The Media Center Show #83 - Kevin Shields (Microsoft)
The Media Center Show #83(MP3 - 21.9mb- 1hour 03mins 53secs)
by Ian Dixon
I have a great interview this week. Kevin Shields, General Manager of the TV team at Microsoft talks about TV support in Media Center. From the original analog only support to digital standards and Cablecard. We talk about TV in Vista and TV support in future editions of Media Center.
I also have email in to the show and some items from around the web.
Checkout The Media Center Show Extra #3, also tell me what you think of the “extra” shows on the survey page
Don’t forget the Media Center Show Award nominations, voting starts soon
The Media Center Show with Orb Networks
Send your questions and feedback to isdixon at gmail dot com (feel free to send your questions in mp3)
or you can send your questions and comments in to the show Skype Line “MediaCenterShow”
Don’t forget your to check out Media Center Show Gear
The forums are at Iandixon.co.uk/forums
Show Times:
00:50 Coming up this week
01:05 Email - Buying a Media Center PC
02:38 Email - Media Center Show Extra - Windows Media Encoder
03:15 Charlie Owen asks “What keeps you from using Media Center”
04:05 mControl v2
04:34 New Media Center Forums
04:57 Chris Lanier’s Home Automation Review
05:28 New Media Center Development Blog
05:56 Media Center Show Award Nominations closing soon
06:21 A Message from Onevoice
07:30 Welcome to Kevin Shields
07:40 How Important is TV in Media Center?
12:00 BDA Architecture
14:00 Supporting Digital Standards
17:45 ATSC
22:10 Japanese TV Support
23:50 How happy are you with TV support in Media Center?
28:00 Recommendation services
29:34 Social and Community features in Media Center
30:35 Cablecard and how its going to work with Vista
35:09 Cablecard Certification - How its going to work
41:50 DVB-S support in Vista
42:30 DVB-T Update in Vista?
43:17 Vista update for Media Center
45:00 IPTV
47:22 User Created Content
54:11 Internet and broadcast TV content together
55:34 Future Plans for Media Center
58:20 Music by Ian Dixon
December 6th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Interesting interview. I only have 2 questions:
1. Why does Kevin sound like he’s talking through a pillow over a low quality Skype connection? (hard to understand)
2. It is not clear whether the CableCard/OCUR tuners can be bought at retail and added to the “Digital Cable Ready” PC afterward (to expand to multiple tuners since when you buy the PC it will likely only come with 1 tuner) or if you have to buy the PC configured with the multiple tuners to begin with. If you have to buy it that way this is a bad scenario for consumers (What if you don’t plan well and get too few tuners to start? Also it means paying a premium for extra tuners since OEMs always charge more for extras than you’d have to pay at a retail outlet)
December 6th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
1) Kevin was on the phone rather than Skype hence the low quality.
2) I think you will be able to buy OCUR boxes for Certified PC’s, Niveus is doing something like that. I will try and find out more
April 6th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Sorry about the low quality, I should have setup Skype in hindsight. Also sorry for taking so long to reply here.
Ian is correct that technically a OCUR can be purchased after the fact for Digital Cable Ready PCs. However somebody has to actually decide to sell them separately (which I think some retailer will indeed do however it may not happen right out of the gate).
Thanks,
kevin