To summarize: 2012 brings a new job and move out of state, selling my current house and buying a new place in Virginia. God willing and the creek don't rise, next year could be a lovely year to do a multi-room HTPC system.
But I don't know. I'm just starting the research. Most important is WAF (wife approval factor). This would replace a pair of TivoHDs, which my wife loves. And we're both Apple people; usability is important. If a Windows Media Center as DVR is markedly inferior to Tivo in usability, all the tech specs in the world won't matter: it will be veto'd by the master-planning committee.
So I need to find video demos and reviews of a 7MC system in action -- something I could plausibly build and configure. A hyper-configured system that's brilliant in execution but unreasonable for a duffer is no good to me
I believe there are some videos in this forum, but I don't recall what thread they're in. Pointers to those are appreciated.
Other good links, be it YouTube or other are good.
I need to know good or bad, how this compares to Tivo. Getting a false impression, spending over a $1000, and then being disappointed and having my wife mad at me is far worse than deciding up front this is not the system for me and aborting before I get started.
But I don't know. I'm just starting the research. Most important is WAF (wife approval factor). This would replace a pair of TivoHDs, which my wife loves. And we're both Apple people; usability is important. If a Windows Media Center as DVR is markedly inferior to Tivo in usability, all the tech specs in the world won't matter: it will be veto'd by the master-planning committee.
So I need to find video demos and reviews of a 7MC system in action -- something I could plausibly build and configure. A hyper-configured system that's brilliant in execution but unreasonable for a duffer is no good to me
I believe there are some videos in this forum, but I don't recall what thread they're in. Pointers to those are appreciated.
Other good links, be it YouTube or other are good.
I need to know good or bad, how this compares to Tivo. Getting a false impression, spending over a $1000, and then being disappointed and having my wife mad at me is far worse than deciding up front this is not the system for me and aborting before I get started.