Michael Antonoff

Media Center PCs are designed to replace a stack of A/V components, letting you watch live or recorded TV shows, play or burn DVDs, download movies and music, and play home videos and photo slideshows. Available in various hardware configurations from several computer manufacturers, these remote-controllable systems share the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 operating system.

Considering that TiVo first announced its HDTV plans two years ago and now offers a high-def version of its hard-disk recorder (HDR) exclusively for DirecTV satellite subscribers, devotees of TiVo who subscribe to cable TV have been increasingly turning to high-def cable boxes with HDRs.

Surfing the Web on a TV has never had much appeal for anyone who's comfortable with a computer. Even mighty Microsoft did little to increase the set-top browser market after it purchased WebTV and renamed it MSN TV. Now the company, through hardware partner RCA (Thomson), is trying again with the introduction of the MSN TV 2 Internet and Media Player.

Conventional TV broadcasting, whether over the air or by cable or satellite, sends out multiple channels all at once, and it's up to the viewer to tune in a particular one at a set time to watch or record a show. Akimbo is promising the next step: speedy interactive delivery of video directly from the Internet to a hard drive connected to your TV.