Since I moved to Sydney last month I’ve been without my Media Center setup that I was used to having. When I got back from Perth a week and a half ago I decided that enough was enough, and went online and purchased a mid-range Dell machine, complete with TV tuner, decent monitor and speakers. Last week the delivery arrived almost a week earlier than they had initially quoted. After unpacking all the bits and plugging everything in I had a working Media Center computer – no additional setup required!!!
The only problem came when I went through the setup process for Media Center. While it could pick up all the TV channels there was of course no Electronic Program Guide for Australia. I decided to give IceTV a go. After registering on their website I proceeded to follow their particularly detailed instructions for Vista – this required me to re-scan for the TV channels but other than that it was an incredibly simple process. Now I’m sitting comfortable knowing that all my favourite shows will be recorded.
Big thumbs up to both Dell and IceTV for just a simple end user experience – I wish that more companies would think about the end user.