After following developments on the Microsoft Media Center platform over the last 7 years and predicting several times that the following year will be the year Media Center takes off in the custom installation channel I'm somewhat gun shy to make that prediction again.
But following the announcements Microsoft made at CEDIA Expo this year and my own beta testing over the last month of the Windows 7 (W7) operating system I am cautiously optimistic that the Media Center interface for the management and distribution of whole house HD TV and photos may be the perfect solution to complement today's custom home control and automation systems.
At CEDIA Expo in Atlanta last year Microsoft made some very key announcements that dramatically improve the value proposition of the Media Center platform in the custom integration channel, specifically:
* Support for CableCARDs in almost all Windows 7 PCs. The restriction that you could only use a CableCARD for those computers that had the Windows Vista CableCARD ready BIOS has been removed. Almost any Windows 7 PC that you buy or build will now support CableCARDs.
* Support for CF (copy freely) recordings. This support allows you to stream un-flagged HD content (almost all HD content except for Showtime and HBO movies is currently un-flagged) recorded on a W7 media center to any other W7 media center in the home. This means that you can use one central W7 media center in the home (which can currently support up to 4 CableCARDs) to stream HD content to all the rooms in the home that have a local W7 Media Center computer. You can even copy this content to W7 laptops to take HD content on the road. In the past, streaming of HD content was possible in Vista but you could only stream to Media Center extenders, a less robust and portable solution.
* Enhanced support for Internet TV content in the electronic program guide of the W7 Media Center, this feature allows you to easily search not only what is available from your local cable provider but also the entertainment options available from the Internet
(a side note - Dish TV was also showing their direct support of the Media Center platform at the CEDIA show to determine the interest from our channel in this solution - we may see this product introduced sometime next year).
* While not publicly announced, Microsoft was showing a W7 version of a Media Center plug in for Netflix at their booth that seamlessly integrated into the Media Center environment
All of these announcements were very promising positive steps towards strengthening the Media Center platform but the continued reluctance of the custom channel to deploy these solutions in our customer's home has always been related more to system reliability than system functionality. The only way to mitigate these concerns (which I have shared to some degree over the years) was to put the Windows 7/CableCARD platform solution to the test in our household and determine its day to day reliability. We installed the following system:
In the family room we have a W7 Niveus Rainier supported by the ATI CableCARD tuner as an AV source for the Samsung DLP TV. In the kitchen we have a 23" HP TouchSmart that was running Windows Vista and upgraded to run Windows 7. In my daughter's room we have another W7 Niveus Rainier connected to a 17" Toshiba LCD. All of the computers are connected over Ethernet CAT 5 wiring to a standard Cisco 10/100 24 port switch in the garage. These are the basics of the system that we have been testing over the last month and the preliminary results are as follows:
* The Windows 7 computers have never locked up, not once.
* We have programmed over 100 shows from almost all of the HD channels that we get from Comcast and they have streamed without any connectivity or video packet errors to the HP TouchSmart in the Kitchen and my daughter's room over that period of time. I have streamed the same show or different shows to these zones error-free and with negligible latency.
* Provisioning the CableCARD to work with The ATI tuner took less than an hour. This process used to be a nightmare but in this installation it worked almost immediately. As they say, your mileage may vary, but the Comcast technicians and our own engineers are getting much more proficient at installing and pairing these products to work in PCs.
* the Windows 7 Media Center platform graphics have been beautifully enhanced. The electronic program guide rivals the best EPGs on the market, including the much loved TiVO interface. The music interface has “Kaleidescape” like beauty with all the cover art appearing on your screen while an album is playing and the photo playback accompanied by music is a very engaging application for any large flat screen TV in the home
* using Windows 7 Media Centers instead of Extenders allows us to enjoy the full functionality of a computer in each of these rooms. For example, internet browsing was not possible with an extender, with a W7 computer that is not an issue. There is no longer a need for a separate TV in the office or children's rooms with computers - for these zones the PC is in fact a full functioning HD TV (either by using a locally installed CableCARD tuner or viewing content that was prerecorded from any CableCARD enabled W7 Media Center computer in the home)
The limitations of this platform still are:
* You still cannot legally record and distribute DVDs from a Media Center to other Media Center or extenders around the home (managed copy functionality is not enabled). This problem can be alleviated however by the upcoming support of Netflix movie downloads for Media Center (this should be out by the time you read this column). There is growing belief in our industry that the future of DVD viewing will come more and more from Internet movie subscription services than from purchased DVDs and the Media Center architecture embraces this trend.
* The streaming of music from a head end media center to media centers located around the home is not synchronized. If you want to play one song throughout the home there will be audio latency issues which are unacceptable to our clients. Until this is resolved (and Microsoft tells me this can be done via a future software upgrade) I recommend that another whole house audio distribution solution be used. We use the Sonos system which gives us the ability to control the music from an iPhone/iTouch, their own handheld controllers or from a desktop client. The last interface is an important one because we now have W7 computers around the home for easy access to the audio control interface screen.
It is important to understand exactly what the strengths of this Media Center architecture are versus the custom home solutions we already design and deploy. Our vision of W7 Media Centers distributed around the home is primarily for the support and control of distributed HD and photo content around the home. While it can support whole house music, videos and home control (with software enhancements from companies like EI-Lifeware) - it is uniquely effective at providing a whole house HD DVR solution that is easily extensible into these other whole house applications with one common interface installed on a relatively inexpensive hardware. Our company has been successful at leveraging this streaming video distribution solution with Control4’s suite of products and these solutions have been very complementary. Control4 gives our clients the synchronized whole house audio, lighting control, camera control, security control, scenes, etc. that they can control from a variety of in-wall, handheld, or touch-screen platforms. This same complementary fit could be applied to Crestron, AMX, HomeLogic, HAI and many other whole house control solutions. (I don't envision Microsoft entering the in-wall keypad or lighting control markets anytime soon so the Media Center platform has to be integrated with solutions from many of the other key partners with which we commonly work.)
In summary, four month testing doesn't guarantee that there will not be glitches down the road. And, after all, we still are talking about watching TV on a PC and for most of us that concept has been less than satisfactory over the years. But these early indicators are very promising and the solutions they provide when they work well are very compelling. I think most of us would agree that if we could start to move away from the complications of HDMI switching of our TV settop boxes to the network based streaming of HD content around the home we would have a more robust and rich solution to offer our clients. I think the year 2010 will be the year we will start deploying these solutions and the W7 Media Center platform will be a key factor in their success.
(reprinted from Residential Systems Magazine)
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