I’m going to start off by grabbing a few snippets of text that I’ve run into on the Internet over the past couple of days, and hopefully pull it together into an editorial of sorts.

The thesis of this editorial is probably best written by this commenter from a recent article on Ars Technica regarding the new Microsoft-authored deal with Warner Music to distribute premium (read: you want me to pay for this?) music videos over Xbox Live Marketplace. His name is Aedile, and this is what he had to say in response:

How’s about integrating the Zune marketplace with the 360? Microsoft is strategically positioned to have such a huge end-to-end impact and yet they are wasting it. They now have Zune, 360, Windows MCE, and whatever the in-car thing is. Can you imagine if they leveraged all those into a single congruous platform? People like me would be all over it. Imagine, subscribe to the Zune Pass and hear your music on your PC, your zune, your 360, your home theater through MCE, and in your car, all with the same interface. Buy a movie on the Xbox marketplace and watch it on your xbox, your home theater through MCE, your zune, hell, even in your car with a good integration with video screen. Record something in MCE and watch on your Xbox, your Zune, HT, etc. The possibilities for convergence across all of these platforms are enourmous. Microsoft has such an opportunity to dominate the cross-platform media scene and yet they are utterly failing to capitalize on it. What a shame for us users….

-aedile-

Now, as some other commenters on the same story have mentioned, there are almost certainly licensing issues that may be preventing this from happening, but I still feel strongly that ALL of the licensing deals need to have some Microsoft lawyering built into them to keep the acquired licenses fluid within the above-mentioned ecosystem. But I think the problem isn’t solely with the licensing.

As I listened to Sony’s E3 press conference, I realized something. Sony has been positioning the PS3 as the center of the digital lifestyle for PS3 customers (however ill-suited it might be at managing large lists of content in the current XMB implementation). I also realized that while they did add DLNA support so that streaming of media could occur over a network (a surprising and welcome twist in a relatively early firmware update), they haven’t completed the picture by making that content imminently available throughout games and other parts of the PS3 experience (we shall see what Home brings). Why? Perhaps because in their eyes, the content belongs on the PS3! Now, however I feel about this approach (for all the power of the PS3, I’m not entirely sure this is where content belongs due to the low amount of RAM), I applaud their sticktuitiveness in having a central place where media should be stored. Frustratingly, Microsoft (the people who have been lauding the coming of the digital age), haven’t quite figured that out.

There are many examples of this, but I’m going to pick on one in particular: Vista Media Center. Initially designed as an OEM-only product in the days of Windows XP, Media Center has now been folded into the commercially-available Windows Vista (or Mohave, if you will). Microsoft has also been pioneering the concept of Extenders for Windows Media Center, which essentially obviates the need for a PC connected to a TV if executed properly (hint: it’s not).

Here is the issue. An Extender requires a connection to a Windows Vista Media Center PC, and yes, that PC must always been on. Why? To do nothing but stream the Media Center experience. That’s it? Well, at least I can have all my media stored there as well, and make it a server, right? Wrong. Microsoft has another idea for you there: Windows Home Server. That’s right folks, ANOTHER PC that must be left on all day. What does it do? Why, it holds all the media you’re going to want to get to (sans TV programming) on your Extender, of course!

As I scoured the Microsoft Connect website, I cam across another very interesting suggestion (forgive the grammer):

The 2008 server is hard rock and quick in performance. It will be perfect to host the MCE application and act as a Media Center Server for the whole home environment.

Could it be possible to install MCE as a Role?
It would be GREAT!

I think the idea is wonderful. In these times of energy concerns, having multiple PCs on in the house when not necessary is silly. Think about the model for Extenders: these are small, low power-consuming devices that are spread around the house, and in most cases are much cheaper than a PC. They connect to a Vista PC that streams the Media Center experience. How frustrating it is that in order to get to the content that makes up 80% of the Media Center experience (sans TV at this point), you also need a Windows Home Server (at minimum) to house your other media! So now the Vista Media Center has to stream that content from another always-on PC, or all of your Extenders are largely useless.

It is understandable as the digital lifestyle becomes more and more real for more and more people that there must be some quality server product to manage and protect the content that is important to people. But as quality PCs become cheaper and cheaper, the initially brilliant concept of the Media Center Extender will become lost, as a PC connected to the TV, booting into Media Center will be more flexible, and won’t require the extra “hop” it takes to complete the Media Center experience.

Going back to Aidele’s suggestion of a strong ecosystem that connects these products, I think the answer might be to make the admittedly interesting WHS concept the “heart” to the digital home.  It would be the central authentication point for all of the DRM-laced digital content, and a strong backup/streaming solution for the entire catalog of content.  Instead of just storing digital photos, music, and movies, let’s move those recorded TV shows there as well with a Media Center server plugin.  How ’bout a Zune plugin that interfaces with the clientside application and automatically saves content to the WHS and syncs from the WHS?  Why not make it the home for those Xbox Live Marketplace videos (TV shows and movies, but no music videos.  I don’t even support their existence…) so that we can preserve our none-too-impressively-sized 360 hard drives and have backups of our content (and instant access to our purchased content instead of redownloading that content on said hard drives when we want to rewatch them)?  The strength of the WHS platform as an easy-to-use backup solution would exponentially increase in value if it is the home for ALL of our content.

What do you think, folks? What are some other areas of integration you could see happen within the WHS to make an all-in-one server?