Replace TiVo with Media Center PC?

Another person moves from TiVo to Windows Media Center. While I have been tempted to do the same from time to time, I am just not finding the need to make any sort of change yet. Besides that, I am still not falling victim to the TiVo fast-forward through commercial pop-up bit that I have heard so much about.

One of our family gifts this year (the other was a Saturn 2005 Relay) was a Media Center PC. We’ve moved the TiVO out of our family room and into the master bedroom. I felt a little melancholy unplugging the TiVo and moving it from its home for the last couple years. TiVO has been our family room friend for several years, has the dust marks to prove it, and has provided many, many hours of TV entertainment but at the same time, I didn’t really see the logic buying a new one for the use of the expanded hard drive size and media capabilities when we could purchase a Windows Media Center PC and then swap out the harddrive with bigger ones as they come along (terabyte drives, anyone?)

Also, something which furthered our purchase decision was TiVO’s plans to add commercials during fast forward skip. We haven’t completely cast TiVo aside yet, but since we rarely watch TV in the bedroom it’s now one small step from being disconnected. I’ll have more to say about the Media Center as we become more familiar with it, but here’s some things I noticed when setting it up: