Now that most computers on sale at your local Best Buy or Circuit City are running Windows Vista Home Premium, there are a lot of folks out there with Windows Media Center, although they might not realize it. You can use your PC just fine without ever looking at its 10-foot interface.

Still, market research firm In-Stat projects that nearly 51 million TV tuners will be sold by around the wold 2011. That could turn what's now a niche market into a multi-billion dollar industry.

Most consumers will probably find a TV tuner bundled with their PC running Windows Vista. But those numbers also include USB tuners and CableCard tuners that probably won't be bundled with many PCs.

Hopefully as the market for PC-based personal video recorders grows we'll see more innovations in the software market with more companies developing commercial plugins for Windows Media Center. Of course, there are plenty of free plugins available today to do everything from singing karaoke to checking the weather forecasts. But there's plenty of incentive for developers to think outside the box with a potential customer base of 51-million people.

[via The Green Button]