The end of WinMC extenders should be good for Sage

[wayner]

Now that Linksys and HP have stopped making WinMC extenders the arguments for choosing Sage over WinMC have been strengthened. The only extenders left for WinMC are the DSM and the Xbox, which can't compete with an HD-200.

[Brent]

It definitely should help SageTV in some ways. But I honestly would like to see Microsoft succeed somehow with the MediaCenter product. I see Microsoft's product with so much hope and potential resources to make HTPCs more mainstream, but they just can't seem to get everything together. I think its premature to rule them out on this entirely - at least yet. Windows 7 should bring some good additions to MediaCenter, we'll have to wait and see.

[Motofreak75]

MS is just lazy getting things to work, that why they buy companies like Sage out right and call it there own.

[tmiranda]

I wouldn't call them lazy at all, in fact they are very persistent. Their motto seems to be "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. If you still do not succeeed, throw more money at it. If you STILL don't succeed, buy somebody."

[briands]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I wouldn't call them lazy at all, in fact they are very persistent. Their motto seems to be "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. If you still do not succeeed, throw more money at it. If you STILL don't succeed, buy somebody."

You left out "Change your product naming strategy"

[reggie14]

Microsoft is just scared that they'll be left out of the next big thing. For a while it looked like computers would soon become the entertainment hub for most households, since computers were quickly becoming cheap and ubiquitous. I think it's probably just a matter of time before that actually does happen, but it looks a lot further off now than it did 10 years ago. I'm guessing it won't happen at least until IPTV is universal, and even then it will be on special-purpose devices that may or may not be based on general purpose hardware. So, I think Microsoft is in a holding pattern when it comes to Media Center. They'll keep working on it, but they're only doing it so they have an "in" if and when it looks like computers are going to become a hub.

In any event, I don't think this is a big change changer. What probably makes MC appealing to the limited masses is that it lets people use what they already have. People already have computers with Vista Home Premium on it (or WinMCE), and some people have XBoxes.

[ghostlobster]

I'm a little sad about this. Who knows, maybe someone will step in an fill the void, but I'm not certain. The HTPC enthusiast segment is very limited and my guess would be that there really is not a viable market for mass production devices like this. Smaller, niche products like Sage can be profitable because they maintain a limted overhead and target their market very precisely. And once they have us, well, we're hooked. They've got a very loyal customer base who spend money on their products, gladly.
I don't really think that MS wants to be in the home theater hardware market. Their money is in software licenses...period. Providing extender functionality within the 360 is a nice little add on which enables them to claim a certain amount of 'coolness' but I don't see them launching a mass market campaign around it. The numbers are just not there for them to develop a mass market extender, as Linksys and HP have already proven.
I would not be surprised a single bit to discover that the support costs alone chewed up any profit that Linksys might have seen on the DMA line. I know that I personally had to RMA one due to flakey 802.11n behavior, and there are several references along the lines of "...so I called Linksys and..." Generally, a single contact or 2 with support equals the profit margin of any particular item with these types of devices. Of course, you can also apply one of my favorite quotes to the prior line; "87% of all statistics are made up" (think about it!)
But, I digress...I agree with Brent on GeekTonic...the answer is Softsled. No, I don't care if the question is "So what did you shoot on the 14th hole?" The answer is still Softsled!

[wayner]

You would think that MS still wants a presence in the living rooms of the nation - perhaps that will now be solely via the Xbox or perhaps it will be a MS branded extender.

Since my cable co uses Cisco (aka SA) cable boxes I always thought that Cisco/Linksys should have built extender functionality into their cable boxes. It would mean one less device in your living room and the incremental cost of adding extender capabilities to a cable STB should be small since so much of the hardware would be used for both purposes. But the cable cos probably wouldn't like that as it would be competition for their VOD services.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Brent

It definitely should help SageTV in some ways. But I honestly would like to see Microsoft succeed somehow with the MediaCenter product. I see Microsoft's product with so much hope and potential resources to make HTPCs more mainstream, but they just can't seem to get everything together. I think its premature to rule them out on this entirely - at least yet. Windows 7 should bring some good additions to MediaCenter, we'll have to wait and see.

HTPCs will never be mainstream for much the same reason Porsche won't be mainstream. There just aren't that many people with the $ and the desire.

IMO Linksys & HP leaving the extender market says more about the success of the 360 than the failure of MC. HTPC are expensive, while it's nice to have cheap options; wouldn't you rather pay more to get a device that provides a better experience (rhetorical if you have a HD200 )?

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by babgvant

IMO Linksys & HP leaving the extender market says more about the success of the 360 than the failure of MC. HTPC are expensive, while it's nice to have cheap options; wouldn't you rather pay more to get a device that provides a better experience (rhetorical if you have a HD200 )?

Are you saying the Xbox 360 provides a better experience than the linksys extender? I've never used either as an extender, but I do know the 360 is incredibly loud. Far louder than any computer I've ever had! It doesn't seem like the 360 would provide a terribly good experience.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Are you saying the Xbox 360 provides a better experience than the linksys extender? I've never used either as an extender, but I do know the 360 is incredibly loud. Far louder than any computer I've ever had! It doesn't seem like the 360 would provide a terribly good experience.

The experience is much better on the 360, and it will be even more so w/ 7MC.

The linksys device was cheaper and silent, but the screens were pretty low res and there isn't h264 support.

Early 360s were pretty loud (and power hungry). From what I hear there's still a lot of variance but recent models aren't too bad.

[Brent]

I'll be totally honest here. If SageTV could run on an XBox360, I'd use an XBox 360 in my family/bar/game room as an extender and would be perfectly happy (as long as it could playback my SageTV recorded TV and archived DVDs). But I'd never use an XBox 360 for my other extenders.

[babgvant]

do you already have a 360 in your living room?

[Brent]

Originally Posted by babgvant

do you already have a 360 in your living room?

No, but I'm looking for an excuse to buy one. It's difficult to keep up the "geek" cred with just a Wii in there

[ghostlobster]

Originally Posted by babgvant

do you already have a 360 in your living room?

I do, and I agree with Brent. If I could use my 360 as a SageTV extender it would be great! All the wires I could eliminate by having just a single device hooked up would certainly improve the WAF. Alas, I just don't see that ever happening, though.