One of the biggest deterrents to me picking up a dedicated Media Center extender for my Media Center PC has always been the cost.
Prices for these devices have always lingered right around the $200-$250 price point which was far enough off from an Xbox 360 to prevent me from buying a second one as an extender, but still high enough that I couldn't justify dropping that much cash for a box that's main purpose was to stream content.
With the imminent release of Vista Media Center, and the fact that the current crop of Media Center extenders will not work with the new OS, you're starting to see this generations extenders at much more reasonable prices.
Case in point, today only Woot has the refurbished Linksys WMCE54AG Wireless Media Center Extender for an attractive $99 with $5 shipping. This is just about low enough to make the purchase a no brainer for me.
Features:
I've used Vista Media Center for the last 2 months, and while it's pretty to look at, I was perfectly content with the XP Media Center Edition.
After picking one of these up I fully see myself using the current version of Media Center for at least another year or two thanks to this inexpensive streaming option.
1. or you can just get an old xbox for cheap off ebay and get the extender software.
Posted at 3:39PM on Dec 27th 2006 by Aero 1