Dalanik, thanks for the information! I really had not been keeping up with the various HTPC front ends lately so thanks for bringing this to my attention. LinuxMCE looks incredibly promising. The hardware requirements are much higher than XL, in order to reproduce the performance on the demo you are looking at an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ CPU, but then the local Fry's Electronics has a AMD 64 3800 with 17" Compaq LCD for $399 in today's paper. I'm running XL on a 4200 dual core as it is so no problems there. And to nip this one before it takes off, yes I understand that we have users in the forum to whom such hardware is out of reach, but seeing that XL has gone commercial, it too (other than the old freeware) is now out of reach as well, so that argument is moot.
But back on subject, the ease of use factor is astounding. It actually looks as easy to use as TIVO, which my wife, who is totally nontechnical and gadget adverse, loves. I've looked at MYTHTV before but always hesitated because of the LINUX requirement. LinuxMCE removes that by providing a single DVD installer that essentailly hides the underlying operating system and makes the PC perform like a dedicated commercial product. If the guided setup and configuration is even half of what it appears to be in the demo I'll be thrilled.
One feature that really stood out was the "follow me" function. By the use of thin clients you can move from room to room and have your media, be it TV, Movie or Music, follow you from room to room and even automatically turn off the equipment in the room you just left. Also impressive was the control hardware supported; everything from on screen displays to webpads and VoIP phones.
One thing that people may complain about is that the user interface looks to be hard coded so no customization there; but it also appears that the developers did a good enough job that it does not need to be changed. Personally I prefer function over fashion so I can live without skinning a.k.a. TIVO. I'm downloading the bittorrent DVD install of LinuxMCE as I write this. If anyone is interested in checking out LinuxMCE for your self here is the link to the LinuxMCE video on google video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2176025602905109829&hl=enand here is the website
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Main_Page