A SoftSled By Any Other Name

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

Shawn Oster — Fri, 25 May 2007 21:31:24 GMT

Like a lot of others I'm seeing the real future in a Windows Home Server "Media Edition".

One Home Server, with a bank of tuners, with the ability to point multiple MCE's towards the recordings as well as Live TV. Really there are two pieces, a "headless" media server plus the ability for Media Center to interact with the Media Server, such as controlling recordings and stream live tv.

Microsoft could really have something great in Media Center but if they wait for the hardware vendors to make their case for them it'll never happen. Microsoft needs to go the XBox/Zune route and create their own ecosystem.

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re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

chrisl — Thu, 17 May 2007 19:22:13 GMT

Jas: I don't know anything that you don't in terms of this (if I did, Microsoft would just about kill me for talking about it).

This talk started when Bill Gates said yesterday that Pika (v2 Extenders) would extend to PC's via a terminal. That sure sounded like a "SoftSled" of some sort, by whatever name you want to use for it. Extender PM's then said there is no "Software Extender" in the works, that kind of leaves the door open for the sharing of resources, which is not really a "Software Extender".

I think your exactly right about small things being too complex. This is what I'm talking about by having all Media Center's in the home go out and find these resources and automatically share them. This is a more complex solution, but the fact is that for Media Center to ever gain acceptance it can't be this hard to view recorded TV from one PC on another PC. Even my non-techie Mom has a desktop and a laptop. Why can't she launch Media Center on the laptop and do exactly what she could on the desktop? Your right, because it's too complex, even the small things like this.

SoftSled or a concept of automatically sharing resources fixes this problem, and gives a simple solution to the user.

This is another case where Microsoft needs to think more iPod and less Excel (cheers to Aaron for that phrase).

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

Jas — Thu, 17 May 2007 18:25:18 GMT

Chris I have to ask you: What do you know that we don't know because I haven't seen any announcements, any information, anything at all to suggest the MCE boys are planning anything this huge. I agree with you 100%, there is a big need for some form of 'software extender' or 'mce resource pooling'. I love your enthusiam and I keep hoping that something big is coming around the corner, however, I've become disillusioned to the point where I dont think either of the two scenarios will happen any time soon.

I consider myself an average tech-guy my home has 3 XP Pro machines, 1 MCE 2005, and 1 Vista Home Premium. If I want to share content [Recorded TV for simpilicity] from both Media center machines (MCE 2005 + Vista) to my XP Pro machines I need to create shared folders. In fact media files are treated just like text files and it's up to the user to decipher the cryptic file names what media file they have or have not seen - hardly the digital home experience we all dream of. In the grand scheme of things this is a small item, but if the small things aren't done correctly what can I expect of those that are complex?

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

chrisl — Thu, 17 May 2007 16:33:23 GMT

Jas: As to does it matter what it's called, only if Microsoft may be planning something that is not a true "Software Extender" that will do some of the above. It might not be "SoftSled," but they still could be planning something. In this case, when they say they have no plans for "SoftSled" it means a "Software Extender." If they have the pooled resources thing going then it's far from SoftSled.

When you talk about folder sharing, that's what we are talking about with shared resources. But why stop at sharing media files? We should be able to share tuners and the EPG too.

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

Leko — Thu, 17 May 2007 12:38:17 GMT

Sorry, while I am a huge Microsoft and MCE junkie, I think this approach is too closed minded.

MCE on Vista should be the core, but softsled should be a product on any MS platform, with some form of API.

If I have friends over with any flavor of phone, PDA, or laptop they should be able to connect (and be in sync)

If I am an integrator, I should be able to access media on any screen. Whether that is the 3 inch screen on the thermostat, the fridge, sitting in the driveway in my car, or remotely via my PDA, it shouldn't matter.

If Vista is the answer, will Gadgets be the answer for when we want a softsled on a lesser device?

Sorry to rant, a long time reader who had to vent.

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

TDave — Thu, 17 May 2007 06:33:37 GMT

We already have a networked tuner - The HDHR. We can already share media across multiple MCE machines. And the developer of the Recording Broker software is supposed to be testing an option to send all recordings to another MCE computer/server. As soon as that option is available in Recording Broker, in my opinion, we have a solution that is better than softsled.

http://softsled.net/node/24

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

Jas — Thu, 17 May 2007 05:55:16 GMT

Does it really matter what the heck it's called? I want to see some progression here, so far since MCE2005 a lot of the innovation has been sideways. It's time for the MCE group to start innovating vertically up the ladder instead of another soft horizontal release.

I guess the real question is what does Softsled mean to you? or perhaps an even better question would be if you could design softsled what top 1 or 2 features would you put in?

For me there are things like Slingbox which can serve up my tv/satellite feed to me anywhere using the web, whats stopping media center? And my second feature/request (call it what you'd like) would be the ability to share media center content throughout my Windows network with ease and visual appeal. (Sharing folders for non-MCE machines is the only option and quite frankly with this being year 2007 its a crappy option)

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

chrisl — Thu, 17 May 2007 01:39:32 GMT

Got any name suggestions? :)

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

Dennis — Thu, 17 May 2007 00:51:38 GMT

I think the main problem is that the term Softsled has been used to mean many different things:

- a way to stream content within the house to non-MCE PCs

- a web browser client to stream content from the home to a PC on the internet

- a way to sync TV content to a laptop so that it be watched while on a plane

- and many others

I think you would be hard pressed to find someone in the Media Center team that disagrees with the comments of "What we need is a way to share/pool tuners, share a common EPG, and share media among all Vista PC’s accessible though Media Center."

I think the name Softsled has too much baggage at this point and a different name should be used.

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

Zig — Wed, 16 May 2007 17:28:57 GMT

A networked home should, and hopefully will in the future, translate into a DRM-authorized home.

*Windows Home Server Digital License Server

-Authenticate your home network for all your DRM content.

*Client/Server tuner setup within the Vista Media Center itself so any frontend (MCE Shell) can connect to any backend (Tuner Recording Engine). To share live TV.

Good ideas for the Microsoft Home

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

Bryan Socha (accident) — Wed, 16 May 2007 15:25:08 GMT

If mce machines work together, all of those drm issues and what machine is the tuner really in goes away.. the network of machines work together to provide the experience. so you can actually put in a bunch of tiny machines around the house with the no tuner laptop and it'll be like they are all 1 big machine if designed correctly. (and I'll be more than happy to design and outline a feature set for what I consider bare minimum for this to be used in my home).. but like laptop and live tv, that would just work (assuming the laptop has mce..).

Also opens up some interesting options like redundancy on recordings.. like you could flag a show must have and all available machines with tuners would try to record it.. or have them all wake up when its time to record and if the machine/tuner flagged for the recording isn't awake, someone else takes over.. or even complete failure of a machine wouldn't stop your home entertainment from work. also spreads out your space.. no more needing terrabyte nas units when several mce machiens with 200GB hard drives can share the storage load...

could be some good stuff going the pooled resources route.

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

Michael O. Schoneman — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:11:41 GMT

Don't forget live tv. I have a notebook and I'd love to be able to go out on the deck and what some tv in a little window while working on something else.

re: A SoftSled By Any Other Name

Jedster — Wed, 16 May 2007 09:10:01 GMT

For me, it's the DRM. I won't get a cablecard machine because the recordings are machine-specific; with softsled, i would be able to receive DRM'd content on all my pcs.

if it weren't for DRM, softsled wouldn't be that big a deal (but the shared tuner idea would still be cool).