The v2 extender has landed!
DHL dropped off my Linksys DMA2100 Media Center Extender yesterday, and I had it completely set up within 30 minutes. — My first impression was, “Wow, this is small." The v1 extenders were the size of large pizza boxes, and an Xbox 360 has a certain chunkiness to it.
Context & Ripple Effects
The v2 Media Center Extender wave that went up for ordering in November has reached actual customers: Ed Bott's Linksys DMA2100 arrived via DHL and was fully configured within 30 minutes. His headline impression is physical — at a fraction of the pizza-box footprint of the v1 extenders, and far sleeker than using an Xbox 360 as the extender, this is the first Media Center client designed to disappear into a living room.
The timing matters because Microsoft has been building out the software side of the same ecosystem, with the Internet TV feature coming to Windows Media Center announced back in September giving these boxes a content pitch beyond local PC media.
First-order effects
- Early buyers get a dedicated, small-form-factor Media Center client for under-TV placement, ending the choice between bulky v1 hardware and repurposing an Xbox 360.
- Linksys establishes itself as the first shipping hardware partner of the v2 program, ahead of whatever rivals follow.
Second-order effects
- A quiet, appliance-sized extender makes the Windows Media Center PC viable as hidden infrastructure — pairing naturally with server-side storage like Windows Home Server rather than a visible desktop in the den.
- Microsoft's own Xbox 360 loses its role as the default extender device, forcing the console to compete on gaming value rather than media-client duty.
Third-order effects
- If the v2 design point holds — silent, small, cheap clients streaming from a central PC or server — home media shifts from the computer-as-appliance model toward distributed set-tops, with Microsoft's platform success riding on how many Linksys-class partners it can sign.
The trend: Living-room media is migrating from bulky multipurpose devices like the Xbox 360 toward purpose-built streaming extenders, with Microsoft's Media Center ecosystem betting on third-party hardware partners to carry it there.