I read Adam Turner’s blog last week with interest: Is the Media Centre PC dead?

Adam filed another article on the popular Hydrapinion blog, too: Media Centre PC – R.I.P.?

My initial reaction was, “NOOooooo, Adam, why would you say such I thing?!” I’ve had a Media Centre PC in the living room for some years, running various versions of Microsoft’s Media Center operating system; with varying degrees of success too, I might add.

What we’re talking about here is not just a Media Centre: it’s actually a PC Media Centre running in your living room, plugged in to the television, the surround sound and your computer network. Like any PC it’s got a monitor (which, invariably, is your big-arse LCD or plasma television), as well as a mouse and a keyboard.

But what does the Media Centre PC actually do? In Adam’s ideal lounge room, he breaks down the technology components into five key functions:

1. High-Def PVR;
2. DVD/Blu-ray player;
3. Streaming media player;
4. Online video player; and
5. Gaming console.

Adam says you can mix and match gadgets, and I agree whole-heartedly, and I think that a Media Centre PC is the best device to achieve most (if not all) of these components.

For Points 1, 3 & 4 – my Windows 7 Media Centre has a tuner card (albeit Standard Definition – time to upgrade, Dr Ron?) and records free-to-air TV with ease. Ad-skipping is a breeze, and the programming and scheduling is made super-easy with an intuitive interface and electronic program guide.

Ad-skipping made easy on the Media Centre PC

Also, if you’re looking for a good streaming media player, I reckon the PC has got this nailed. Despite the occasional horrors of missing codecs, or proprietary players or buffering bandwidth, media streaming is made simple on a PC.

There are two problems that leap to mind with media streaming devices like Western Digital’s WDTV Live. Because there is no physical keyboard, you have to enter search queries, web addresses and server names with an on-screen “virtual” keyboard using the arrows on your remote control. I think I’d rather sit in a dentist’s chair for an hour than have to enter another URL on the WDTV Live with the supplied remote control. Don’t get me wrong, I own a WDTV Live and I think it’s an awesome device for what it is – but there are some things it just can’t do well.  This is one of them.

Second, a lot of “TV connected devices” are region-blocked on providers like Google’s YouTube. Devices other than PCs and home computers can’t play a lot of content. To add insult to injury, the User Interface in these devices often recommends popular clips, only to deliver a perfunctory error, like: ”THIS CONTENT NOT AVAILABLE ON TV-CONNECTED DEVICES” or similar. Of course, the Media Centre PC sidesteps this problem nicely.

For a DVD/BluRay player and gaming console, nothing beats the Sony PlayStation 3 for high-quality DVD and BluRay playback. The digital outputs deliver top-notch audio and video to your 21st Century lounge room. The PS3 is also a sensational games console, despite the recent PlayStation Network difficulties and Sony’s apparent slap-dash attitude towards security. Hmmmmmm.

I found this comment of Adam’s interesting: “To be honest, these days [the PC media centre] is more of a media server than a player.”

In actual fact, we use it the other way around. Apart from recorded programs from free-to-air, we don’t keep any content on our PC Media Centre. Its primary use is playback, accessing on-line content like YouTube, and Windows shares on the family media server (which is a Linux-powered PC in Shack East – read, ManLand).

It also makes sense to me to have a simple PC as a “lounge room component”. Sometimes you just want to do stuff on your big-screen TV: like web browsing, or looking at friends’ holiday pics on their SD card, or even sniping the latest must-have on eBay or GraysOnline.

The only downsides I can think of are the mechanical noise of a PC (which is manageable, and certainly not as bad today as it was 10 years ago); potentially the space it takes up; and the unwieldy mouse and keyboard which need a home somewhere. Even without cables, the wireless versions take up a bit of space.

A wireless mouse is included in my collection of remote controls

I agree with Adam that you’re unlikely to find one gadget to do it all. But wouldn’t you agree, the PC Media Centre comes close?

adam turner · digital lounge room · media centre · media streamer · Microsoft · WD TV Live · Western Digital · windows 7

Over the Christmas / New Year break, Tech Talk panelists are taking time away from the studio.

During this time, we’re running a “best of” series which showcases highlights from the last few years.

So far, we’ve heard from:

Georgia Simmons, representing the Telstra Foundation;

Graham Henley from GetData;

Michael Crimean, a professional audio engineer;

Adam Turner attending the launch of the HTC Magic in Sydney, as well as the launch of Apple’s iPad and the opening of Apple’s Bondi store in Sydney;

George Pongas, the COO of ISP Domain Central;

Dr James Chon, representing Swinburne University;

Alan Eade from St John Ambulance (Victoria);

Mark Mayer, retired QANTAS airline pilot;

Jeff Alexander and David Glover from Microsoft;

Closet Tech Geek Sally Cockburn (aka “Dr Feelgood“);

Sandrina Branton from BMC Software;

European Correspondent Matthew Robinson;

Gaming expert Leena van Deventer;

Luke Durham from Switch Media, and Adrian Britton from HostWorks;

Independent technology journalist Anthony Caruana;

…as well as select Panel discussions, websites, gadgets and Odd Spots, and entertaining and informative Views from the Couch.

Next week we’ll re-visit the last episode of 2010, and Tech Talk’s inaugural Outside Broadcast, which went to-air live from the Sofia Family Restaurant in December.

We’ll all be back live in the studio on the 14th of February.  Rumours that former Tech Talk panelist Mark Diggins is back in the country are largely founded… stay tuned!

adam turner · apple · Microsoft · Outside Broadcast · social media · Social Networking · Summer Series · Tech Talk Radio · telstra · TTR · Twitter · windows 7

Dear Microsoft,

Please don’t send ninjas to Adam Turner’s house, to abduct and torture him in some secret facility.

On Tech Talk Radio tonight I said something akin to, “Adam was in here a few weeks back, and had Windows Phone 7 and it was really cool.”

What I meant to say was, “My brain is switched off, and I’m talking on live radio, and what Adam actually had was a WinMo 6.5 device running HTC’s Sense UI.”

These are the show notes for the episode I was thinking of, which went to air on 2nd August 2010.

And this is a photo of Adam’s menagerie, taken by me on the night:

See… no Phone 7!!

Apologies to Microsoft, and to Adam. I’ve rechecked my medication, it’s all good.

As you were.  Carry on.

adam turner · awkward moments · conspiracy · Google Phone · HTC · Microsoft · Phone 7 · Tech Talk Radio · TTR · WinMo 6.5

Over the course of last week, long-time Tech Talk Radio contributor Adam Turner found himself in the middle of an “election-night social networking scandal” because of comments he posted on the popular micro-blogging service Twitter.

Or so the ABC’s Media Watch would have you believe.

In Episode 30, which broadcast on Monday the 30th of August, Adam received a lambasting from the programme’s host, Paul Barry, for making personal remarks about the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.  In the context of the Opposition Leader saying this:

“There should be no premature triumphalism tonight, there should simply be an appreciation that this has been a great night for the Australian people…”

…Adam duly described Tony Abbott as a “cocksucker”, and an “arsehole”.

Here’s the Media Watch segment in question.

Put simply, Adam made some comments which he now regrets.

Unfortunately for everyone, a Liberal Party supporter saw the comments.  The same supporter also complained to Media Watch.  Someone then complained to Fairfax, who Adam writes for.

The very same Liberal Party supporter then posted this on Twitter:

Hahahaha – I reported @adam_turner to media watch, and they’re playing it! #mediawatch

I think there are a number of issues at stake here:

• A journalist’s right to express a personal opinion;
• The issue of Media Watch running a story, driven by somebody’s political agenda;
• The issue of what is, and isn’t, newsworthy; and
• The hypocrisy of someone complaining to Media Watch about two offensive tweets, then gloating/tweeting like a child because they got someone in trouble.

It’s impossible for me to make an independent, objective comment about the situation, because I know Adam well, and he writes weekly for Tech Talk Radio.  So anything I say won’t be independent, and probably won’t be objective.

What I will say is that it must have been a slow news week.

Also; that mainstream media clearly still doesn’t understand the function of social media, and its place in our lives. Just because someone writes independent product reviews, or publishes objective commentary for a living, doesn’t mean that they don’t have, or can’t have, personal opinions.

Here, then, are some independent websites and blogs which offer opinions about (what I think is) a storm-in-a-teacup:

• Woolly Days blog, by Derek Barry, blogger and journalist working for Queensland’s The Western Star;
• IT Wire blog: Twitter becomes the new oracle of the media by Stan Beer;
• Wolfcat’s Random Rants: when does a freelance tech journo’s point of view on politics matter;
• Machine Gun Keyboard: Portrait of a douchebag: how Media Watch got used to grind an axe;

…and I’m sure you’ll find more yourself, with some judicious Googling.

Yes, of course Adam will continue to contribute to Tech Talk Radio.  His weekly opinions and insight are highly valued, by our audience and the rest of The Panel.  He is an important member of the team.

I think a popular Melbourne Twitterer summed it up well with this 140-character insight:

One day mainstream news will understand the context of social media. That day is not today.

abc · adam turner · Media Watch · Paul Barry · Robert Candelori · social media · Social Networking · Tech Talk Radio · Twitter · View from the Couch

Woooaah … truckloads.

There are 1001 blog-worthy things to blog in my blog about.

Sadly, time (lusty and blithe) is at his apogee.

In brief, I have:

• Had a shave, since the last blog post;
• Upgraded The Surgery WordPress blog from 2.8.3 to 2.9;
• Moved WordPress blog from Fedora 9 machine with crappy dynamic IP address (it was killing me) to shiny Fedora 11 machine with static IP address;
• Marveled at my ability to upgrade WordPress, SQL databases and move them across Linux machines, AND make grown-up changes to DNS zone files – am surely a guru of such things now and legend in my own lunchbox;
• Undertaken 2 of 8 Tech Talk Radio Summer Series productions, time-consuming but rewarding;
• Upgraded the HTC Dream / Google phone to the next Android operating system, very successful;
• Teetered on the brink of e-mail bankruptcy;
• Ordered a new PC for Christmas;
• Ventured inside an Apple Store for the very first time, and escaped by making only a minor purchase (a new iPod Touch); and
• Just today, assisted Mrs Dr Ron in restoring her iTunes library, after she deleted all the music files from her PC’s hard disk  - successfully achieved restoration by using a third-party app called iRip which we’ve spoken about on Tech Talk in the past (thanks JD, saviour of Dr Ron’s marriage).

I have also Tweeted mercilessly about our well-intentioned (yet incompetent, foolish and mis-informed) Senator for Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy.  In case you hadn’t caught up with the news (which the good Senator saved until after the last live episode of Tech Talk for 2009), Australia will be ranked highly with the United Arab Emirates, Iran and China in its foolish deployment of an ISP-based Net Filter.

Adam Turner has had a lot to say about this, and made a clever analogy with a different type of infrastructure.  His blog posts here and here in The Age last week should be mandatory reading.

I’ll blog in more detail about these and other things soon.

I hope you have a great Chrissy and a safe and prosperous New Year.

#nocleanfeed · adam turner · andorid · apple · apple store · blog · fedora · Google Phone · HTC Dream · ipod touch · irip · linux · net filter · news · stephen conroy · tech talk · Tech Talk Radio · the age · the age tech · updates · what's happening · wordpress