Remember as a child waking up Christmas morning to find a train set, or a Barbie Fun House, fully assembled and functioning under the tree? Fast-forward a few (or many) years. Remember working into the early hours of Christmas morning “helping Santa Claus” assemble some extravagantly complicated toy for your “good little boy or girl”, all the while hoping your epithets of frustration didn’t float up to interrupt any “visions of sugarplums”?

This holiday season, you’re going to see a lot of advertising surrounding the Media Center Edition PC. You know, the long-awaited (by the ad agencies) convergence of your computer and your TV (from now on, when I say “TV”, I mean the family entertainment center, which may include a stereo as well). Record live TV, see your home movies and photos on your TV, listen to your digital music on your stereo, and more, all from the comfort of your recliner. Couch potato Nirvana. If you’re contemplating taking the plunge, here are some things to think about that may not make it through the “fog of hype”, and may need to be included in your planning if you’re hoping to find one under your tree.

First off, you need to buy a new computer. That’s right. There’s no way to get the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system other than installed on a new computer. I went to the Dell and HP websites and configured the least-expensive, reasonably-configured Media Center PC available on each. Any way you cut it, you’re looking at $2000, probably $2500, and that’s with no wireless capability, which we’ll get to later.

Next, you may have to completely reconfigure your home, and even more daunting, your electrical, cable, satellite dish, and internet cabling. This may draw the ire of whoever makes the decorating decisions around your home. Although I don’t presume to know your home layout, and don’t question your doing otherwise, most people I know don’t have their computer in the same room with their “family” TV. There are a couple of reasons for this.

One, most PCs (well, except for some Macs, but I digress) are just plain ugly, take up a lot of space, and require accompanying unattractive furniture and accessories (like printers, broadband modems, etc.).

Two, they call it a “personal” computer for a reason. Think about it. Other than watching a DVD (and don’t we all have fond memories of popping popcorn and gathering the family on folding chairs around the PC to watch a movie on the 15-inch monitor), almost everything you do on a computer you do by yourself. Web surfing “by committee” is a lot like getting more than two people to decide what to eat, or which movie to see.

So, if you’re eager to get into Media Center computing, you have three choices: put the computer in the same room with the TV; put the computer in another room, and run cables to the TV; or, put the computer in another room, and connect wirelessly to the TV. As you can guess, the further apart you move the two components, the more money you’ll spend. Over the next two weeks we’ll look at how the system works – I’ll report, you decide how (if) you could put it together in your home.

First, the computer. You’ll still need to connect to the internet. If you’re a dial-up user, you won’t be able to take full advantage of Microsoft’s new MSN Premium plan to provide you with “content” (which means, of course, advertising).

What? Out of space already? Tune in next week!

© 2004 Peter F. Zimowski