Jay said:lordjedi said:Not really. Your entire iPod is usually synced to iTunes on the computer. Simply plugging your computers DVI into an available HDMI port on an HDTV is a pretty easy process. From there, you just press play within iTunes.
If anything, the "Digital Copy" that's available on many newer releases makes setting up a media server way easier than it use to be. Unfortunately, those files can only be played in either iTunes or Windows Media Player. Combine any of those setups with an XBox 360 or PS3 for doing streaming and it's very easy to set the whole thing up.
You're ignoring a lot of intermediate steps and giving consumers way too much credit. You're also projecting your technical understanding onto the market again.
There is no comparison to be drawn between the process of connecting a media center to a TV and that of syncing an iPod with iTunes. There is no application that automatically rips a DVD for you upon insertion, stores it in a way that makes it accessible to Windows Media Center, and does all this without significant input from the user or the use of additional software like AnyDVD to break the encryption.
I can't think of one person in my entire family who knows what DVI and HDMI are, let alone that they're compatible.
Maybe not, but I'm sure they know that they need a cable to connect their HDMI laptop to their HDTV and that cable probably came with their laptop.
Think about it. I'm not referring to connecting your iPod to your TV. I'm referring to connecting a laptop to an HDTV with an HDMI cable and just playing right through iTunes on the screen. It's not nearly as "technical" as you make it out to be.
You can easily setup DVD Shrink to run automatically upon insertion of a DVD. The shrank files can be setup to save directly into your Windows Media Center folders. The Window Media Center software would then automatically show the files when ready. This is in fact how a lot of the HP Media Centers work (they don't give you DVD Shrink, it's a different program). The only step the consumer really has to do is plug both ends of the little cable into the computer and the HDTV.
There are plenty of programs that do most (if not all) of this for you. I've seen them running. I personally don't like them because I want full control over the process, but the programs do exist. Just because you haven't used them doesn't mean they aren't there. They usually ship with prebuilt media center PCs that have 1 TB hard drives in them.