Digital Product overload

The level of choice in the digital home market space is starting to reach a level, that I have having trouble choosing what path to walk. I have been pretty firmly grounded in the Media Center product family, and happy with that choice. I now run entirely off on one Media Center Pc and Xbox 360 extenders in the home, and have found that experience pretty stable, and acceptable for the wife. There are a great deal of plug-ins for the Media Center that can extend the functionality (The Green Button is great for information about this and everything Media Center related) but watching a video about plug-ins that are coming out for the Popcorn Hour, and seeing some of the Sage-TV extenders go on sale recently makes me wonder if I picked the wrong horse. There are some great things coming out of Non-Microsoft companies, even the Apple TV is starting to look useful with a little hackery ala Boxee. I know that I am moving more towards the Microsoft vision of the connected home with a powerful PC that drives the home media experience on less powerful presentation devices, and a laptops for misc entertainment experience.

Hulu, and online content are changing the options to a large degree, and smaller (surprisingly) powerful devices are looking like they might displace the experience I have bought into all together. If we see Boxee on Xbox360 with out plug-ins like SecondrunTV and better STB style DVR's I may have to rethink the whole living room altogether. That said, I am more than a little excited to try out the NetFlix Streaming, as we may soon give up on Cable all together.