MCE 2005 Trials
I gave into a long running desire to have a Tivo about six months ago. I tend to avoid anything that requires me to pay a monthly fee and the one time fee seems rather large considering it is only good for the hardware, not the customer. I liked my Tivo. It had a few annoying things, but it became part of our entertainment center. The VCR that was never used was moved upstairs. The additional remote and the three to four buttons that had to be pushed (including one by walking -- gasp -- to the AV unit) were a tad annoying, but it seemed mostly worth it.
When I read about Tivo starting to insert ads into the skip feature I decided it was time to look once more at MCE. I had looked at it last year, but never tried it out. I decided my aging game machine could become an MCE. So I paved the OS and got MCE running. I ordered two PVR 150MCE and an MCE remote. Once I had it up and running I moved the whole thing down to the TV and hooked it up (while the wife was out). She came home and was more than a litttle shocked. My wife works with technology, but "hates" it. She hates learning anything new and she had just learned the Tivo, now here was something new. In order for it to pass the spouse test it had to be compelling. I thought it was. For one thing I was able to condense all the remotes down to one. No more physically having to touch the AV unit for volumn or to turn off the sound. The picture quality was excellent.
A few days past and the spouse was telling everyone how great MCE was. Then it happened.... The system crashed during a show. Wife was not amused to see the MS Windows XP screen. I had a few other crashes while burning CD's, but she wasn't aware of those. Well one crash led to another and pretty soon we arrived at "this thing has one week and then the Tivo is coming back". Now she tells everyone how it is a piece of crap and is always crashing. I find this very amusing. For one thing it isn't always crashing, but it was annoying. The shift from great to piece was what caught my attention. You see from a marketing point of view my wife is an ideal sounding board. The MCE originally was well beyond her expectations and she loved it. However it then introduced a problem she hated and now she feels the whole product sucks. Never mind that she can watched shows that were recorded while running on the treadmill in the basement, which you certainly can't do with a single Tivo; nevermind the fact that all the music and pictures are always there available. The product simply sucks.
When I setup the machine I moved it into the entertainment center. It was in a small cabinet that was also filled with VCR tapes. I noticed it was getting fairly warm in there. So I removed part of the back of the entertainment center and moved some of the tapes out. It still got warm, but not nearly as much. I was speaking with someone about my random crashes and he suggested it may be heat related. I installed speedfan and checked. Sure enough the CPU was running really hot--62C. I removed the rest of the crap from the cabinet and tore off the rest of the backing so air could more around more. I then added a small fan. Now the CPU runnings at 56C and I haven't had a crash for three days.
At this point you think the wife would be happy. However, she isn't. She still calls it a piece of crap. The fact that it was overheating and crashing because of how we (er I) set it up doesn't matter. All that matters is that it didn't work as expected and she isn't happy. It won't be going away because it is so much better than the Tivo and the crash problem has been solved. It will take a long time for the wife to come back around to "it's great". Lesson for all you marketing types (as if you didn't already know this). Your consumers can be your worst enemy.