Microsoft’s been in the DVR business for eons… and in all sorts of forms, like this long-forgotten LG set-top. They’ve also excelled at ignoring and exiting the DVR business. Which is why it should come as no surprise that Windows 10 will not feature any sort of Media Center experience. In fact, I wouldn’t have even thought to ask the question. Well, amidst release of the currently limited function Xbox One TV tuner comes word that television recording may return (via a more suitable platform in my estimation).
Microsoft’s solution for this need will apparently be the Xbox One, though the console currently only provides live TV watching, but not recording. My sources tell me that will change, and most probably this year, to include TV recording.
If the Xbox ends up being a full fledged DVR, I could see it selling to the Media Center fans. They lost those sales when they didn’t include the extender functionality originally.
I could even see picking one up to play with if it worked with CableCARDs. Let companies like Hauppauge and Ceton make the network CableCARD tuners and just add support and a larger hard drive. It seems like a win/win. Xbox potentially sells more which potentially leads to more game sales. As it is right now, I can’t think of a reason I would buy the XB1.
I can’t imagine anyone would invest in new CableCARD integrations, given poor uptake and the whole open cable access technology being rethought under FCC scrutiny. But if you’ve already got a tuner, a hard drive, and a UI (as Xbox One does), why not do DVR?
i’m happy with my Xbox One//Tivo Roamio combo. Hard to beat and I have access to just about any cable/disc/internet based video content I want.
Xbox ui/control is still too crazy for me to overlay on TiVo. I tried that for awhile and wife did not like. Also, we’d periodically lose audio via pass-thru. Do you do the HDMI pass-thru or run in parallel via another input?
“They’ve also excelled at ignoring and exiting the DVR business.”
Exiting? Shut your mouth. WMC is as dead as my only deeply sleeping parrot. Don’t forget that Windows 8 with WMC is supported until 2139. It’s the Microsoft way.
Years ago during I think the medieval ages, when TiVo was still analog and dialup, Microsoft had a satellite DVR that was really, really terrific for the time. Not sure why they can’t get traction. They always have had interesting media products and it seems nobody ever cares.
Five years after broadcast TV/cable is dead (whenever that happens and streaming takes over), Microsoft will release an excellent DVR again. Just in time to be irrelevant.
I swear, that company can make some nice stuff, but often months or years after they really should have done it.
In the meantime, I wonder if companies like Silicon Dust with their HDHomeRun DVR Kickstarter may fill the gap. Likely it’ll be a smaller player like SD to do it. Hopefully do it well.
Scott, that was Ultimate TV:
http://forums.solidsignal.com/content.php/3517-The-history-of-DIRECTV-DVRs-part-1-Prehistory
Dave, i use the hdmi passthrough. I can understand why the WAF is low. It is not what I would call a beautiful interface, who wants to use a game controller for a remote control although I did like the Windows Media Center user interface, which navigates like the Xbox One. I haven’t lost any audio at any time either. I would love it if Roku either made a streamer overlay for my Tivo or hooked up with a tv maker that made higher quality televisions. Then I let the Roku television be the interface. Sometimes simple is better.
“Don’t forget that Windows 8 with WMC is supported until 2139”
No its not. Extended support is through 1/10/23.
I used to run Media Center on a dedicated PC with four Xbox 360s as extenders, but moved to Tivo when Roamio came out– it had finally become as good as Media Center.(And Tivo was actually continuing development!)
Any plans for the Xbox are bound to be a pale imitation of what Media Center was for a few reasons: (i) lack of multiroom support (this seems pretty unlikely in an Xbox solution); (ii) lack of cablecard support (this seems unlikely given cablecard is on its last legs and certification would be a huge pain for MS); (iii) the processor performance required by games makes the Xbox ill-suited to work as a DVR (the overhead for Kinect affected graphical performance before developers has the option to use that processing power– hard to see how running a DVR in the background would be less resource intensive).
I was one of the original installs of CableCard on Media Center (and used it happily for years and I love my four Xbox Ones)– but I don’t anticipate returning to a MS DVR solution any time this decade.
“No its not. Extended support is through 1/10/23.”
But you’re using the metric system. Using American dates, that’s 2139.
Yes, and Ultimate TV was really software designed for the DishPlayer 7100 which appeared at about the same time as TiVo and Replay TV. DishPlayer 7100 hardware by Echostar (DishNetwork was their moniker for the TV service at that time) and software by Microsoft. As good and advanced as it was, very soon after release Microsoft began more and lengthy delays in bug/software fixes for Echostar’s product, and because Microsoft had the source code/and owned the software, Dish could do NOTHING to fix those problems. This resulted in very ANGRY Dish subscribers who held Dish responsible with Dish DESPERATELY thing to get Microsoft to PLEASE move on fixing the bugs.
Well, eventually, Dish stopped selling the DP7100 and did the most minimal support they could with the whole deal between Microsoft and Dish coming to an end. This is why Dish (Charlie Ergen) decided they would NEVER have a lack of software control again, and started on their very basic, but in-house DVR (supposed to be in violation of TiVo patents, but never proved by reading the code–and such a violation would have needed the nefarious cooperation of Broadcom and a small army of 3rd party Linux coders–’nuff said; FWIW Ergen and Tom Rogers are friends, then and still) because Dish never wanted to go through a Microsoft like nightmare ever again. Lesson learned!
And almost immediately after Dish and Microsoft end their romance, as if by magic, Microsoft releases its Ultimate TV DVR service. Oh, the timing! Was this why Micorsoft seemed to never answer the Bat Phone directly connected to Echostar’s engineers?
I suppose Karma is the death of Ultimate TV. However, I also lament its death because I believe in as many options as possible, and by this time if one wanted a DVR, you had TiVo (the only DVR offered by DirecTV for years) or Dish Network ONLY! That aint good. All the cable cos were still trying to find out what a DVR was! Sadly, even today, the options for DVR’s is very limited, or should I say for GOOD DVR’s, it is a limited line-up: TiVo, Genie, and Hopper, and that’s IT! Would have been nice if at least Ultimate TV lived on, and as we all know Replay was killed by lawsuits. So it goes.
“Years ago during I think the medieval ages, when TiVo was still analog and dialup, Microsoft had a satellite DVR that was really, really terrific for the time. Not sure why they can’t get traction. They always have had interesting media products and it seems nobody ever cares.”
Microsoft during the Oughts was like Apple during the ’86 – ’96 period; cranking out lots of really interesting technological concept products with no real follow through or go-to-market strategy behind them.
Thanks Dave. And to Harry, I don’t recall having any issues with the box, so personally, I have nothing but fond memories. I also remember it was dial up for communicating back to Dish, and right after we sold our house and were moving, I rang up a slew of PPV rentals that never got billed back since the box was disconnected from the phone line and quickly shipped away.
Incidentally, it was the last time I had Picture-in-Picture until this month… if you can call what U-Verse does “picture in picture”.
Chucky, as far as go to market strategy, if memory serves Microsoft’s MediaRoom was deployed to some or all of Comcast’s Seattle footprint and the first generation of FiOS set-tops were running the Microsoft experience. Not sure if there weren’t many takers or they couldn’t figure out how to get it out there — in the US, only AT&T stuck with them.
“Chucky, as far as go to market strategy, if memory serves Microsoft’s MediaRoom was deployed to some or all of Comcast’s Seattle footprint and the first generation of FiOS set-tops were running the Microsoft experience.”
Sure. The eMate had decent pickup in school districts too, if memory serves. And it was kickass technology. But my point remains…
Actually, Microsoft was smart to divest Mediaroom to Ericsson in 2013, rather than investing in updating it. The platform was already five years out of date. The client was Windows CE-based, designed for set-top boxes only, and used a dead-ended version of Internet Explorer that was originally developed for the Mac. Also, didn’t offer adaptive streaming. It caused AT&T many massive and very expensive headaches. Verizon and Comcast both tested it and then ran the other way. Fast.
Win 7 Media Center and Ceton Cable Card pci-e combo was amazing. I had two – two SDV boxes from TWC and two cable cards for an 8 shows at once DVR built from parts I got at Micro center! To this day Time Warner still does not offer a dvr that does more than 2 shows unless you get the whole home DVR mess which is really just two dvrs.
The free guide was the clincher – and all the customizations to media center – like having all my movies available in the My Movies add on. So mant tweeks and post processing available it was a geeks dream.
Why MS did not create a stand alone hardware DVR from embedded win 7 is beyond me. They put all that money into ZUNE trying to copy apple when they could have had their own “ipod” in the TV space.
“Time Warner still does not offer a dvr that does more than 2 shows ”
Actually, they have been rolling out the 6 tuner enhanced dvr for several months now. It started just in LA and New York, but from googling it I think it’s starting to show up elsewhere. I’ve had mine for several weeks, and I’m pleased with it.
“Why MS did not create a stand alone hardware DVR from embedded win 7 is beyond me” Actually, they should have done that about ten years ago for the Foundation software. When I moved from Seattle to LA in 2006, I wound up with the exact same model Motorola box, only running iGuide instead of Foundation. Every single complaint that people had about the Foundation software was also present in the iGuide software. Many years, and several Motorola firmware releases later, it finally became a decent dvr. I’m not sure back in Washington if they ever got it fixed before they pulled Foundation altogether.
This was one of the pieces of news that convinced the wife and I to end this wretched TV nonsense; the other piece is that our bastard provider, FiOS, has taken to marking NBC’s channels as copy-protected, so we can’t watch any of the stuff we would at the time we could. We had TV to watch Formula 1; if we can’t watch that, then in my mind there’s no reason to subscribe to TV.