Would you use picture-in-picture? You bet I would!

24May07

Picture-in-Picture: Would You Use It? – Chris Lanier’s Blog

My answer would be, “Hell, yeah!”. I think this should be an included feature with enough “smarts” to deal with all the conflicts that Chris mentions. I’m sure there are people who only have a Media Center PC in a single room with no extenders, and would love this feature. If you don’t like it, don’t care to use it, or don’t want people consuming your limited number of tuners, then there should be a “disable” feature where no one can use it.

This brings up another point. Media Center should have the ability to allow people to add as many tuners as their system can handle. Other software out there allows this (Beyond TV, Sage TV, etc), and they have the conflict management system to handle it. With this feature it would make running out of tuners much less likely. I have a Beyond TV server with 9 tuners (4 analog, 3 over-the-air, 2 digital QAM), and have no issues being able to record several programs at once while serving up live TV. I understand if you want to limit them to ensure things run as smooth as possible, but OEM manufacturers should be given enough instructions about what configurations can handle what. If you’re a do-it-yourself kind of person, then you should be willing to deal with the headaches that come with that.

Filed under: HTPC, MCE   |  3 Comments