I had the very unique opportunity to have a discussion with Jessica Zahn today at CES, and I have to say that I was very pleased by what information she was able to share with me and I wanted to add that she is just as beautiful as she is helpful (for those that were curious as to what she looked like).

We covered a number of topics but the most important ones to me were the Xbox 360 Media Center Extender, DirecTV tuners, and DVD streaming.

Xbox 360 Media Center Extender
Move on, there isn't much to see here, she was unable to comment much on this and I didn't really expect her to be able too, as I have said in the past I feel that Microsoft is locked into contracts with it's third part extender developers and is unable to produce an update just yet. But I do have a feeling that one will be coming with Fiji. (Speaking of Fiji... Jessica was unable to comment at all on that, but I now know with absolute certainty that it is coming this year.. and no Jessica didn't give that bit up, but someone else did.)

DirecTV Tuners
Jessica wasn't able to say much here, but she was able to say that they are coming and from her experiences and this is pure speculation on her part, but with how co-operative DirecTV has been, and how they are a much easier company to get along with than say...Cable Cards..that they will be much more willing to work directly with the consumer in releasing the tuners to us and not through vendors forcing some arcane certification process.

DVD Streaming
I hope you're sitting down for this one boys and girls. DVD streaming is coming. Jessica has seen it in action, Microsoft has come around to see that this is not a feature only for high end implementations and that plain folks like you and me don't like having to have multiple DVD libararies or walking all over our houses to watch movies. That we want to purchase a DVD changer, stick our library in it, and have the abilities to watch them from any extender. There was no timeline announced on this, but again I have a feeling that it will be included in the ever elusive Fiji update.

Jessica, I want to thank you for your time today, you have restored my faith in Media Center, and given me hope, especially after such a dissappointment I had during the keynote. Sure it was good to see Bill speak, and there were a few cool things shown. (Some really cool object recognition engines and of course Microsoft Surface is always fun to see). But overall having no serious Media Center announcements was very disappointing. But it turns out that I was allowing myself to worry a little prematurely. There will be a lot of exciting new additions to Media Center this year, and I for one am now willing to stick around just a bit longer.

Jerold Billings (crmstud)
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