Long Zheng posted a link on his blog to a Microsoft-produced retrospective of the last decade of Media Center versions (also posted by Brent at GeekTonic, which reminded me to write on this). It’s time for Microsoft to uncouple Media Center from the OS.
I jumped ship from Vista Media Center almost 6 months ago, and one of the biggest reasons was a persistent bug with an identified cause resulted in many of my recordings having an incorrect duration, which made it difficult (although not impossible) to use the files. To date, the problem has still not been resolved, because Media Center updates are tied to the OS release schedule, which does not permit quick release patches for non-critical bugs. If they get it wrong, it’s a whole new cycle before they can send out another patch.
Microsoft already realizes that baking everything into the OS is not always the best idea, because it creates a bloated OS and reduces flexibility and limits the options for the individual apps (see here, here, and here). Given the much richer experience I have had with SageTV since August, I think that applies to Media Center, as well.
onlydarksets 