At the CES last year it was announced that DirecTV and Microsoft were working together to link up DirecTV and Microsoft entertainment devices such as the Xbox 360 and MCE PCs.Many believed that this would mean you would be able to have an installer come out and install a DirecTV tuner into your Media Center PC and get your local cable channels complete with PVR functionality. In other words your Media Center PC is your DirecTV set top box.
From a May interview on Engadget a Microsoft representative said "you can get essentially a receiver device that is a DirecTV receiver and connect it through some digital connection to your PC. [Doing so] lets you get all the great value from the DirecTV service, including High-Definition. If you subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket, you'll be able to get that. All that good stuff."
According to DBSTalk from a quick Q&A session with DIRECTV at CES last week, the HTPC DirecTV Cards are still in progress and in internal beta testing.
However I still think it will be some time before this is released otherwise we would have heard a little more coming out of the CES camp last week. I'd expect the very earliest we'll see this is the middle of this year.
1. I'm I right in saying that Direct TV is pretty much the same system that BSkyB use in the UK?
If so does this mean Sky might finally work properly with Media Center? Because it's the main reason I haven't gone Media Center.
Posted at 7:47AM on Jan 15th 2007 by Ashley Allen