Just got this from JoeB...
Congrats, everyone, on another terrific milestone for Media Center… today in his Digital Life keynote, Mike Sievert will announce that Media Center has sold 20 MILLION UNITS.
Wow. Just wow. It's pretty nifty to work on a product which has reached 20 million folks worldwide. Sweet.
In an email conversation with Seth Jayson (see this post) he mentioned one of the 'flies in the ointment' of the XBox 360 media capabilities (including Media Center Extender) compared to the announced Apple iTV was the 'sometimes loud fan in the XBox'.
I've been using the XBox 360 Media Center Extender for a couple of months now and the fan noise has never seemed overbearing to me or my family. I can see where an audiophile who wants absolute silence would not be overjoyed by the fan noise, but then again those folks will spend a lot more than $299 to fuel their quest for sonic perfection.
Curious, I borrowed a decibel meter this evening to see how loud the XBox 360 fans would become during normal use of the XBox 360 as a Media Center Extender. Unfortunately, the lowest measurement of the unit was 50db, making it less than ideal to measure the sound generated at a reasonable, normal distance from the unit (like 10'). According to this Wikipedia entry 50db is the equivalent of a 'quiet restaurant inside'.
Still, I thought the test would be interesting -- so I launched the Media Center Extender on the XBox 360 and kicked off a high definition recorded TV show (Law & Order, a favorite) and let it play for 30 minutes before taking measurements.
Anyone care to guess how close to the XBox 360 and where I had to put the meter to get it to register a continuous 50db...?
I guess you could say this is the audio equivalent of guessing how many M&Ms are in the jar.  Leave a comment with your guess.
Meanwhile, I'm going to track down a more sensitive decibel meter.
Mosey on over to Caseys blog post and check this out. I'm convinced Casey can make a Media Center PC do just about anything! This little bit of artificial intelligence is pretty neat...
mobileRecord is an MSN instant messaging bot that allows you to schedule TV recordings on your Media Center Edition PC. you communicate with the bot using Messenger, and the bot communicates with your MCE PC through a client application.
Wow. Just, wow.
Update: After some email exchanges between the two of us Seth slightly clarified his article by adding 'The video is' to the paragraph I excerpt below (change is shown in italics). He still does a fairly poor job of telling the overall story here -- but I'm still working on him.
I'm a big fan of The Motley Fool, so it pains me to some extent to write this, but someone has to, so guess it will be me.
In Apple's Latest Victims, Seth writes the following, speaking of the media playback capabilities of the XBox 360...
"It's capable of streaming media directly from a PC, with one big hitch. The video is only supposed to work with the Media Center OS. This was a ridiculous mistake, in my opinion, because so few Media Center OSes exist out there. It not only should have supported streaming from plain vanilla Windows XP, it should have run more file types."
Wrong. In two places.
First, the XBox 360 works out of the box with any version of Windows XP to Play music and manage playlists and view pictures. In addition, it supports playback of content from portable media player devices (compatible device list here) *including* the Apple iPod (but not FairPlay tracks -- talk to Apple about that ). Seth has a good point about compatibility with more file types, but support for [insert codec here] is largely a matter of return on investment. We also stream more media types with the Media Center Extender features of XBox 360 when you have a Windows Media Center enabled SKU of Windows. In addition to audio and pictures, we have video (WMV, MPEG1, MPEG2) and Recorded TV. Plus all of the media available from partners in Online Spotlight (MTV, NPR, Akimbo to name a few).
Second, there are more than a few Media Center PCs out there: 16 million according to the last group of public numbers. In addition, greater than 50% of the personal computers being sold today come with Windows Media Center. With Windows Vista, we expect the percentage to increase with Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate (the two SKUs with Windows Media Center included).
So, Seth, you could actually forego the iTV even before it ships with a trip to your local retailer. Tonight.
P.S. Isn't it odd Seth owns Microsoft stock and The Motley Fool has it listed as an Inside Value recommendation, but managed to publish this article without basic fact checking? See the links above to the public XBox.com site above which clearly enumerate these features.
P.S. Even more interesting to me is they offer RSS feeds for stories, but no way for me to leave comments about them. That might be because they are offering financial advice, perhaps...?
I recorded this on Sunday night and got around to narrating this evening. Enjoy...
Alexander Grundner: "In respect to iTV, Media Extenders for Windows Media Center and third party digital media adapters have been doing this duty for over two years now. What's so revolutionary (at least these days) about a device that streams videos from your PC to your TV wirelessly?"
Michael Gartenberg: "They key to the announcement is understanding that there's a seamless end to end experience for consumers for consuming digital content both within the home and outside the home."
Om Malik: "In the post-PC, device world, content is what sells the hardware, at least for hardware. More music, more movies, more television means iPod becomes da platform."
Paul Thurrott: "Overall, the iTV looks solid but it's lacking one key feature: DVR. It's literally a dull terminal, albeit one with a gorgeous UI. That doesn't mean that Apple can't add DVR capabilities to Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) of course. And you know what? I hope they do. Anyway, so far, so good. It's not the uber-box some people expected, but I'll be first in line to get one."
Robert Scoble: [Addressing Steve Jobs] "Your UI looks an awful lot like Windows Media Center. Almost a total copy. So, who is copying whom? What’s next, a Tablet PC copy?"
Mike Torres: "You know though, Apple is truly at the top of its game these days. Even more so than a year ago - or 4+ years ago when I bought my first-gen 10GB iPod. As much as I critique their lock-in model, they never cease to wow me with how much they're able to do, and the innovation and quality bar they set for others. I applaud them."
Omar Shahine: "If Apple would just support WMA and get HBO to offer their shows for download I'd be set, I'd never consider any other device or audio software for my desktop/laptop (still need Windows Media Center though). Zune better ship soon so that we can get started on v2 and of course v3. Apple has a massive head start and I'm not sure anyone will ever catch up (or that it matters)."
Steve Makofsky: "Looks like it's time to whip out the credit card."
Thomas Hawk: "And then we have iTV. So let's see. I'm going to pay $300 for a little dongle that will allow me the privlige of paying Apple $10-$15 to buy movies from them at less than DVD quality to watch on my new HDTV Plasma? I can just stick with Netflix, pay a heck of a lot less and not have to buy the $300 little dongle thing."
Ed Bott: So, will someone please tell me why I want to replace my Xbox 360 with an Apple-branded device that only plays tunes from one music store, allows me to pay $15 for a movie encoded at 640 by 480 that looks like crap on my widescreen HDTV, and is unable to record or stream TV programming?
My take: Things are becoming mildy interesting at this point. Apple built out the personal content side first and has a very strong position there (iTunes Store + iPod). We built out the home content side first and have a very strong position there (Windows Media Center + XBox 360 Media Center Extender). Apple is making a foray into the home content side (iTV). We are making our foray into the personal content side (Zune). Holiday '08 is shaping up to be very interesting.
So, who is the dark horse none of us are seeing at the moment...?
A year ago I became so busy with 'other stuff' here at work I stopped my regular practice of blocking off time on Friday afternoons to do nothing but generate sample code, solve problems with our SDK docs, ponder deeper technical issues which can't be tackled with the typical interruptions of a busy team or respond to community requests or issues.
Coding Friday is back from 1:00 - 6:00 PM PST.
It started last week. And I'm going to do something unprecedented (well, at least for me). Taking a page out of Robert Scoble's book, here is my contact information...
email: charlieo@microsoft.com
phone: (425) 707-7818
im: charlie_owen@hotmail.com
skype: retrosight
Give me a ring during Coding Friday hours -- let's chat about Windows Media Center development.
Well, Matt finally spills the beans in the loss of two Windows Media Center features in Windows Vista: Messenger and Caller ID.
Frankly, I never thought we did each of those features particularly well. Apologies to Matt and the other PMs which made 'em happen originally. I don't really think it was our fault per se they didn't live up to expectations. They were built on top of APIs which were limited (Windows Messenger) or rarely used (modem anyone?).
But our loss is certainly your gain.
Now that caller ID is gone it's a perfect opportunity to do a new thing -- XBox Live gamer online notifications (I just got mine tonight, btw: 'retrosight'. Skype contact notifications. Blog post notifications. I really think we never explored where we could actually take something like Caller ID because, well, we were stuck in the 90s with needing to connect a telephone cable.
And now that our Messenger implementation is gone it's an opportunity for someone to do a *real* messenger client for Windows Media Center. I'm thinking full screen interface overlaying Live TV capabilities here. Also, after using the iMate KJam for a while I'm thoroughly convinced a thumb keyboard remote control should be built which is compatible with Windows Media Center. I believe its size would make a much more attractive option to a full size keyboard (such as the Windows Media Center keyboard or the new Bluetooth keyboard we announced a few weeks (months?) ago.
So, what company will be first to take advantage and deliver experiences which put our originals to shame (using the new Windows media Center Presentation Layer Application model, of course).
Go check out Windows Vista's Media Center Not Ready for Prime Time by Paul Thurrott (courtesy of Ian Dixon).
Sometimes it's not fun to beta test because of all the variables, and hardware driver issues (which seem to be the majority or root cause of Paul's bad experience with Beta 2) can make an otherwise great beta release painful.
Paul, this is an open invitation to contact me any time to get this stuff figured out -- there is no reason you need to 'go this alone' when there are resources standing by to assist.
But I did find at least one encouraging tidbit in his comments. Back in October 2005, Paul had this to say about our new horizontal navigation model...
"Instead of the simplicity and beauty, we get ... ah... a jumbled mess of album art, arranged horizontally, not vertically."
It seems to be growing on him, for now he says...
"Much of what's changed in Media Center Vista is quite good. For example, the UI is now oriented to widescreen displays such as the HDTV to which my Media Center PC is connected, and content takes advantage of this horizontal real estate by moving left to right visually, instead of up and down in a text list, as in previous Media Center versions."
Our new UI seems to be growing on him. Yay!
I just got finished upgrading the build of Windows Vista on my tablet (was running the February CTP, now running a much newer version). The M200 only has 32MB of video memory with an nVidia Mobile 5200 video card but it's showing Aero Glass. Sweet -- I didn't think this was supposed to work on older, less powerful video cards. Let's hope this isn't an anomaly.
[5 minutes pass...]
It installed *all* the drivers except one this time (I think it's the IR it can't find) -- I think we are turning a corner with Windows Vista. I've had a bear of a time getting the tablet to be happy with Windows Vista, and typically ran into mucho problems right off the bat. Everything seems perfectly normal.
[5 minutes pass...]
I installed Windows Vista Ultimate and am now using Windows Media Center with the Tablet PC pen.
Oh, this is SOOOOOOO cool...!
Go check out Peter Rossers last post Media Center Technical Discussion 1: Tuners and TuningSpaces. He gives you step-by-step instructions to hack your Windows Media Center box to support N tuners (he had 3 ATSC + 6 NTSC at one time at his home). Oh, and you don't have to wait for Windows Vista to make it happen -- it works in the current version.
Mark Finocchio, Aaron Stebner and myself sat down with Robert Scoble inside the Building 50 listening room for a chat about developing for Windows Media Center in Windows Vista back before the Super Bowl. I'll actually have to watch this myself to remember what I said. I'm pretty sure Robert asked about the Apple Front Row remote control at some point. I'm also sure I stated flatly we would ship Windows Vista before the holidays this year -- little naive me -- I hope you will forgive my misguided passion -- I won't soon make that mistake again.
Channel9: Your First Media Center / Vista Application (and a Look at Their Secret Room)
(I don't think the room is really all that secret, but if the intrique makes people watch the video, yay! Robert tries to pretend he isn't in marketing, but he really is, don't you think?)
Barb Bowman with help from Doug Knox (both Windows Media Center MVPs) and Steve Makofsky (Software Development Engineer at Microsoft) have Windows Media Center running on the MacBook Pro.
Here's How I did it - Mac MCE (Barb)
Boot Camp: Day 1 (Steve)
Steve, Barb even has TV working on the MacBook Pro -- something I know you were asking about last night in an email.
I've got a challenge for you, Barb and Doug: Can you get the Portable Media Center interface (which looks and feels like Windows Media Center) to run on an iPod...?
I happened to find this little tidbit in my referrals for yesterday (hardly ever look at them, but did just now). It's old -- from Jan 2004 - July 2004. I wonder what happened to his / her project...?
"I'm involved with a kind of experimental class at my school in interactive television. We're supposed to make a windows media center application to work with live tv, etc. I'm curious if anyone has any experience with windows media center and C#, specifically the remote control functionality."
Hey, Chrix, if you are still around, give me a shout and an update.
For years we've heard folks cry out for Windows Media Center to be available for purchase at retail outlets (think Frys, Best Buy, Circuit City, Amazon, etc).
I've seen a number of blog posts (Thomas, Chris and Ed to name a few) about our announcement today regarding the Windows Vista product lineup, but no mention yet of this sentence buried in the press release:
"Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate and Business will be available as a full-packaged product at retail and on new PCs."
To interpret: Windows Media Center is coming to a store shelf near you in three ways with Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate: shrink wrap software, a system builder bundle or a preconfigured OEM machine.
Let the rejoicing commence in the DIY and upgrade crowd!
Rags Gupta (who was instrumental in bringing Live365 to Online Spotlight back in the day -- how ya doin' Rags!) writes the following in DVR Feature Request - One-Click to Record Future Programs...
"I'd like to be able to click a "Remember to Record" button while the ad is playing or within some time lag after it plays and have my DVR put the advertised show on its recording schedule."
I want this too, Rags. Just the other day my wife saw an advertisement for Conviction, the new court room drama from the Law & Order folks. We went looking for it in the Media Center Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) and it wasn't there because the first episode was outside the 14 day window. Now I have to remember to go looking for it at some point in the future.
Oh, and clearly there is an advertising bonus here -- imagine being able to track how many people have scheduled a DVR recording of a show in advance, then publicize the following with a movie trailer voice over...
'Over XX million viewers will be recording this show in two weeks -- will you...?'
Great idea Rags!
I wish I had seen this sooner (my apologies -- if you see this kind of cool stuff, drop me an email directly). Kudos to Colin for putting together GMAPMCE whereby you can browse Google Maps from the comfort of your couch. This is more addictive than I thought. This post explains how to get it available from More Programs in Media Center.
Anyone created one of these for http://local.live.com yet...?
Update: Yes, someone did and I feel just horrible I didn't pick up on it from Ian Dixon (to whom I susbcribe). Sean Mcleod put together an app which can be correlated with your geo-tagged pictures from the My Pictures feature in Media Center. Sweet. The app and details (including some source 'how to' snippets) can be found at Virtual Earth Media Center Add-in (The Code Project). Sean hasn't posted since November 10 -- hope everything is all right.
Please join me in welcoming Aaron Stebner and David Fleischman to the Media Center Platform team.
Those of you familiar with Aaron know he is incredibly passionate about our customer experiences which you can plainly see in his blog -- he is a posting machine! To quote a Group Program Manager, he 'absorbs technical information like a sponge.' In the brief time I have spent working with Aaron so far, it's not just any sponge, but a freakishly large sponge about the size of a compact car. Aaron will be focusing on our Media Center Add In platform.
David Fleischman brings a wealth of knowlege on Project Management to our team. David played a prominent role in helping us get Emerald (long name: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2) out the door. He ran our daily status meeting for months on that project. Here is the best way to describe what he did for us during Emerald: Chief Cat Herder (CCH). Keeping all the strong personalities focused on shipping a great product is no small feat. David will be focusing on the WinFX platform integration into Media Center for Windows Vista as well as driving production of the SDK (yet another cat herding exercise).
You can expect some great blog posts about our platform over on Media Center Sandbox from these guys in the coming weeks and months.
Welcome guys -- we are gonna have a ton of fun this year!
And that makes 4 of the 6 bloggers who are on the Media Center team (Aaron, David, Michael and Me) a part of the platform team. I hope Peter and Matt don't feel left out.
Chris Pirillo asks...
"I have a PVR and all the premium movie channel subscriptions for digital cable. What I don't have is a service that IMs me and says what movies are playing on TV at that moment. This way, I could either decide to record the movie (if it notified me early enough) or watch it live. Or, better yet, a Media Center program that told me what movies were playing that month on my movie channels - and I could set it up to record them whenever conflicts weren't happening. Charlie, can ya help me with that one?"
You betcha (or at least I'm hoping).
Joe Belfiore demonstrated this feature almost exactly as Chris describes during the Bill Gates keynote at CES this year. Here is the transcript excerpt (full transcript here as well as a webcast of the keynote) from that section of the demo -- Joe Belfiore is speaking...
"What I want to show you to expand your thinking on this is how the service [Windows Live] can offer lots of different ways of interacting that fit with the personality and care of the particular user who is using it. So, switching over to the beta, a beta of Windows Live Messenger, you can see I have my buddies in here. One of the buddies that I have is a TV service. So, think of this as me interacting with a smart agent that's part of the TV service that I signed up for. So, here I am, and if I'm like some of the people in my family, addicted to instant messaging, then this is an incredibly comfortable and natural way for me to communicate with the service. So, I'll say hello, and it looks like our service might be offline, the risk of Internet based demos. So, I will close that and give it one more try. Let's see, okay, TV service are you there? Hello. Here we go.
Hi, Joe, would you like some help figuring what to watch. The TV service is inviting me to start a TV service activity. This idea of activities is new to the Windows Live Messenger, and when I click accept you can see over here it presents me with a bunch of interactivity. The service says, these are the shows your friends like. That's kind of an interesting thing. Immediately the idea of community becomes something that's factored in and the service can use to do a better job of helping me find things that I like. It knows who my buddies are because I've signed up with buddies, and as Bill described, if I choose to share information about my preferences, and what I like, then that could be used to make everyone's experiences better. So, these are shows that my buddies like. I can just move over there and choose one of those to record.
That's not what I want to do, how about what's on tonight? So the TV service is finding out what's on tonight, it switches over to a grid based guide, only reminding me that I'm here with you instead of watching the Rose Bowl, that's OK, because that's not actually what I want to be doing. How about showing SciFi. I like SciFi. OK, well, here's what's on in SciFi tonight. It further filters the list to show me that. And even better it says, I have a strong recommendation for you and a trailer to watch, cool. The trailer is for "Battlestar Gallactica," would you like to watch the trailer? Yes. Show me the trailer.
And instantly, the service can find promotional material, trailers, background information on content I might be interested, and it starts streaming it to me directly so that I get better information up. It says, if you like this trailer, would like to record it let me know. OK, record it. It finds my Media Center PC, sets up the recording, and now in the future I'll have this show available to watch when it's convenient for me."
I don't know when (or even if) this will ship -- I'm pinging the 'folks in the know' to get you a definitive answer Chris.
I'm pretty amazed that folks continue to 'discover' the great content available via Online Spotlight.
For example, Scott Hanselman (love DASBlog man!) found XM Satellite Radio for the first time today and it drove up his spouse approval for plunking down the change for his XBox 360. While Scott found XM Radio for Media Center via Download.com, it's been available for him all this time in Online Spotlight.
And if XM Radio isn't your audio thing, check out Napster, Live365, AOL Radio (Audio), AOL Music on Demand (Music Video), MTV Overdrive (Music Video), National Public Radio (NPR) or the thousands of podcasts and videoblogs available using Newsgator Media Center Edition.
Hey Scott, since I know you are a geek (major understatement of the year), what do you think about the new application platforms available for Media Center in Windows Vista? If you think these apps are pretty cool now, what until Windows Vista ships!
Via an email from Robert Scoble I learn Ross Rader has asked us in An Open Letter to Microsoft to ship a standalone upgrade SKU of Windows Vista containing Media Center...
"I would very much like it if you made it easy (not free, just easy) for me to upgrade this older, but still quite functional, personal computer from Windows XP to Windows Media Center. Think of it – potentially millions of people adopting a Microsoft product in a way that will be really important for you. If you make it available, I promise that my current desktop will move from my home office to my living room about 30 seconds after I install my shiny new Media Center software.
So whaddya think?"
I think it's a great idea, Ross. If it were up to me alone it would have been done a long time ago (and I have ardently supported the MSDN Subscription install-it-yourself approach for the enthusiast community for a while now, even if it isn't available to Joe Consumer in retail).
But lowly little ol' me doesn't make these decisions. We need a bunch of people making a bunch of noise to make this happen.
So...
If you think it's a great idea too, leave a comment here to vote your support of this offering. I promise to make sure your voice is heard by those who decide our SKU strategy. The more comments, the better our chances.
Let's all make Ross' 30 second dream a reality!
I'll be presenting various Media Center technologies, design and development at Mix06. Joe Belfiore has been announced as one of the keynote speakers. The Mix team has an RSS feed, just posted a session outline as well as agenda.
What's Mix you might ask? You might think of it as a more targeted version of the Professional Developers Conference specifically for the web with specific tracks tailored for designers, developers and business folks.
'Media Center' Puts Microsoft Ahead of Rivals
By ROBERT A. GUTH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 5, 2006; Page A13
Microsoft, the technology industry's perennial late-to-the-game player, finally finds itself with a lead in home-entertainment software. It's up to a high-energy engineer named Joe Belfiore to keep it that way.
There is a good thread over at Joystiq.com in Digital lifestyle from a dumb terminal? Not likely. (Xbox 360 annoyance #007). I took a moment to post a comment over there to hopefully clear the air about why things are the way they are -- it's all about consumer choice and market forces (of which a P&L statement is a part, but certainly not the whole). Microsoft is (an many ways) a conglomeration of smaller companies, which is sometimes why we don't approach the market with a singular product (we have Notepad, Word Pad and Word, all of which would allow me to type and print a letter to grandma). My comments start at number 37.
Matthew Fordahl of the Associated Press is out with another review of Apple Front Row (via CNN or AP). There are a couple of misleading or inaccurate statements with regards to Media Center:
"Unlike a Windows Media Center PC, however, Front Row doesn't dump you in a position where you have to leave the couch and pick up the keyboard. The machine also doesn't have the nasty habit of turning itself back on after it's been put into standby mode."
First, there are no Media Center features requiring the use of anything other than the remote control. A very few features (like search) might be somewhat easier with a keyboard, but all of those can be accomplished with the remote control (through triple tap -- think SMS text messaging on your cell phone). If you find you like to use Media Center with a keyboard (some people do actually prefer this mode) we have a wireless keyboard which works just great from the couch: The Remote Keyboard for Media Center. It's a full Qwerty keyboard, Media Center remote and integrated mouse all in one. It also lights up in the dark. You can totally remain a true couch potato with Media Center whether you choose a mouse or keyboard.
Second, we have a feature whereby you can schedule TV recordings and put the PC in standby (to save electricity, lower ambient noise levels, save wear and tear, etc.). When the time comes to record the show the Media Center PC will resume from standby, record the TV show, and then return to standby mode. A properly setup and configured Media Center PC shouldn't resume from standby for no apparent reason -- if it does for any reason other than the DVR feature mentioned here or by pressing the power button the OEM should be contacted to resolve the issue.
I'm apparently not the only one who was somewhat dissatisfied with this review. Check out The Associated Press' Matthew Fordahl blows it: incorrectly states Apple iMac G5 lacks video output. I wonder if Matthew will likewise correct the misinformation about Media Center? At the very least I hope he will give us some sort of context for his commentary, since he never brought up these issues in his in depth review of Media Center this past January.
There have been quite a few interesting posts and articles on the web regarding Media Center Extender feature of the XBox 360 (see CNet, Slashdot, CVG and GA Forum for a sampling). I have decided to port this FAQ to it's own post and will update regularly to help clear up some of the confusion. Put any additional questions you might have in the comments and I will track down the answer.
1) Does every XBox 360 come with the Media Center Extender software built in?
Yes.
2) How does that work with the XBox 360 Core System which doesn't have a hard drive?
The Media Center Extender software for XBox 360 is sent over the wire each time you launch Media Center on the XBox 360.
3) If you are sending the bits over the wire each time, doesn't the MCX boot time really suffer?
Not enough for most folks to notice. We have spent a lot of time optimizing the code sent over the wire to make sure it's fast.
4) Is the Media Center Extender software cached on the XBox 360 hard drive, if present?
Yes.
5) Is the Media Center user interface on XBox 360 the same GDI version (sans animations) as the version 1 Media Center Extenders?
No. We ported the Media Center renderer over to the XBox 360 so the Media Center user interface renders in full fidelity on the XBox 360 just as it does on the Media Center PC itself. For the most part, consumers won't be able to tell a difference between the two.
6) Will high definition content play on the XBox 360, and if so, what formats?
Yes, high definition content will play on the XBox 360 via the Media Center user interface using the DVR-MS (Recorded TV) and WMV format (up to 1080p). This will include high definition digital cable content using the recently announced CableCard module. It will decode and display 1080p WMVHD using any output, including 480i/480p/720p/1080i over component. It will also output up to 1366x768 over VGA.
7) Will Online Spotlight experiences (and those available via Marketplace or other third parties for Media Center) work on the XBox 360 Media Center Extender?
Yes.
8) Can I create my own apps to run in Media Center Extender for XBox 360.
Yes, using the Media Center SDK located at http://msdn.microsoft.com/mce.
9) Do applications in Media Center run on the XBox 360 or on the Media Center PC?
Applications run on the Media Center PC and have their UI remoted to the XBox 360 via technology similar to a Remote Desktop Connection / Terminal Server. No code from the application actually runs on the XBox 360, therefore the XBox 360 is safe and secure from a malware / virus perspective.
10) Is the audio / video content sent over the same remote desktop like session?
No. Audio and video streams are sent out of band and decoded locally on the XBox 360.
11) Is the XBox 360 as loud as my old XBox when running Media Center Extender?
No. In fact, when running the Media Center Extender software, it's virtually silent with the fans at their lowest setting. From my experience, it's quieter than the VCR in my kids playroom when running MCX.
12) Will the XBox360 will have other codecs available for it (e.g. Xvid, Divx).
Yes and no. The Media Center Extender for XBox 360 can support uncompressed PCM audio when a custom DirectShow filter is installed and registered, meaning you can use [insert audio codec name here] as long as it uses this approach. See Registering a Custom File Type for more information. Video codecs natively on the XBox 360 are currently limited to MPEG1, MPEG2, DVR-MS and WMV.
[The custom DirectShow filter solution works for audio since the PCM audio is uncompressed, but still within limits of typical network bandwidth. Any video solution using the same approach would involve real time transcoding (seriously CPU intensive) or sending uncompressed video over the wire (net bandwidth becomes an issue). Just FYI.]
13) If the Media Center Extender software is sent to the XBox 360 each time you launch the Media Center, does that mean that the XBox 360 will automagically inherit the new Vista MCE interface when used with a Vista MCE?
The plans for Media Center Extender for XBox 360 in the Windows Vista timeframe haven't yet been announced. [Sort of a lame answer, I know -- sorry -- there are some things they won't let me talk about yet.]
14) Will my first generation Media Center Extender (hardware or XBox MCX) continue to work when I use the new Media Center Extender for XBox 360?
Yes
15) Can you fast-forward and rewind music stored on the host MCE computer using the Xbox 360 Extender.
No
16) Can you play back AVI files in Media Center Extender for XBox 360?
No
17) Will the Xbox 360 be able to play DRM-protected video that has been recorded on your Media Center PC?
Yes, as long as the DRM applied or specified by the content owner allows (which is the case for the vast majority of all content today).
18) Can you rip music CDs to the host MCE computer from the Xbox 360 Media Center Extender?
No. However, you can rip music CDs to the XBox 360 hard drive, if present, using the XBox 360 music feature on the Media blade.
19) Does Media Center Extender for XBox 360 support keyboards and mice?
Not at this time.
20) Do I have to insert a Media Center Extender game title like for my XBox?
No. You can keep a game title in the drive while using the Media Center Extender functionality.
21) Do I need a Media Center PC to use Media Center Extender on XBox 360?
Yes.
22) Can I get to other digital media content on XBox 360 without a Media Center PC?
Yes. XBox 360 has several built in digital media features accessible from the Media blade: Music, Pictures and Videos. Music can be locally ripped music (see Question 18) or music streamed from any Windows XP computer using Windows Media Connect. Pictures can be streamed from any Windows XP computer using Windows Media Connect. Videos are downloadable from XBox Live and can be cached locally on the XBox 360 hard drive (if present).
23) Will WMVHD discs play on the XBox 360?
No. These discs are designed to play on Windows XP machines. See http://www.wmvhd.com/ for system requirements to play these titles.
Wander over to Chris Anderson's First Take: XBox 360 Media Center Extender and read through the comments -- Chris gives us some great feedback to ponder regarding Media Center in Windows Vista.
One thing I want to highlight here from those comments is our Jump In List feature, which I'm not sure many people know is available to them.
Jump In List is a feature whereby you can navigate galleries or lists alphabetically by pressing number keys on the Media Center remote control (aka 'triple tap'). Press the 2 button on the remote once for A, twice for B, three times for C and a fourth time for the numeral 4. (The 3 button is used for D,E F and 3, the 4 button is used for G,H,I and 4, etc.) It makes navigating large libraries much simpler than constant up / down or page up/down button presses. I will admit triple tap does carry a bit of a learning curve, but once users learn, it's super efficient. It's also one of the standard interaction models for most all of the current crop of cell phones so folks who use one of those will feel right at home. Jump In List works in Media Center just about anywhere there is a gallery (visual representation of items) or textual list of items including videos, pictures, music and TV features.
[Note: I've moved this FAQ to XBox 360, Media Center Extender and Media Center PC FAQ. Any updates will now occur in that post.]
I've just arrived back from a partner roadshow late this past Saturday (we presented in Redmond, Los Angeles and New York). I really enjoyed some quotes today which were echoes of what we presented to partners last week.
Chris Anderson in First Take: XBox 360 Media Center Extender
"What's important about the Media Center is that it takes the DVR concept and extends it to all forms of content, whether broadcast or downloaded from the Web. By having a broadband-connected PC at its core, it's by nature a full-featured connected device that can keep up with the pace of innovation in digital media online. If the Xbox 360 and the new content marketplaces of its associated Xbox Live service continue to take off, we really could have the beginnings of a Long Tail platform that could challenge broadcast TV."
Russell Beattie in XBox 360 As A Windows Media Center Extension: Context is King
"The most amazing thing about this is how it controls context. Your PC remains a PC, your Video Game Console remains just that, but when they’re put together, a third functionality emerges to help manage all your media. Maybe that can be seen as complexity (one box with a simplified interface might be better), but to me it seems like a pretty neat Trojan Horse for Microsoft’s vision of the digital home."
A couple of FAQ from the partner roadshow which are appropriate to air broadly here...
Q: Does every XBox 360 come with the Media Center Extender software built in?
A: Yes.
Q: How does that work with the XBox 360 Core System which doesn't have a hard drive?
A: The Media Center Extender software for XBox 360 is sent over the wire each time you launch Media Center on the XBox 360.
Q: If you are sending the bits over the wire each time, doesn't the MCX boot time really suffer?
A: Not enough for most folks to notice. We have spent a lot of time optimizing the code sent over the wire to make sure it's fast.
Q: Is the Media Center Extender software cached on the XBox 360 hard drive, if present?
A: Yes.
Q: Is the Media Center user interface on XBox 360 the same GDI version (sans animations) as the version 1 Media Center Extenders?
No. We ported the Media Center renderer over to the XBox 360 so the Media Center user interface renders in full fidelity on the XBox 360 just as it does on the Media Center PC itself. For the most part, consumers won't be able to tell a difference between the two.
Q: Will high definition content play on the XBox 360, and if so, what formats?
A: Yes, high definition content will play on the XBox 360 via the Media Center user interface using the DVR-MS (Recorded TV) and WMV format (up to 1080p). This includes high definition digital cable content using the recently announced CableCard module.
Q: Will Online Spotlight experiences (and those available via Marketplace or other third parties) work on the XBox 360 Media Center Extender?
A: Yes.
Q: Is the XBox 360 as loud as my old XBox?
A: No. In fact, when running the Media Center Extender software, it's virtually silent with the fans at their lowest setting. From my experience, it's quieter than the VCR in my kids playroom when running MCX.
Q: Will the XBox360 will have other codecs available for it (e.g. Xvid, Divx).
A: Yes and no. The Media Center Extender for XBox 360 can support PCM audio when a custom DirectShow filter is installed and registered, meaning you can use [insert audio codec name here] as long as it uses this approach. See Registering a Custom File Type for more information. Video codecs natively on the XBox 360 are currently limited to MPEG1, MPEG2, DVR-MS and WMV.
Q: If the Media Center Extender software is sent to the XBox 360 each time you launch the Media Center, does that mean that the XBox 360 will automagically inherit the new Vista MCE interface when used with a Vista MCE?
A: The plans for Media Center Extender for XBox 360 in the Windows Vista timeframe haven't yet been announced. [Sort of a lame answer, I know -- sorry -- there are some things they won't let me talk about yet.]
Q: Will my first generation Media Center Extender (hardware or XBox MCX) continue to work when I use the new Media Center Extender for XBox 360?
A: Yes
Q: Can you fast-forward and rewind music stored on the host MCE computer using the Xbox 360 Extender.
A: No
Q: Can you play back AVI files?
No
If you have any other questions, leave 'em here and I will track down the answer and update this post.
I don't think Rob Pegoraro can make up his mind about whether he likes some of the Media Center features.
In Microsoft's Improved Media Center Still Falls Short (December 2004) he writes...
'The biggest change in this 2005 release is an expanded set of photo-editing tools, designed for use from across the room with the remote control. You can now fix red-eye effects, adjust a picture's contrast and even crop it, then burn a photo album to CDs or DVDs (although the disc-burning screen invites confusion by presenting "audio CD" as the default choice). These automated, one-button shortcuts worked surprisingly well. But how |