So most people have put articles out there talking about what they expect from Microsoft when they hold their event to lead off CEDIA. Josh and I have talked about a few topics on the Entertainment 2.0 podcast but we haven’t really spelled out what we’re looking for tonight. Here’s our chance to lay out exactly what we’re hoping for and our predictions on what will come out of the show.
Adam
I’m certainly going to agree with others out there and say that we’ll probably hear more about Cable Card tuners. Specifically ATI releasing updated drivers that will relax DRM a bit as well as Ceton finally getting the six stream tuner in gear. I’ll really be listening for price on this one.
We’ve already been told that the Dish Network tuner is dead (for now) so I’ve stopped hoping for it. Not only that but since reading what I have about the ZuneHD, I’ve cooled on the product at this point and won’t be expecting to hear anything new on that front.
Other than that, I have this feeling that Microsoft’s main objective here is to have a “coming out” party for Windows 7 Media Center to get integrators on board. While I’m certainly hoping for more, Microsoft’s main goal is to get people to upgrade and even though Windows 7 is out there, I highly doubt integrators are installing systems with it yet and MS will want to get that started as quickly as possible. First and foremost, CEDIA is an integrators show and Microsoft will be speaking to that audience.
Josh
I definitely agree with Adam that the biggest focus for Microsoft at CEDIA will be to push Windows 7 to the integrators. Although I think, and hope, there will be a lot more good news for the rest of us too.
Again, like Adam I think we’ll see updates on the CableCard front. We’ve heard a lot of rumors of a new firmware for the CableCard tuners that will relax the DRM, i.e., only enforcing it when the content provider requests it. Along with the firmware I think we’ll see new tuners from AMD/ATI. Some of those tuners may even be multi-stream tuners like the one Ceton announced at CES earlier this year. Hopefully we’ll get dates and prices for all of those.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see new partnerships with content providers announced to fit into Microsoft’s Internet TV application. That is one of those things that “just makes sense.”
I also think we might finally hear about Microsoft’s plans for their Media Center Extender platform. They have been completely silent on the issue of extenders thus far, but the last time Microsoft released a major upgrade to Media Center in an OS (Vista) they also announced new Extender functionality. But considering there hasn’t even been a peep about it, we’ll just have to wait and see on that one.
Keeping on the extender topic though leads to my most off-the-wall prediction, and it is one that I made on the show over a month ago though: a Toshiba BluRay-equipped Media Center Extender. Toshiba announced an Extender at CES but we haven’t seen it since. In the meantime they’ve also begun working on BluRay devices. Could it be that they delayed the Extender to add a BluRay drive to it?
Wrapping it All Up
So what do YOU think? Are we completely off the mark? Leave us your comments to let us know what you are expecting and hoping for. It’s only a matter of hours now before we all find out!
I am hoping we will find out what Microsoft's plan is for extenders. The fact that all of the sudden all the third party vendors dropped their support/manufacturing of extenders has me thinking that we will defiantly see something on the extender front.
The whole cable card thing is a moot point, you know it'll happen, Dr. Flick has even came out (probably wasn't suppose to) on his custom integrators podcast and said that there will be in fact a new firmware supporting SDV as well as relaxed DRM. So that one is a no brainer there.
We will also see the netflix plugin for 7MC announced, granted it already, pretty much was announced, we'll see them show it off at least. My wish is that they show off a new extender and one that supports h.264/VC-1 mpeg4 and one that supports silver light so that we get netflix support on extenders.
I like the 360 and all but A.) it is still too expensive as an extender B.) it is also too loud as an extender.
Other that that, it is anyone's guess what will be announced tonight.
– Josh
I have low expectations. But I agree this will be about custom integrators and in my opinion that is where the Media Center teams focus is anyway so they could surprise us.
Like Josh (umdivx and Josh P) I have hopes that we'll see some sort of extender device. The odds of that have been falling quickly, but without a new extender for Christmas I don't see MediaCenter growing its customer base including the custom installer market. I say that because the extender is crucial to seamless integration of Media Center into each room a person has a TV. Even for the wealthy crowd they won't want a XBOX360 or PC in the kitchen or the guest bedroom for example.
I'm not sure what else we might see beyond CableCard updates and possibly a remote control update? Could they have some non-Media Center tools for the CEDIA attendees? I'm looking forward to tonights announcements so we can find out where MS plans to take this platform – good or bad we just want to know.
Over at the green button they have a “Windows 7 Media Center Extenders” section, separate from the vista one… surely it can't be there just for the xbox360?
Speaking of netflix… will the MC version do HD? I don't think it does right now.
I am hoping we will find out what Microsoft's plan is for extenders. The fact that all of the sudden all the third party vendors dropped their support/manufacturing of extenders has me thinking that we will defiantly see something on the extender front.
The whole cable card thing is a moot point, you know it'll happen, Dr. Flick has even came out (probably wasn't suppose to) on his custom integrators podcast and said that there will be in fact a new firmware supporting SDV as well as relaxed DRM. So that one is a no brainer there.
We will also see the netflix plugin for 7MC announced, granted it already, pretty much was announced, we'll see them show it off at least. My wish is that they show off a new extender and one that supports h.264/VC-1 mpeg4 and one that supports silver light so that we get netflix support on extenders.
I like the 360 and all but A.) it is still too expensive as an extender B.) it is also too loud as an extender.
Other that that, it is anyone's guess what will be announced tonight.
– Josh
I have low expectations. But I agree this will be about custom integrators and in my opinion that is where the Media Center teams focus is anyway so they could surprise us.
Like Josh (umdivx and Josh P) I have hopes that we'll see some sort of extender device. The odds of that have been falling quickly, but without a new extender for Christmas I don't see MediaCenter growing its customer base including the custom installer market. I say that because the extender is crucial to seamless integration of Media Center into each room a person has a TV. Even for the wealthy crowd they won't want a XBOX360 or PC in the kitchen or the guest bedroom for example.
I'm not sure what else we might see beyond CableCard updates and possibly a remote control update? Could they have some non-Media Center tools for the CEDIA attendees? I'm looking forward to tonights announcements so we can find out where MS plans to take this platform – good or bad we just want to know.
Over at the green button they have a “Windows 7 Media Center Extenders” section, separate from the vista one… surely it can't be there just for the xbox360?
Speaking of netflix… will the MC version do HD? I don't think it does right now.