I videotaped a short interview of a colleague the other day as part of the content for a web site that I am helping to create and one of the questions I posed was, "What product/feature would you like to see from Microsoft (or technology in general)?" After the interview was done, he turned the question back at me. While there are a ton of things that I would love to see Microsoft get involved in, one that has been on my mind lately has to do with one of our specialized versions of Windows, the Media Center Edition.
 
I have several computers in my home, two of which are set up as Media Center machines (and I'm adding a third one this weekend). Even with three tuners there are occasions when there is something on that I would like to record but can't unless I'm willing to cancel recording a show that I normally do.
 
NB: I'm discounting all of the legal aspects (which I suspect are surmountable if formidable) here, I'm sure they would make an interesting discussion, but that's for another time.
 
I would love to see a future where I would have access not only to my media center, but also that of my friends. If my buddy Richard recorded a show that he liked, he could shoot me an email and let me know that he has kept it on his machine for me to watch. Take this a step further...Richard doesn't watch that much TV, so there's a good chance that if I have a scheduling conflict, he could record something for me. Since we are using computers for the task we could even build an interface where Richard can allow me to use his computer to record when he's not using it. Another part of the interface would allow me to remotely schedule the recording. Even better...I discover that I missed a show that I meant to record, I could search through my friends listings and see if someone fortuitously had recorded it.
 
I don't see this as evolving into a Napster like video swap. That goes beyond what I think is legally doable. More of an automation of something that can already be done with VCRs. I could go on for pages spinning this out, but I think this presents the general idea.
 
Technical Thoughts...
Assuming an increase in bandwidth along the same lines as we've seen in the past decade, within a year or two there would probably be enough bandwidth for me to view the show in real time directly from his computer. If that is not the case, there would still be fallback positions. If top-notch quality was not needed, there are technologies (Divx comes to mind) that can compress the size of video and still keep it at a watchable level. Services likes BITS could be used to slowly trickle a show from one machine to another.
 
The interface I briefly allude to would have some challenges. While I have a decent understanding of quotas and resource management, the average user would need a simple way of saying, "Ken can use up to 10% of my disk space to record shows assuming that I'm not already using more than 70% and he can use 90% of the other system resources (net, CPU, etc) assuming that his use will not cripple my computer if I need to use it at the same time."