Today I was looking forward to seeing Bill Gates keynote address that he gave at the latest CES in Las Vegas. I went to Bill Gates webcast website and clicked on the 300K streaming media link as I have a very high speed internet connection. However, to my disappointment the webcast ended up not a fluid dynamic presentation but rather more of an audio show with still images taken from the webcast. So this begs the question as to why is it that Microsoft can not seem to get streaming media correct?

I contrast this with the same keynote experience from Steve Jobs using Apple’s Quicktime media player. What did I see a fluid, crystal clear experience of the presentation with just some minor stuttering and glitches as one would expect even from a high speed connection.

Now you see I am using a brand new Dell Windows Media Center edition PC with one of the best video cards available and one of the highest speed processor that I can buy. Why is it that on a Windows machine the streaming media experience is so much better with Quicktime than with the Windows Media player? It is pure shameful that this should be the case. How can Apple develop so much better of a Windows program than Microsoft?

I would love to see the Bill Gates keynote but I am simply spoiled the sheer quality of the Quicktime experience. I eventually gave up viewing the keynote using the streaming media using the Windows Media player. Hopefully the developers at the Windows Media center are listening and working hard to solve this issue with the program. Because if they do not hurry up Apple will quickly overtake them with the home entertainment experience. Just my little rant for the day I guess.