Man, I've spent the last few months reading about Windows Media Center 2005 / MythTV / PVR-software. I am going to build one as soon as I find the time (I'm supposed to be contracting out on three jobs, as well as writing a report for Massey). I have a decent box (a Athlon 64 3000+, 1Gig ram, 500+gigs hard drive) that I don't use (I've become a fulltime laptop user - I love my Inspiron), and then all I need to buy is a tv tuner card. I have in mind the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500MCE card - it rocks - it has two tv tuners in it so you can record two shows simultaneously, or various other combinations of multichannel goodness.
The other piece in the puzzle is a media center extender, say, an Xbox 360. Wouldn't it be nice if Microsoft gave the ambassadors a 360 in return for their hard work? What? That's what's happening? cool.......Now all I need to do is get Paul to get them to us in March, when they're released (*hint* *hint*).
The only thing missing for us kiwi's is that they haven't sussed out an electronic program guide (EPG). This is what you get on Sky Tv, where it lists all the channels, and whats playing. Using this, you can tell the media center to record all episodes of a program, schedule recordings, etc. I hope this feature is made available soon, as that, along with the missing xbox 360 , are the only things making me wait.
Why am I interested? Because I'm engaged, and I've been doing furniture, bed, and house shopping with my fiancee. I need something which I can claim as my own (because I let the fiancee have the say when it comes to things like furniture and stuff). So, for me, Media Center is gonna be cool 
Thoughts on “Windows Media Center”