Media Center quirks

Auto updates. Nothing more annoying than losing the signal while watching a show. An asteroid taking out a satellite is certainly an acceptable reason. A power outage is also palatable. Heck, even a bug check is okay - it's either an unstable configuration (unsupported drivers or what have you) or me (or someone else) haven't done my/our job properly. (Not that it's ok not to do my job, but we can't be all perfect.) However, when the rude interruption occurs due to a silly applet, the behavior becomes malign - by design. The dreaded auto system updated with a kink - the restarting is not left to the user's convenience, but it's rather an ultimatum. The Win update service decided the latest patch, applied to prevent an obscure Photo editor exploit, is so crucial, that your entire house will collapse after your computer has sustained spontaneous combustion. You have been warned (in the background) and have 10 minutes to comply. But alas, you're watching Whatever: Wherever in full screen mode in your Media Center session (or you're recording it), and the bloody applet restarts the system. I'm so lucky my TiVo doesn't run IExplore or Media Player.. One more hurdle in getting the PC in the living room.


Another quirk - let's say you're behind the current time in the 30 min buffer in live TV. You paused it and now you want to record the entire show. The silly thing starts the recording at the current live time, so you've lost all the content between current playback time and current live time. Who.. what.. Why?? You've even lost the 30 min buffer and that is definitely as a loss of data. I can't imagine the expected behavior would have been so difficult to implement, and I'd like to meet the person who decided this is "by design". Unbelievable. You'd think the first order of business when a new MCE is kicked off is to go out, buy a TiVo and spend 5 days with it in an office until you know exactly where its flaws lie and what are its strengths. (I hear this might be fixed in Vista, though.)


Lastly, can't modify an ongoing recording. For instance, the show being recorded is running longer - such a simple scenario. The only way to accomodate the overtime is (apparently) to cancel the current recording and set up a new one, with advanced settings. If you know of an alternate way, do let me know. If this, too, was "by design", I'd love to hear the reasoning behind this dimwitted decision.

Tevio Destre