I think the idea of breaking off Media Center from the OS would mean a quick death for Media Center. Media Center is a feature of the OS so its value is not exact. I’m sure MS has a reasonable costbenefit model when it comes to how much value Media Center adds to Windows 7. If you run Media Center as an independent business unit it would have a very cut and dry P&L statement. Does anyone really think the Media Center community is big enough to support it as a standalone unit? Just as solitaire is included in Windows, it could also never survive as a standalone product.

That’s why I believe the Media Center vs SageTV is an apple to oranges debate. You are comparing a small dedicated product ran by a small company to a feature add on for a major OS.

I used to be angry about why hasn’t MS done this or added this feature to Media Center. Then I realized 3 things.
1. It’s a value add (aka Solitaire), I should not expect monthly updates and new features.
2. It an awesome add on that adds incredible value for me to Windows 7 and it’s included for free with Windows 7.
3. If I ever want monthly updates or bleeding edge features I’ll just get SageTV.

I think the idea of breaking off Media Center from the OS would mean a quick death for Media Center. Media Center is a feature of the OS so its value is not exact. I’m sure MS has a reasonable costbenefit model when it comes to how much value Media Center adds to Windows 7. If you run Media Center as an independent business unit it would have a very cut and dry P&L statement. Does anyone really think the Media Center community is big enough to support it as a standalone unit? Just as solitaire is included in Windows, it could also never survive as a standalone product.

That’s why I believe the Media Center vs SageTV is an apple to oranges debate. You are comparing a small dedicated product ran by a small company to a feature add on for a major OS.

I used to be angry about why hasn’t MS done this or added this feature to Media Center. Then I realized 3 things.
1. It’s a value add (aka Solitaire), I should not expect monthly updates and new features.
2. It an awesome add on that adds incredible value for me to Windows 7 and it’s included for free with Windows 7.
3. If I ever want monthly updates or bleeding edge feature I’ll just get SageTV.

I'm hoping to apply the same DirectShow based editing method using in recent versions of DTB to WTV files, but timestamps have been an issue with WTV->WTV editing. It should be possible to do edits while doing a WTV->MKV container swap then stream the MKV back into WTV, but haven't had a chance to test it out.