The Return of the Teleputer

For me, the fun really started when I launched My TV. I have always wanted a TiVo, but couldn't quite bring myself to pony up $400. Suddenly, I was recording all those oldies I missed because they aired in the middle of the night and all those cooking shows that began at dawn. An onscreen TV guide helps me search for shows by genre, time or title. With the push of a button, I can save up to 33 hours of programming (at top quality) on my hard drive; and if I run out of space, I can copy a show to DVD. With an extra cable, I can hook my PC to the TV and watch any show or DVD on my big screen.

Setting up and using the Media Center wasn't all fun and games though. Today more than a dozen ugly cables tangle around my TV, system unit, speakers and monitor. And while programming the TV to record shows was easy enough, I would never have figured out how to put a show on DVD without a call to HP. Another bug: you still have to switch from the superfriendly Media Center interface to the less intuitive Windows XP in order to copy music CDs onto the computer. And why do people with dial-up connections have to log on manually to the Net every week to download local TV listings?

The Media Center isn't perfect, but it certainly makes the PC a lot more fun to hang out with.

You can e-mail questions to Anita at hamilton@time.com