I own neither a TiVo nor an MCE — I live in the wrong set of countries to be able to really enjoy all the power of scheduled program recording. I could, I suppose, use either of them as an NG VCR, but since I hardly watch any TV, do not have cable nor sattelite for the past 4 years — there is hardly any point in doing even that.
I am, however, moderately interested in seeing in where this whole thing with a home-media-server is going, considering that back in 1997 or 1998 that was exactly what I was proposing to two buddies of mine we should be looking into. Too bad we have not filed for a patent back then — we’d be the evil ones now!
Now, reading the above-referenced article made me thinking: how much more (or rather more difficult stuff) is listed in front TiVo as opposed to MCE! Get it networked, get HDTV unit, some weird request for a Windows-based unit (what for? does Linux-based TiVo not work?), WiFi enabled devices (TiVo Extreme?), external hard drives, etc. Compare that to “make it more stable” and “add My Radio” thingie for MCE! Granted, getting MCE more stable is a tantamount task, considering years of Windows “stability.”
I’d agree with a few commenters that (a) there is no point in fixing wha is not broken — like TiVo platform; (b) these “then things” are more like subjective editorial wish list, not real action points.
And of course, just like with XBox, Microsoft can afford making lots of mistakes and loosing money like crazy on MCE, while TiVo can’t…