The main issue I see is the WMC is not offered via a cable or satellite OEM and CableCard is just to much effort for the average consumer. I would love to run WMC but I cannot justify the expense or the config hassle over my FIOS box for what I would get vs. lose (two way premium HD content). I really hope MS can OEM WMC out to Verizon or someone.

Nice job, but wouldn't you call the Xbox 360 mainstream?

I'm with you on the position of Media Center offering the best solution today, but still think it costs too much. I'm not talking about the software, but the surrounding hardware, more specifically CableCARD tuners.

Ultimately I don't care if it becomes mainstream, just so long as Microsoft keeps making it. The scary thing to me is that even if MS did stop making it, I'd probably still have to wait two or three years until something better came out from a competitor.

Thanks for taking the time to write this, I still don't know what the MC community is going to do without you in the eHome team.

Fantastic post Charlie.

Do you believe Microsoft will attempt to develop for the enthusiast market?

Microsoft has always had the issue of being reliant on OEMs to produce much of their tangible products. Personally, I don't OEMs are interested in catching what Microsoft is now throwing. The issue of not going mainstream has to have deeper implications in eHome. At this point they don't have the marketshare to convince OEMs of Extender's, CableCARD, other broadcast technologies, Home Server+MCE to get onboard.

Ben's point above of "ultimately I don't care if it becomes mainstream, just so long as Microsoft keeps making it" is a question I'd love to get your post-Media Center team opinion on. I don't see Microsoft stopping development, but I also don't see them putting a focus on the enthusiast market either. That's going to be an issue for most of the people reading this post.

Chris

I have a reasonably impressive VMC setup with a home built PC under our main television and three extenders. We live in an old house, but last year we gutted the kitchen and it gave me access to enough of the walls to run a wired network and whole house audio to almost every room. Having the wired network is key to getting all these parts to run consistently.

Most of our neighbors recently switched from Time Warner Cable to ATT U-Verse. Most of them hate U-Verse and thought our system was really interesting and wanted me to help them set up something similiar at their house. Once I start going through things with them, they just glazed over. To some of us, crimping network cable isn't that big a deal. To others, it's like ww built our own car.

VMC can become a mainstream product, but it will take a while. It just has to work, straight out of the box. Also, Dish or DirectTV supprt with HD is a must. When I tell me neighbors I get my HD from an antenna in the garage attic, they look at me like I have two heads. When I tell them they can't get ESPN-HD in my setup, they think I'm wasting my time. Cablecard is not the solution. I refuse to spend the money for tuners when I feel the technology could be dumped at any moment. Also, I refuse to spend $3k for a good HTPC when I could build the same thing myself for half that.

Great post Charlie. For me, the biggest hurdle is the difficulty one faces trying to get premium content onto MCE. Cable card tuners are expensive, as Ben pointed out, and hard to come by and install for the average consumer. Hope for support for the satellite companies has all but ended so you're left with OTA or QAM as the only way to get HD into the system. Either that or buying a separate piece like a HD Homerun, which again adds to the cost.

If the average consumer can't record ALL the TV they get into their home, there's no reason for them to dump their rented DVR and move to MCE.

Media Center won't transcend the enthusiast market until consumers can buy a dedicated box whose sole purpose is to run Media Center.

There are a couple of forms this could take. It could be an all-in-one solution with an analog tuner and cablecard slots that then plugs into the TV, or it could be a headless device that is designed to be used with extenders. (With the right form-factor a network is not necessary, it could use wireless for internet connectivity and have an ethernet socket that an extender would plug directly into).

I also think the Media Center niche is gradually shrinking due to the expanding HDTV market and Media Center's CableCard requirements. Currently I'm content with just ATSC HD but the HD channels from my cable company continue to become ever more tempting. If I want them I need to either pay ~$1000 for an OCUR certified PC and CableCard tuner, or considerably less for an HD TiVo or DVR from my cable company. They may not do everything that Media Center does, but there's a wealth of devices that will stream music/photos/videos to my TV.

Issue: I don't want a computer by my TV and why do I need a dedicated computer for this anyway
Solution: WHS+MCE w/ use of HD extenders. It needs to happen. Home storage is going to be (or is?) the next big thing in home computing. You get one computer that has tb's of storage that can backup all my computers AND have a tuner farm to serve all my tv's with MRV? Sign me up. Put all the DRM in to play by the rules and the content providers should have no problem with it.

Issue: Network Connectivity
Solution: Create Extender sets that use various technologies to share the information. One with MOCA, one with wireless N (dual band?), and all with ethernet. Make it a platform that allows a mix and match of connection types. Make it plug and play. I've never set up an extender, maybe the current gen is already good at this. I think MOCA integration into the extenders would be a game changer.

Issue: Lack of TV sources
Solution: I don't know the politics involded, but get Dish, D*, and Cablelabs done. I know cable card is out there, but as many have said it doesn't make financial sense. Chances are if CableLabs saw the competition entering the segment they would loosen the noose a little. Again, politics I know nothing about. IPTV should be a long term goal of course.


The fact of the matter is that it's cutting edge and it would take time to fully penetrate. And this is with a full "embrace" from MS and its partners. MS needs to **** or get off the pot. Hopefully the recent bad news isn't proof of the latter.

Whatever it takes, Microsoft cannot let Apple walkaway with the lions share of home entertainment marketshare. And if, this post is any indication, http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=23018, Microsoft needs to have a solid roadmap and funding for things like Media Center and Zune.

I couldn't agree more Ian on the WHS+MCE front...needs to happen like yesterday.

Great post Charlie. Thanks!

Your comments about the natural complexity ring frustratingly true. So close, yet still not simple enough for mass adoption - and the sustaining profit and lower costs that would come with it.

The WHS+MCE idea would be nice, but it still has the same home networking problem as the existing solution, and so wouldn't do much for mass adoption either.

That's a little surprising to hear the Media Center team isn't going after online content more. After wrestling with the likes of DirectTV, Dish and CableLabs for so long, I would have thought they'd jump at the chance of a different, less constrained medium.

As things progress, I hope you keep posting your insight. Thanks.

I have a cable card PC with two cable card tuners, and two OTA tuners. I get lots of HD content from cable and OTA sources. I love the media center but I need and extender that is able to play HD content from the MC to the Extender then on to the tv. My Media center PC is connected via ethernet to the hub and I have an "N" wireless router to connect to the extenders. I do not play any games so I don't need an x360, but I do want to watch HDTV and my blu-ray movies on the extender. What can I use to do this???
GaryR

"I challenge folks all the time to tell me what other distributed audio / video / photo system has as much bang for the buck"

Sorry - but I think you really miss the point on this post - and that statement very much sums it up. It's not about doing a whole lot of different tricks half heartedly (that the public doesn't know about) - it's about doing a few of them properly and providing the confidence that 'later on.. you can extend it to do more if you need to'. The 'success' and 'is it mainstraim' question is then measured by how popular it's been out in the marketplace - which is a direct result of how well it's been marketed/sold to them.

Most of these things you mention - watching TV, DVD Playback, DVR's, Home/Wireless networking, Viewing Photos, Video, Installing Applications etc - are in fact all pretty mainstream concepts - not something for 'enthusiasts' only. There are lots of companies out there doing these things and being very successful about them too in a very mainstream way - most just aren't trying to do 'all of them' out of the box. The other main difference is that they have focused marketing/adverting on their products - so the public are constantly reminded about the availability, core features and benefits of what they are selling. It doesn't matter how complex or how simple the install process is (in fact the most popular DVR on the market in 'Australia' requires an installer to come out and install a satellite dish on your roof, pipe cabling through to your loungeroom and install sockets).

It's a real shame that Media Center hasnt been a success in the real world (and can't seem to break out of the enthusiast market) - but it's not due to 'lack of' or 'inclusion of' features. It's due to Microsoft not understanding how to sell or market this product - and Microsoft not working with companies that are trying to help achieve this mainstream acceptance. (and always having some other agenda - or another product which is considered 'more important' when the marketing budget is being allocated).

One of the golden opportunities over the past few years - 'Extenders' didnt fail because of lack of home networking. It failed because Microsoft were only interested in pushing the XBox360's (not as MC extenders) - and didn't work with the companies that were trying to make the extender dream a reality. (and in fact 'undercut' them at the register - ensuring they couldn't even start out with traction in the enthusiast market - and then completely failed at doing the required marketing to get them into the mainstream).

Personally - I think one of the 'unique' things that sets Media Center apart from the the other similar products is the 'developer' platform (=extensibility) - not the DVR functionality and not the 'all in one' functionality (which as you mentioned can readily be enjoyed on any computer around the house - and probably belongs there). It's the concept that you are buying a device that can be upgraded/extended in the future to do what you 'need it to do' - not the 'we're throwing in everything but the kitchen sink' pitch.

I think Apple have really embraced this functionality (and got it spot on) with the iPhone - and have really understood how to get the concept/benefits of 'extensibility' out there to the mainstream. If you watch their ads - the large majority of them very much focus on what 'other' companies are enabling their products to do with extensibility/apps (and they aren't being 'brand snobs' either - everyone is invited). Apple's message with the iPhone has not been 'we give you everything you need out of the box' - but instead 'we give you a device where thousands of apps are available to do what you want - IF you need it'.

Anyhow - I think Microsoft really need to figure out 'where they want to go today' with Media Center. The 'niche' and 'enthusiast only' message is just what is being sold at the moment - and not where it actually could be.

Charlie

You and I have had a discussion about this exact issue before. The concept of believing Media Center is a successful product in comparison to others because it does everything in the world is a poor way to envision a product. Other products might do less (and generally cost significantly less), but the overall value proposition in my mind is higher due to the general lack of stability issues, poor communication with customers, lack of product direction, reliance on OEMs, etc, etc. I guarantee the 80/20 rule will apply when this is all said and done. 80% of people will be happy with less features/complexity for less money. 20% will want more and are either willing to pay for it or will give up and go for less.

I think I agree with you in part. The enthusiast in me says no product matches Media Center and thus despite Microsoft's lack of focus I will likely keep using it until something else comes along. For those enthusiast really interested in the whole home Media Center concept, Sage TV has quickly become the one to beat. If this is the point you were trying to get across, I basically agree with your concept. If eHome has been thinking this while developing Media Center, I see yet another misstep in the management of the team.

>> Niall: There are lots of companies out there doing these things and being very successful about them too in a very mainstream way - most just aren't trying to do 'all of them' out of the box.

Charlie : I'm skeptical of this statement, Niall. Care to name another worldwide product which comes close in the home?

Depending on what feature/market you are talking about - obviously, Media Center is available all around the world (and hence would have pretty high 'total' usage numbers). However - in any 'localized' market (or market segment) - I'm not aware of any where Media Center is actually the dominant platform in use - and that is exactly the point I am making here.

Are more people using Media Center as a 'DVR' in the 'US' market than TiVO (or local paytv provider) for example? (I'm talking 'day to day use' - not 'loaded it once to see what it was use').

I know in Australia - Media Center is a less than a well known product ('oh thats that media player thingy right'... comment you'd normally get if you asked someone in the street - and didn't get a straight out blank look). Everybody however would know what Foxtel IQ is (our main paytv provider's DVR) - and most would even know what Tivo is too.. (even though thats relatively new)... Both of these products are advertised here in the mainstream media - and there's actual awareness for what they are. There's never ever been an ad for Windows Media Center.

Much to my disappointment - most of my non tech friends actually use Apple Mac's, iPhones and iPods for their whole house / portable media needs (photo's, music, video etc).

Again - I'm not talking about what platform is better/worse - I'm talking about what is actually being used / successful in the mainstream out there. (and has broken out of the 'enthusiast only' market).

umm.. ok still a little confused by your reponse...

I was commenting about 'awareness and uptake' - not who's got the longest feature list... your post after all is entitled - "Can Windows Media Center go beyond the enthusiast market?".. The transition from 'enthusiast market' to 'mainstream market' is ALL about and measured in 'awareness and uptake' - not 'feature set' - I really can't see how it isn't.

As per both my posts above - I agree that nothing comes close 'feature set' wise on a tv screen (the 'all in one box' experience).. but for me personally I don't use 'all those features' on Media Center - as it doesn't do a good enough job for me (and many I wouldn't do in 10 foot UI). I use it primarily as a DVR, Video/Movie Playback device and for plugins (and would recommend it to others for these usages alone). BluRay has never worked seamlessly on Media Center (Windows 7) for me despite having appropriate software and hardware - so our PS3 is what handles that scenario.

I agree Frontrow/AppleTV have been flops (i think most apple fans would agree and use mac mini's instead) - and I didn't mention those - because thats not what the mainstream perception of a connected home is about. For example - most 'average' people I know - 'connected' and 'home' audio to them is being able to sync their music to their mp3 player from their pc/internet (as a once off transfer) - and then dock it with their stereo systems (and then take it with them for portable and car use). These people generally don't want or need to 'switch on' a tv or computer for that function - and if they wanted to 'watch' something onscreen - then they might switch on a music tv channel (with video clips) - or turn on their ps3 or xbox360 (so they could get that 'instant on' UX).

Similarly - for most people 'connected home photos' is about getting photos off a digital camera, mobile or internet - then editing/importing them on a computer (to email to others), printing them and maybe putting them in a digital photo frame (not leaving a tv switched on with a slideshow).

For the more tech users - they might also have a centralized NAS - to them that's their 'connected home'.

So as per my comments above - for me (and I think most others = mainstream) it's not all about doing 'everything' (and having the largest 'feature list' out of the box) - and that certainly isn't a driver for taking it out of the enthusiast market (or a compelling selling point). That's not to be confused with it being 'extensible' to provide a of features 'if you need it' (which is a good selling point) - or doing a few things 'really' well (also a good selling point).

I showed CharlieO's original post and follow-ups to someone I respect and admire greatly--someone in his seventies who has zero personal experience with Vista Media Center, or, for that matter, has virtually zero personal experience with any PCs other than whatever Mac he has on his desk (used for email, basically).

This individual was a VERY successful private businessman.

His take?

In his opinion, Charlie's view of Media Center is...

*'too cute by half'

*'it seems like the guy doesn't really have his heart in it'

*'whatever he is talking about, in order to be successful, needs a champion inside the company...and this guy is not that'

*'perhaps a smaller, leaner and more desperate company is required in order to bring this to market'

Charlie, your comment?
Ben & Chris, you too!

Full disclosure: We use Media Center every day in our home--and I'd love to pick up an extra Cablecard tuner and extender (for the right price, of course).

Quoting Niall: "So as per my comments above - for me (and I think most others = mainstream) it's not all about doing 'everything' (and having the largest 'feature list' out of the box) - and that certainly isn't a driver for taking it out of the enthusiast market (or a compelling selling point). That's not to be confused with it being 'extensible' to provide a of features 'if you need it' (which is a good selling point) - or doing a few things 'really' well (also a good selling point)."

Charlie, this is exactly my point. I (along with most of the mainstream) could care less if Media Center has all the features in the world. Truth is, a lot of those features are unstable (and costly) and the everything but the kitchen sink approach that you appear to be hyping is the worst way to develop a mainstream (or even enthusiast) product.

Quoting Charlie: "Are you perhaps wondering if the Windows Media Center team figures the product is #1 and therefore it can sit back and not innovate?"

Yes. I don't know if I would use the word "innovate," as that might imply large feature undertakings like OCUR would not have happened. However, based on how you seem to look at Media Center (eg. nothing can touch it in terms of features, it must be successful), if this was an approach driven by upper management.

Quoting Charlie: "It's not that Windows Media Center simply has a longer feature list than anything else on the market. It's that it does those features exceedingly well"

I'm not sure that is the wording I would use. TGB has a long list of threads containing stuff Media Center does very poorly (too many to list). These issues are one of the many reasons why Media Center will never be mainstream. One of the largest problems is that these issues are brought to eHome attention, put on a list for vNext and then ignore until vNext feature set is locked down. Niall had a great explanation of this somewhere on the web (might have actually been in our MVP forum).

I'm not trying to attack your personally by any means (side note, Charlie was by far the most open Microsoft employee who communicated on a regular basis with MVPs and went above and beyond what I ever would have expected, however your attitude towards the platform clearly shows me that the wrong message has been delivered by eHome and that is the exact reason why Media Center is what we have today.

The trouble with ignoring the "enthusiast" market is that it doesn't stay "enthusiast" forever. Sooner or later a product comes along which crosses some threshold and suddently transitions enthusiast into mainstream.

The market for portable MP3 players was "enthusiast" until the iPod came along. It turned a geeky, technical process into an easy, simple one. And then within a brief period of time, almost everyone seemed to have one. Some of Microsoft's successes have been similar - take something niche, and make it mass-market at the right time.

Unfortunately, if your product isn't the one that becomes mainstream, then it's pretty darn hard to recover after that as you have to compete with the new de facto standard. Although media center products are "enthusist" now, it only takes one good implementation (as you say, it's only about the right mix of factors - functionality, cost, east of use, etc) to make it mainstream. Plus, media-related products tend to be very "sticky" for consumers due to the ecosystem tie-in (e.g. the requirement to use iTunes with the iPod would have displaced Windows Media Player on many Windows desktops), making it hard to tempt consumers away.

Microsoft seems to do some of its best work when it's behind, because that's when there is a business case to do it. And conversely, it ends up falling behind due to not being prepared to invest in products just for the sake of staying ahead (e.g. the problems faced by Zune, Windows Mobile, etc). For now, there is no business case to aggressively pursue greater Media Center penetration due to the perception of the market being tiny. But at some point a competitor will identify an opportunity to convert that tiny enthusiast market into a high-volume mainstream one. And once again Microsoft will be on the back foot.

I'm a long time Windows Media Center user and would hate for it to go away, but at the same time I struggle to recommend it to friends due to the setup complexity. But what would happen if that complexity bar were to be reduced? You open your product up to a much bigger market.

Hmmm... a little late to the party, am I? My Google Alerts didn't pick up this post for some reason!

My two cents:

Charlie - I think you effectively outlined the current state and most pragmatic future state for Media Center from a relevance perspective. I think the debates in the comments are a result of the other "missing pieces" to Media Center's success, not to the exclusion of the relevance point.

To your point, relevance is crucial here, because no matter the features, and no matter the functionality, the things the product offers need to be relevant to a specific market for the product to be a success.

In my view, Media Center is missing relevance in the mainstream market due to a few factors:

1. Thanks to the Cable DVR, DVRs have become commodity, and as typical in mainstream products, there is a race to the bottom in terms of price/performance. Yeah, people would like to show their photos and play their music on their TVs, but it's just not as important as recording TV shows. I think we all know that this is a fact in mainstream audiences.

2. As has been mentioned several times, a PC in the family room is just not an acceptable configuration for mainstream audiences. But what I want to add to this thought is that this has a lot more to do with the term "PC" than the technical requirements to do this. A TiVo is a Linux PC, for example, but packaging and framing have huge implications to perception.

3. Media Center is a built-in OS App. This, quite possibly, could be the root of all underwhelmingness of the platform. Oops -- did I say platform? I meant OS App. Y'know, like Solitaire. A value-add to sell a few more tens of thousand OS SKUs. Talk about a way to ensure a lack of focus and orientation of the Media Center team! No matter what the market demands or desires, the needs of OS integration come first, complete with all the constraints of working within the largest, most complex consumer software on earth. Media Center will always struggle for relevance if it remains a tool that is packaged and marketed as a component of an Operating System. There is no way to distinguish itself from the "PC" conceptual ecosystem as long as it remains a app for a PC operating system. And I mean this from a marketing perspective more than a technical one: How could the eHome team convince the OS team to give them a "sealed box” experience when the OS team’s primary revenue opportunities are in the traditional PC market? It’s just not going to happen. Layer on top of this the notion that there is no P&L for Media Center as a product (with independent SKU), you then have an environment where Media Center is a value-add and not a product, complete with product-level investments, pressures, competitiveness, and all the rest of the market-based stuff that brings out innovation, change and value. Every other eHome product is a product (Zune, Xbox, etc.). Not Media Center....it's subjugated.

What I'm about to say might sound so simple that it seems foolish, but I'd argue that if Media Center were an app you needed to buy for Vista/Win7, the very notion of buying it would increase consumer awareness dramatically. When you buy something, you take the time to install it, figure it out, and use it. And, if MSFT sold it as an add-on to the OS, they could market it along the lines of "Great news! Your office PC just became your whole-home media hub!" and instantly begin to cross-market the extenders. With a single purchase, the consumer suddently "gets" what Media Center is for, and during the buying experience, is exposed to the rest of the ecosystem that will help make it come to life for them and add real value. I'm excited just thinking of this buying experience. It'd be like giving my office PC a whole other use, making me like my PC investment even more as well as my recent Media Center investment. A real win/win. And more revenue for Microsoft. Now you tell me: why is this a foolish approach? I'm sure I'm missing something because to me this is a very compelling scenario.

Of course, this all comes back to corporate culture, people and leadership, right? The decisions made that enable #2 and #3 above are a result of the footing of Microsoft as a company, where and how they make their money, and what kind of brand they are. Their consumer-driven products have increasingly struggled for relevance since the 1990s as technology commoditized and the imperative for customer-centric design rose exponentially. Microsoft, in my view, has never “righted the ship” for this huge “experience economy” like Bill Gates did when he shifted gears to deal with the Internet back in the 1990s. Instead, Microsoft has incrementally attempted to co-opt ideas from consumer-centric innovators like Apple, but have not adopted the philosophy of customer-centric usability, packaging, marketing and servicing. Sure, one could point to Xbox (it’s been a fantastic success, no doubt), but we all know that that team was not “core” Microsoft, and, of course, weren’t forced to work within the confines of the OS team to build their product.
This is all notwithstanding all the points Chris and Niall have made above. Their perspectives also resonate, and point to the other issues that would likely become primary issues if the relevance problem were addressed!

So, as we peel the onion, there are plenty of obstacles between the enthusiast market and the mainstream for Media Center. Which is why it appears so unlikely that it will ever become mainstream. There would need to be a concerted effort within Microsoft to change this dynamic. I do see one way, however, that Media Center might find relevance in the future. But I need to work through it a bit more, and I'm sure it will show up in a future blog post on TDL and TGB!

Cheers,
Jon

Media Center is definitely prettier but SageTV is a strong contender for beating it on features. They have dedicated, available extenders that support ripped DVD and Blu-ray playback. The software supports multiple operating systems as well as software clients/"extenders", HD-PVR support, serious customization capability, etc.

Charlie,

Thanks for the post and nice to see you blogging again about Media Center.

Well, if I understand correctly, the way you see, neither cable TV or DRVs are mainstream products (well, they might be in one market, but not worldwide). So this products would not be neither mainstream, and neither a enthusiast only product.

If thats what you mean, I have to agree with you. Most products have a pretty good and consistent markets and are neither niche or mainstream. Computers where in this scenario until very recently btw.

What I think most people get worried about is the lack of a roadmap (what type of users features will be targetted at) and the overall strategy. Will the product be there in the next release? Thats the kind of thing that enthusiasts wory about.


Other than that, I agree with you. MediaCenter will never (or is too unlikely) to become mainstream. At least here in Brazil, the same thing is true for Cable TV, High speed internet and notebooks. It doesnt keep companies from investing on those products.

Julio

I found the comments about MCE and its ease of use as a media hub fascinating. I have been using MCE with 3 MCX for many years. I stuck with XP so my MCX's would work. I also added an XBOX 360 years back. Loved my setup. But as the years have gone by, I am frustrated that it does not support HD content very well. I have one machine running FireSTB against HD cable boxes but the HD recordings dont seem very HD compared to recording them on my PVR. Unfortunately, I don't see the HD situation getting any better here in Canada without cable card. Very few of us can get HD over the air.

I have also always struggled with getting my MCX's and my XBOX 360 to see my home videos - especially the HD ones from my Sony camcorder (i just copy over the .mtx files). And on that note... I had a big realization last week. My XBOX 360 RRoD'd. So I sent it in to Microsoft and went to buy a Premium. However, the PS3 just did its price drop and I have been wanting a BD player and a better DVD player. I used the Xbox 360 as my DVD player and the video quality generally sucked IMO. So I bought the PS3 instead. Hooked it up where my Xbox used to be, turned it on, set it up and then got this message about media sharing from it. It found my Windows 7 machine right away. I enabled the PS3 on the W7 Media Player to have access and voila, I was playing my HD home videos from my NAS box (I have W7's media folders pointed to my NAS box) in full glorious 1080i without having to have my camcorder hooked up or fiddling with transcoding or whatever to get xbox 360 extender to see it.

Man all that time the frustration trying to get xbox 360 to see my HD home video and trying to encode stuff and ... well score one for Sony over Microsoft. Microsoft Media Center for taping and watching TV shows in SD... PS3 for the rest of the videos. Don't know if PS3 is a better music player yet. The irony is MS poor QC on its Xbox led me straight into the hands of the PS3. Although I must admit I was within months of buying a PS3 anyway. Mind you that was also partially driven by the fact that i think the xbox 360 does not play back DVDs in very high quality. So instead of buying an Xbox Premium, I will run the PS3 through the HDMI connection on my receiver and the Xbox Pro (once back from MS) through the component connection as it will only be for games and SD TV recordings. I watch my HD TV recordings through the cable provider's PVR.

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