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  • Margalus - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    I take issue with the comment that "Microsoft is not abandoning it", because they did abandon it. Taking it away from computers and putting it into a console is the same as abandoning it. I have a computer with windows media center as my htpc. I'm not about to go out and replace it with some crappy console.

    All Microsoft is doing is pissing off a lot of people.
  • Impulses - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    Isn't the industry abandoning CableCard in favor of some software based solution that cable companies can cripple even further anyway? Don't get me wrong, I'll lament it as much as any HTPC user, since I've had a string of TiVos I've been very happy with (including two CableCard based models)...

    But still, doesn't seem like anything really impacts or manages to seriously disrupt the cable/satellite industry, and WMC was a blip in the radar in the grand scheme of things (as is TiVo for that matter).
  • Brett Howse - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    Thanks for pulling that out of context. I said they're not abandoning it completely, and they are not. A good chunk of the functionality is being moved to the console, and that's great to see. But yes WMC is still dead on the PC.
  • Margalus - Thursday, August 6, 2015 - link

    no, it's not out of context. It's just a vastly different opinion than yours. You say they didn't abandon it because they are moving it. My opinion is that it is abandoned. If it is going away from the box it always ran on and going to a gaming console, it's the same as being abandoned to me since it will never again be in my household..
  • babadivad - Thursday, August 6, 2015 - link

    Semantics. The software set lives on, just on Xbox. PC support is abandoned but the software isn't.
  • jeffkibuule - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    So because Windows Media Center had some fans, it should be supported and worked on forever? Are you being honest with yourself?

    I too enjoyed Windows Media Center from 2009-2012 and it was great, but it absolutely was the wrong approach of Microsoft wanted to build a DVR for mainstream adoption because tying a DVR to a PC that needs to be updated and rebooted every now and then is an extremely terrible idea. And as flexible as most people think their current system is, its as just as finicky unless you put a ton of effort into it. It's not plug and play, the HTPCs that Microsoft originally intended were sold by HP and no one else (for thousands of dollars too), and Microsoft has the telemetry to know how many people used Media Center and what for.

    The logical place for DVR recording always has been and will forever remain to be the box Microsoft had already convinced plenty of people to hook up to their TV, the Xbox.
  • cjs150 - Friday, August 7, 2015 - link

    jeffkibuule: I disagree. I find running WMC on a dedicated computer extremely easy, the interface is wonderful (Kodi mimic skin is almost as good), I can run Amazon Prime movies on it simply, do light web browsing - all very normal. No doubt I could do something similar on the Xbox. But what I cannot do on the Xbox, which I do on my HTPC is rip movies/music from disc. My HTPC is not being upgraded from W8.1 so that I can preserve WMC

    Could someone convince MS to make WMC open source and let the community play with it
  • BucksterMcgee - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    My only hope is that this is a Universal app and that Microsoft will also allow this app on Windows 10.

    As silly as it might be I have several family members (and a few PCs myself) that simply can't be upgraded to Windows 10 because they primarily use Media Center. I really want to upgrade everyone to Windows 10 but without a Media Center replacement, it's basically over our cold dead Media Center hugging bodies. I did try a few other 3rd party DVR systems, but between them simply not recording or being a pain in the ass to use and setup, I'd rather just stick with Windows 8.1.

    I'm not even sure what would prevent Microsoft from allowing the app to work on Windows 10; licenses? support for different TV tuners? I hope they don't intend to use it as a way to push Xbox Ones. That device needs to stand on it's own, not force users to buy something they don't want. Besides, can the Xbox One record more than one channel at a time?
  • Wolfpup - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    Good thought about this maybe being able to run on 10. It would have to be at least partially compatible...I mean they're both NT (at the least), would use at least partially the same APIs, etc. To one degree or another they'd be at least partially compatible.
  • Hachi0Hachi - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    MS ditching WMC has been a bummer for me, I have been using it for almost 10 years and things really hit their stride with the HDHRprime and Intel Nuc combo for me, its just a perfect blend of software and hardware. I don't have an Xbox One and don't want to buy one just to replace my setup. Guess I will just ride windows7 till the guide in WMC goes dark or Silcon Dust's HDView app is ready to replace it.
  • CharonPDX - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    If only the Xbox One could play Xbox 360 games, it would allow me to replace *ALL* of my home theater devices at once. Yeah, eventually I'd move over to all Xbox One games, but I don't buy tons of games as it is, and many of mine are older ones that were never ported to newer (including a couple old original Xbox games.)
  • Brett Howse - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    It will be able to play some, with more coming later http://www.anandtech.com/show/9382/xbox-at-e3-new-...

    In fact today they said that going forward, any Games with Gold 360 game will be able to be played on an Xbox One when backwards compatibility is enabled.
  • ol1bit - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    Bah, My Media PC is still Windows 7 (i5/650) in Phoenix, AZ and I get lots of HD Broadcasts, just had to fight with it since MS dumped Zap-It for a different provider, but it still works good!

    Sadly since MS dumped Media Center in 10, Netflix is abandoning it also stoping 9/15. So the world is going fractured, HBO in Chrome, Netflix in Chrome, Hulu in Chrome, all I need is Silicon Dust Tuners to work with guide and DVR mode. Sadly my Harmony Remote doesn't work as well with Browsers. Android TV kind of blows, but Nvidia's Shield is said to support OTA Tuners as well.

    I went from a perfect world in 2011, to a fractured one by the end of 2015. Sigh technology advancement is great.
  • Wolfpup - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    Wow, this is really cool they're doing this (although it's yet ANOTHER reason they need to redesign the Xbox One to use user replaceable drives!!!)

    I already bought the Haugpage (?) Xbox One tuner, and this could actually be useful for me as right now I've got 3 tuners between 2 (older) Tivos, and sometimes don't have enough tuners. Of course if/when a Tivo dies I'll replace it with a newer one with more tuners, but still this is nifty.
  • vortmax1 - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    I've had an HTPC in my living room serving as the primary video content device for my small family since about 2010. Everyone who has come over and seen how it works has asked about it. I've gotten several requests to help other "cord cutters" set up WMC on an HTPC. As others have said, WMC has been really slick and very easy to use. So, I wasn't pleased to see it dropped in Windows 10. I've started to play around with MediaPortal and Kodi/XBMC (I use Plex a lot, but the lack of live TV support means that it's used only for streaming to other devices), but I don't find either to be as easy to use as WMC (though MediaPortal is pretty close to WMC, at least my wife says so). I'm not a gamer, so I'm not keen to drop a bunch of $ on an Xbox One. That said, for those cord cutters who don't want to babysit a PC and have an interest in gaming, I'm sure the One solution will work well.
  • FwFred - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link

    Attention Microsoft, I will ditch my Win7 media center and buy an Xbox One if your support Cablecard with HDHomerun Prime.
  • hurrakan - Thursday, August 6, 2015 - link

    I used WMC with Windows 7 for ages but I hated it. It saved live TV recordings using the terrible proprietary .WTV format that is virtually impossible to edit (e.g. to remove commercials).

    I hung on to WMC for years because I didn't know any other way to watch/record live TV. Now I use NextPVR, which is much better.
  • ajlueke - Thursday, August 6, 2015 - link

    You could edit the files just fine. I never had an issue with it. The only files I couldn't access were those marked as copy once flags, but those were typically just the premium channels.
  • ajlueke - Thursday, August 6, 2015 - link

    "I think WMC was one of Microsoft’s finest examples of good software bundled with hardware support"

    I almost couldn't believe that I read that. I think hardware support was one of the biggest reasons WMC never really took off with users. Windows XP media center edition launched in 2002, and was fully baked into Windows Vista at launch in 2007. In the area I live, OTA television is pretty minimal, so to get Windows Media Center to do what it was billed to do I needed a cablecard tuner. For those first 7 years until Windows 7, what was available for hardware? Ah yes, the ATI Cablecard tuner, that supported one continuous stream, for $400. If you wanted to watch a show and record something else, or stream live TV to extenders you needed additional tuners at $400 a pop. Not to mention the hardware options for extenders were atrocious. In the end the Xbox 360 was the most viable option when it debuted in 2005. But at a cost of over $300 for each loud power hungry extender?
    The buy in was simply ridiculous, and OEM vendors quickly abandoned the concept. The cost of a PC, multiple tuners and extenders was outrageous but necessary make the thing work as it was intended. By the time Xbox 360s were more affordable and less power hungry and the Ceton quad tuner card had launched the software had essentially already been abandoned.
    This was evidenced by the fact that Microsoft never bothered to update Media center never to play Blu-ray media or most file extensions that had become popular such as .mkv. Beyond Netflix, no other streaming media plugins were ever added. So now that the TV end was finally solved in 2009, new popular media formats were unsupported. Making a whole system a wash. Once the hardware support finally arrived, the software support was gone. Media center could be beefed up with software like My Movies to transcode and Cyberlink PowerDVD to augment playback, but that was hardly user friendly.

    One to the Xbox portion of your article. Replacing Media Center with a single low cost system that most users already have in the living room does seem to be a good idea, but it is hardly novel. The software now known as Kodi was originally designed as Xbox Media Center (XBMC). The original DirectX Box, was a locked down x86 based system that could be converted to a media center by installing this third party software. Microsoft has decided to take the once again x86 based Xbox One and turn it into a media center that also plays games. The Xbox one has fixed many of WMCs problems. Blu-ray playback is supported, along with most video file extensions via DLNA. Also, most streaming services have an app readily available. However, I actually feel that software like Kodi and Mediaportal do a better job of replacing Media Center than the Xbox One currently. Both also support most local media much like the Xbox One. On Mediaportal I have a single server PC and then smaller client PCs on other TV that can stream images, music and most video file extensions along with the Ceton Cablecard tuner (Sadly only copy freely content). But, I can watch TV on the server PC and watch and record different programs on the client PCs.
    Xbox One with smartglass also requires client PCs to stream via the app. But the TV tuner supports only OTA, and is just one tuner per device. So I can watch TV on the primary device, or I can stream to a client device. What if I want to do both, or also record something? Hello again ATI cable card tuner and 2005, how I missed you. So Microsoft's solution and hardware support for TV on their new device designed to replace WMC is exactly the same as WMC 10 years ago but with fewer channels. Good Gravy! Sure, the TV stuff is less of an issue now with the rise of DVD/Bluray storage as .mkv and streaming services, but still! At least with Mediaportal I can stream TV around the house from one central location and watch all my local content. Granted, streaming services aren't baked it, but on a PC the browser is never far away.

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