PVR to Media Centre

While music and photos were being streamed wirelessly to the bedroom, the good old VHS video recorder had been replaced with a hard-disk based PVR (Personal Video Recorder) – at first a Humax device that also incorporated a DVD player then a Digifusion unit.

The impact of these devices on TV watching habits can’t be overstated. The ability to “point-and-shoot” (where have we heard that phrase before? ;) ) at a program and have it reliably recorded is addictive – in fact, it’s far too easy to quickly build up a library of hundreds of hours of recorded TV that you will never have time to watch! More usefully, a 14 day program guide meant that I could easily and reliably ensure that I need rarely miss a Grand Prix just because I was away on my frequent travels.

All good and great but …. how do you get the recordings out of the box? Ok, you can buy PVR units that have a built-in DVD recorder (so sons that forgot to record the Grand Prix for themselves might be sent a copy) but any thought of watching recorded programs in another room rely on old-fashioned video distribution and those infra red remote extender gizmos. Hardly “bleeding edge” and not at all in keeping with the thinking round here.

So, just over a year ago a moment of weakness in PC World made me the new owner of a Sony VAIO XL100 Media Center PC – a reasonably smart (silver and black, almost hifi-looking) unit that runs Windows XP Media Center edition.