Vista Media Center

[avonnied]

sure purevideo installs on the machine, but its runs in software mode (along with the fact you have to use a 3rd party software tool to even get MCE to work with it).. which really defeats the purpose.. and this is mainly an Nvidia problem, since the vista drivers don't seem to have the purevideo stuff in them..

see http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/159817.aspx (the comment about not supporting the purevideo decoder in vista is what worries me)

most of what i saw was just demo stuff (the mtv demo clips, video demo clips, song demo clips) or just irritating advertisements (like the yahoo picture prints). Most of it, isn't what i'd exactly call online "features".. Its clear its setup as a form of advertisement (similarly how Win98 used to come with AOL advertisements built in, i loved that)..

some of the sports stuff is true online features, scoreboards, player stats etc.. but the multimedia online stuff is just pure fluff..

[gblinckmann]

Also don't forget that Sage is going to be able to work on the upcoming Windows Home Server, allowing you to offload this from your PC's (if you don't have a dedicated PC for this). Even Vista MCE can't run in a client/server mode yet. Combine that with reasonably priced HD extenders, and you still have a far superier system.

The only use-case that I can see with Vista MCE having a real advantage is with CableCard access. But I looked at the price for that and I'm just not going anywhere near it! I have digital cable and a (really pathetic) Time Warner DVR to record HD cable. I can't spend the type of money on recording HD Cable from Vista MCE and make it worth it.

As for the non-TV functions of Sage, I like the way they work better. When the HD extenders come out, I'll have 2 HD extenders, 2 SD extenders, and every TV and computer in the house hooked up. I couldn't afford to get all my home videos, pictures, music, etc accessible from everywhere with MCE.