STOCK QUOTES     More market data...

Personal Technology
Entertainment goes digital with armchair ease

By MIKE LANGBERG
Knight Ridder Newspapers

REED SAXON / AP Queen Latifah shares a laugh with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates in a "living room" set at Microsoft's Digital Entertainment Anywhere event in Los Angeles on Oct. 12. The event was held to introduce Microsoft's Windows Marketplace, a system offering consumers a broad selection of software and hardware.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

From 1963 to 1965, those opening lines excited my childish heart each week as I settled on the sofa to watch another scary of the pioneering science-fiction series "The Outer Limits."

Now that we're living 40 years in the future, we finally know who's behind that disembodied voice: Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft.

Gates really does want to control our TVs, and he's got a reasonable chance at achieving his goal — eventually — if he keeps going in the direction shown by the slick Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

This new version of Windows, officially unveiled Oct. 12 at an event in Los Angeles where Gates incongruously shared the stage with Queen Latifah, is the best effort I've seen at unified control for TV, movies, music, photos, radio and the Web.

MCE 2005, as I'll call it, is also more affordable. The first version of MCE, introduced two years ago, required computers costing $1,500 and up. By early next year, MCE 2005 (www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter) should be available on PCs that cost as little as $600.

Hardware makers, who initially seemed reluctant to put much effort into MCE, are now showing some real creativity in MCE 2005 systems. MCE 2005, by the way, comes installed only in new PCs and will not be available in stores as an upgrade for older PCs.

Clicking from 10 feet away

Hewlett-Packard Digital Entertainment Center What it does • This computer, with MCE, plugs into a big-screen high-definition television, allowing you to access live television from cable, satellite or roof antenna. • Streams music through the Internet. • Streams TV shows. • Streams digital music stored on its hard drive. • Plays DVD movies. • Functions as a digital video recorder that lets you pause or record live TV shows. • Does regular Windows desktop tasks such as Web surfing and e-mail. What it doesn't do • Does not upgrade to handle HDTV.

Most impressive is the Hewlett-Packard Digital Entertainment Center (www.hp.com), the first computer truly designed to work in the living room, connected to a TV rather than a computer monitor.

MCE 2005 refines what Microsoft calls the "10-foot interface," with large and easy to read on-screen menus that can be navigated with a handheld remote control from across the room. This contrasts with the "2-foot interface," where the user sits at a desk in front of a monitor and keyboard.

When plugged into a big-screen high-definition television, which can also do double duty as a computer monitor, MCE presents simple choices such as "My TV," "My Music" and "My Pictures" for accessing live television from cable, satellite or roof antenna and music streaming through the Internet, as well as TV shows, digital pictures and music stored on the computer's hard drive. And MCE systems play DVD movies.

MCE also functions as a digital video recorder, much like TiVo, that can pause or record TV shows, with no monthly fee. Most MCE 2005 computers will have DVD burners, so recorded shows can be transferred to disc for watching elsewhere — as long as the original program doesn't have copy protection.

Of course, you can close the MCE window and go to the regular Windows desktop for tasks such as Web surfing and e-mail.

Make a movie wish list

There's a long list of new features in MCE 2005, including support for dual TV tuners that allow you to record one program while watching another; support for high-definition TV; improved video-image quality and better integration of online video and music services.

Two of my favorite additions: MCE 2005 lets you browse through a library of just about every movie ever made, with a feature called "Record in Future" that will automatically record the movie whenever it's next broadcast on any of the channels in your cable or satellite package — even weeks or months ahead. And National Public Radio lets you assemble your own newscast by queuing up a list of stories to hear.

HP's Digital Entertainment Center is an MCE 2005 computer smoothly packaged in an unobtrusive black box resembling a large DVD player. The back side looks like a home-theater receiver, bristling with audio and video plugs.

The z540 version of the Digital Entertainment Center at $1,499 is high-powered, with a 3-gigahertz Pentium 4 processor, 512 megabytes of RAM, a 160-gigabyte hard drive, a DVD burner, an ATI Radeon X300 SE video card with 128 MB of video RAM, built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking, audio connectors for eight-speaker surround-sound, slots for digital-camera memory cards on the front and a wireless keyboard along with the wireless handheld remote.

The z545-b version, at $1,999, steps up to a 200-GB hard drive and two TV tuners, while adding an external 160-GB hard drive.

Missing out on HDTV

HP demonstrated the Digital Entertainment Center for me at their PC group's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. The box ran quietly, with barely discernible fan noise, and powered up from standby in a quick 12 seconds.

The only big problem: There's no provision for upgrading the Digital Entertainment Center for HDTV, even though the product's spec sheet recommends connecting the box to an HD display. HP says it will offer a version with an HD tuner early next year. I'd wait for that model unless you're absolutely convinced you'll never want to watch HD.

The other innovation I saw at HP is the Media Center Extender, which moves video and audio around the house. Media Center Extenders, which look like slim cable set-top boxes, plug into a TV and pull content from a Media Center computer elsewhere in the house through an Ethernet cable or a high-speed Wi-Fi connection.

The HP x5400 Media Center Extender sells for $299; other manufacturers, including Dell and Linksys, offer extenders at similar prices.

The extender in HP's demonstration easily displayed live and recorded TV, as well as music and digital pictures, through a wireless link to the Digital Entertainment Center. That wasn't much of a trick, because they were both in the same room. In the real world, interference from other electrical devices and walls that absorb signals can be a problem.

There are more potential headaches surrounding MCE 2005 that will keep Gates from controlling all our TVs right away. The concept only works to its full extent if you have a broadband connection in the same room as your cable or satellite source — hardly common in most homes. Viruses, worms and spyware can keep you from watching TV as well as computing tasks, a double threat. And consumers may get confused by low-end MCEs that lack important components such as TV tuners, yet carry the MCE logo.

Still, when a full-fledged MCE 2005 is installed and running smoothly, it's a wonder to behold, making it easy to enjoy almost every kind of electronic entertainment and information without moving more than your thumb.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

E-mail this article

Print this article

Search archive

More business & technology headlines...