Xbox 360 and Windows Media Center Edition are fast taking over all the media tasks in my home. MCE was already the preferred PVR in my house, because it offers a combination of features that makes sense for my personal needs, but Xbox 360 integration pushes the whole package to the next level. One tricky aspect is making sure you keep enough bandwidth available to stream recorded television and high resolution video to an Xbox 360 without running into network congestion, which is especially problematic when using wireless. I solved this problem by segmenting my wireless network with my Xbox 360 connecting to one wireless router and all my other wireless devices connecting to a second wireless router on a different channel.

If you haven’t jumped into the world of media center PCs just yet, there are a number of ways you can do-it-yourself, without investing in a MCE box from HP, Dell or one of the other OEM vendors. Using an HDTV as a PC monitor results in a killer way to view digital photos or playback movies by itself, greatly improved by combining a TV tuner compatible with one of the media center software applications.

Microsoft isn’t the only vendor making great media center apps and if you’re using Windows 2000, Me or 98SE you’ll need to look elsewhere anyway. SageTV offers one of the best media search interfaces in the market, combined with support for MPEG-4 recording, which results in great looking image quality at dramatically smaller file sizes. SageTV also does the best job of avoiding duplicate recordings in the PVR space. Beyond TV is the only other third party solution I’m comfortable recommending, with PVR recording in MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX and WMV. Each of these third party options supports over-the-air HD recording, which is currently not available in Widows Media Center Edition. In either case, try before you buy to find the right media center solution for your television recording and media management needs.