Microsoft’s bringing the “Sports Channel” to Windows Media Centre (Vista), which is to College Basketball what the Olympics On The Go was to the Beijing Olympics.
Ok, so it might not be an official Hulu-Microsoft partnership, but Secondrun.tv, an upcoming third-party plugin for Windows Media Center will allow you to watch Hulu videos, along with others, from within the app.
Toshiba’s jump into the network-enchanced home entertainment game is partnered with Microsoft–Windows Media Extender functionality, along with Yahoo widgets, will hit their Regzas, combo LCD/DVD players and a standalone player–but we’ll have to wait.
DirecTV has officially canned their efforts to bring the HDPC-20 tuner to market. The device would have allowed subscribers to integrate their service with Windows Media Centre.
A few days back, I showed you the new touch interface for Media Centre PCs running Windows 7, and though I had to pull the video, I promised a walkthrough of proposed Windows 7 Media Centre features. I say “proposed” because, like everything else about Windows 7, this is all alpha and subject to change. But these features are very cool, and really should be included. One more thing: These screens were projected on a wall in a well-lit room, so they look horrible, but anyone familiar with Media Centre (and Microsoft has shipped like 100 million of them, so that should be plenty of ya) will have a good idea of the pleasantness to come. Or you can just drink in the following prose descriptions:
newVideoPlayer("/win7mctouch_giz.flv", 475, 314,""); Visiting Microsoft’s Media Centre posse in Redmond, I just caught a glimpse of the Windows 7 Media Centre interface with integrated touch control (no third-party software) on an HP TouchSmart. All I can say is, I’ve always loved the MCE user experience—it really is a highlight of Microsoft design—but adding smooth touch interaction makes it even better. The only thing missing here is multitouch, but I’m told that’s coming. Check out the vid. [Windows 7]
The Gadget: HP’s Mediasmart Connect, a networked receiver that plays back H.264, DivX, XviD, MPEG-2, WMV video, photos, and even connects to your Media Centre to act like an extender. It’s also expandable space-wise with HP’s Pocket Media Drives, and supports 10/100 Ethernet and 802.11a/b/g/n. It comes in a glossy piano black finish which attracts dust and fingerprints as easily as an actual piano.
Boxee has been turning any PC, Mac or Linux box into a capable, social-networking equipped media centre for a while in its extended alpha phase–and now, news is that it will also work on your Apple TV for a free way to go beyond the iTunes lock-in for streaming all DRM-free media. Like aTV before it (which is not free), Boxee installs on a flash drive (this time using Mac-only for now ATV USB Creator) and sports a similar interface as the original Xbox version that started it all. Sign up for the alpha: [Boxee] galleryPost('boxeeatv', 3, '');
Last week, courtesy of NBC, people with a Windows Media Centre DVR setup got a rude reminder that broadcasters can flip a switch (called a broadcast flag) to tell DVRs not to record a show. Here’s the thing: Honouring the flag is actually optional for software and hardware makers, after courts smacked down the FCC proposal to make them mandatory. But Microsoft has confirmed that they do whatever the broadcaster tells them, again, even though they don’t have to. NBC hasn’t confirmed yet whether or not the American Gladiatorsflag was intentional, but their history doesn’t give me a fuzzy feeling.
Recently, some Windows Media Center owners were blocked from recording American Gladiators and Medium because of an incorrectly set broadcast flag from NBC. What’s the deal here? The broadcasters (NBC, ABC, HBO) can turn on a flag in their data stream that tells whatever DVR machine on your end that it’s NOT alright to record a show, protecting Pay-Per-View or premium channel content from being archived. This has actually been around for years.
