The New York Times' Circuits section yesterday published an article entitled, "TV Room's PC Wants to Be the Center of All Media" which discusses in some-depth the relationship between Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) and Microsoft.  While technically I was the one that announced it on stage (attributed to Bill Gates but can you blame them? <g>).  At CES, PC Manufacturers including Alienware, HP, Niveus Media, RicaVision International, and Stack9 Systems all announced intent to ship new Media Center PCs this year as  well as ATI and NVidia announcing new video cards and/or TV tuner cards that will be certified.

Why is this a big deal? Historically, ISF certification was only available on high-end home theater equipment like HDTVs from Runco, or A/V equipment in Pioneer Elite line of products. ISF is well-respected for their certification and training programs among high-end retailers and home theater installers. This announcement demonstrates how serious Microsoft is in working with the industry to make Windows XP Media Center Edition and these PC designs the best for home entertainment- hands down. Because Media Center PCs are being sold to consumers as both hubs for home entertainment and effectively consumer electronics devices in the living room, they need to meet or exceed the quality of other CE devices including DVD players and other DVRs.

What Gets Tested?
ISF's Research Lab (ISFRL) worked directly with the Microsoft eHome team to develop the criteria for testing, looking at both qualitative and quantiative measures. In ISFRL's own words,

"Testing of MCE performance evaluates input, output, processing, and storage subsystems that impact signal quality. Certification also checks manufacturer attention to attributes affecting the usage environment such as acoustic noise and front-panel display dimming."

Areas that are tested include:

• Input signal parameters - Composite, YC, YPbPr, and RF
• Video Capture/Compression/Decompression
• Storage System: I/O Stream Capacity
• Deinterlacer
• Scaler
• Video output parameters - Composite, Y/C, YPrPr
• VGA and DVI Output
• Digital Services and Flag Information
• ATSC (HDTV OTA) RF Tuner (If Present)
• Housing and Accessory
• Audio and more

As you can see, this is a pretty comprehensive look at the entire experience. 

Raising the Bar Even Further
As consumer electronics continue to improve in many aspects- ISF is also committed to raising the bar for ISF-certified Media Center PCs. What makes this so exciting is that it demonstrates for the first time, a holistic approach to bringing the PC out of the commoditized "bargain" market, and offering consumers looking for better quality a clear way to identify it.  While prices for ISF-certified systems will initially be higher (largely due to more expensive components), this will come down over time.

Behind the Scenes
Microsoft first unveiled the Media Center ISF certification program at the Media Center 2005 Reviewer's Workshop session back in the Summer of 2004. We took a risk, bringing in the Editor's in Chief and senior writers of some of the largest names in PC and home theater publishing to receive a 60 minute presentation by Joel Silver and Guy Kuo on what they were doing with Microsoft.  Tests were done that compared- in full view- the video video quality of MCE 2004 vs. MCE 2005, and then MCE 2005 vs. a popular retail DVR platform across a range of outputs.  There was a broad range of expertise in the room, from those who normally review PCs as a general category, to those who were certified AV calibration and testing experts. This was no sugar-coated love-fest presentation- Joel and Guy clearly pointed out the issues in Microsoft's approach in the past and it's hardware/software partners' attempts to-date, and went further to describe how through testing and certification, these were being addressed systematically through the development of ISFs logo program. I cringed a bit as the session ended, and a visible and verbal reaction would be heard.  I was floored to see some of the biggest names in tech journalism bee-line for Joel and Guy, wishing to discuss further and get their own writers trained.  It was clear- Media Center PCs were going to be popular, and the publishers were ready to get serious about testing quality at the OS level, and evaluating each PC manufacturer's entry into the market.

Resources for More Information
If you're interested in learning more about ISF and their testing methdology, visit www.imagingscience.com.  Whitepapers providing more detail on ISFRL's Media Center testing methods can also be found on this page. As new ISF-certified systems hit the market, I'll post about them here.