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I have three XBox 360s that I use as Media Center Extenders in my home. My Vista Media Center PC has a dual HDTV tuner and sits in the attic and feeds these three boxes in my livingroom, bedroom and kitchen. All have commercial skipping plus all my music and photos on them. My monthly cost for HDTV (network TV) = $0. I supplement network broadcast HDTV with a $18 Netflix subscription for premium content. - Thomas Hawk

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I would give up cable if it weren't for sports. I don't see a viable option for that yet online. - jason burton

@ThomasHawk: What's your set-up like? Wireless? Are you using any non out-of-the-box software? I'm thinking about doing something like this once my dead xbox360 (grr!) is repaired. How do you watch netflix on xboxs? Thanks. - Seth

reading the linked article about WMC vs. Tivo - could WMC really beat Tivo? @Thomas, did you have Tivo previously? - Tim Hoeck

Seth, My set up is hard wired through a gigabit ethernet home network. The extenders do work with wifi as well though. I watch Netflix on the XBox 360 simply by putting a DVD in it and playing it. There is also an add on though that lets you watch Netflix "Watch Now" on an XBox 360 Media Center Extender as well. http://myweb.cableone.net/eluttma... - Thomas Hawk

Tim, I've been a TiVo user since the very beginning. I had a series one box and an HDTV DirecTV box. I *love* TiVo. But I prefer my Media Center / Extender set up more. Why? It does everything TiVo can do but I don't have a monthly fee to pay TiVo -- plus I like the movies/photos/TV interface better. I can also play XBox 360 games and watch DVDs on my extenders -- I can't do that with a TiVo. - Thomas Hawk

One comment about Dave Zatz's comparison article. He mentions that of the three extender units the XBox 360 unit was "noisy" while the other extenders were silent. I'd agree with that observation when comparing against first generation XBox 360s. Those fans were noisy. Microsoft replaced the fans though in the newer boxes and they are significantly quieter. - Thomas Hawk

I think the TIVO is an excellent device, but being the gadget geek that I am, I prefer the HTPC setup. More power, more flexibility, no monthly fees (although we HTPCers tend to spend a lot of $$$ in the long run anyway) and better control over the content. I use SageTV's HD100 Extender which doesn't work with VMC, but does work with SageTV. One advantage of this setup is the server can run Vista, XP, WHS, Mac or Linux. Regardless of whether VMC or SageTV is used though I prefer HTPC's over TIVO. - Brent Evans

@ThomasHawk, Thanks for the hinkfo. - Seth

Personally, I would never trade a TiVo for a VMC-based HTPC... TiVo's scheduling and management tools are way, way better than Vista's if you're serious about your TV. OTOH, TiVo can't play x.264 in an MKV container, or manage my DVD collection. For my purposes, it's come down to having a Dish HD DVR (I loved TiVo, but it was time to move on) and a VMC box working side-by-side. - Roger Benningfield

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