Another Nail in the Coffin for Media Center?

By Josh Shenkle

Blogs

Mar 30 2010

Over the last year we Media Center enthusiasts have slowly seen Media Center, piece by piece, slip away. Last year at CES we saw the rise and fall of the Dish Network Media Center tuners. We saw Linksys discontinue their V2 Extenders , with the likes of Dlink and HP following suite right after. Last week at the Electronic House Expo (EHX) it was announced that the Media Center Integrator Alliance was abandoned. The Media Center Integrator Alliance website no longer exists, while Microsoft's own custom installer landing page is re-directing the custom installers to enthusiasts forums like The Green Button.

My Network ProjectThe other bit of interesting news is that the Media Center Integrator Alliance has been dissolved. This group was formed about a year and half ago I think to really push Media Center in the custom integrator channel and provide custom integrators with exclusive training, tools and educational resources. The website is already down and custom integrators are being pushed over to the Green Button. Microsoft is still hosting a Custom Integrator landing page for Media Center but it links out to other sites such as the Green Button.

I've come to realize one thing in the world of HTPCs, Media Center, and the likes will always be a niche product and will never become main stream. This news is just one more proverbial nail in the coffin when it comes to making Media Center main stream. If custom integrators can not get behind it then how can the average Joe get behind a product that custom high end installers are not even using?

While I do not see Media Center going anywhere any time soon, with the advent of the Ceton cable card tuner and the plethora of innovative third party plugins being developed by the community, and innovative new hardware solutions , I just don't see it being enough to sustain the future development of Media Center.

Have any thoughts? Leave a comment and discuss.