable home yet for mass market or high end adoption.

And if little old TiVo could figure out a way to play ball with the media companies and come out with a first rate HDTV recorder certainly Microsoft with all of their money and clout could as well. Weren’t they the ones that invented DRM? But, alas, most likely too little too late.

I agree that Media Library would benefit from indexing, but that is not even close to the reason for the lack of adoption, and if you were to survey Media Center owners I suspect that none would mention music search performance as an issue.

As for Tivo and DirecTV, I think that was a fluke of the market several years ago. It’s no accident that DirecTV has announced plans to break the relationship with Tivo in about two years and introduce its own PVR solution. I’m certain that Microsoft has been in intense discussions with cable companies about this issue, but no one’s biting. They want the lock-in.

Maybe when cable cards come out, there’ll be another opportunity.

It would be one thing if it were a technical impossibility to improve speed or an expensive proposition. The fact of the matter is that all of our media libraries are only getting larger and an easy and inexpensive way to do this is available today by indexing the WMP library. Quite simple actually. I’m not sure why there is so much resistance in Redmond over improving the speed of the player but am confident we will see it at some point.

Microsoft should not wait for the cable card to employ an HDTV solution for MCE. Initially they should work out a trial relationship with Comcast as they are already a significant business partner.

Microsoft should convince Comcast that they have the DRM in place and offer to share more of the revenue from the operating system for Comcast HDTV users if need be. They can then negotiate more aggressive deals with other providers down the line and much of this might be irrelevant anyway in a few years depending on how the technology — especially broadband — develops.

The important thing is to get something in place at market, today, which I suspect may already even be in the works — and if it is in the works they need to be hyping this with news releases or at least leaking the info into the blogosphere to generate buzz and excitement. Microsoft’s typical tight-lipped top-secret approach is not the best approach here.

TiVo negotiated a deal with DirecTV to record HDTV and while the deal may be lopsided towards DirecTV, if TiVo can do it Microsoft can do it. If the talks are not going so well perhaps they need to change the negotiating team that is meeting with the cable/satellite providers.

As for those nasty cable companies, I see no evidence that they are willing to negotiate with anyone. By rights, they should be falling all over themselves to get Tivo’s user interface and brand loyalty, but they’re not. I think the DirecTV/Tivo deal was a fluke, that happened because DirecTV needed some help differentiating itself way back when. The reason they’re dumping Tivo is the same reason the cable companies won’t negotiate–they don’t want to share.

My thoughts are that everything is negotiable. Microsoft is already recording HDTV for Comcast — just not on the MCE platform. Surely they have at least a modicum of clout with Comcast and when the deal is put together the right way I’m sure it will get done.

Alternatively Microsoft could choose to try and develop a method to capture the HDTV signals without the assistance of the cable/satellite providers and record to high def. This might be more difficult technically speaking but when they are alleged to be spending $20 billion on this product certainly possible.

One way or the other without HDTV MCE is toast.

Try polling current HDTV subscribers and asking them if they’d ever go back to non HDTV and you’ll get no takers. The sales of the HDTV units and the word of mouth buzz is spreading like wildfire right now.

The library is indexed. The problem Thomas is experiencing is a problem with the interaction between WMP and MCE. It is being addressed. And as you pointed out, Thomas’s collection is abnormally large.

Thomas, I would be curious to know which music players do a good job of handling your large collection and which one’s don’t? What gives you the best perf?

As for the HDTV issue, you know my thoughts on the subject…

TDavid, sorry to hear you returned your MCE, I wish I saw your post earlier because I might have been able to help you with your DVD problem. It really should provide much better quality than a $79 progressive scan player.

I have some thoughts posted about all these negative articles here: http://blog.mattgoyer.com/categories/mediaCenter/2004/12/30.html#a3897