Microsoft Windows components
Template:Infobox Windows component Windows Media Center (codenamed "Freestyle" during development) is an application with a 10-foot user interface designed to serve as a home-entertainment hub for the living-room TV. It is included in Windows XP Media Center Edition, which must be installed as an operating system, as the application cannot be added to an existing installation of XP. It is also included in premium editions of Windows Vista (Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate) and Windows 7 (all editions, except Starter and Home Basic). It is designed to be controlled by special remote controls which prominently feature the Green Button (similar to the logo to the right), but can also be operated with a mouse and/or keyboard. This button is used to either launch Media Center from Windows or to return to the Start Menu from within the application. Media Center plays the computer user's pictures, videos, and music from local hard drives, optical drives, and network locations. It then categorizes them by name, date, tags, and other file attributes. Media managed through Media Center can also be relayed via a home network to standard TV sets via the specially designed Windows Media Center Extender or the Xbox 360.
With the addition of TV tuner devices, Media Center can play back and record scheduled TV shows from a variety of broadcast formats and sources. Currently, Media Center directly supports broadcasts in the following digital HDTV formats: ATSC, DVB, ISDB, and QAM (both ClearQAM and CableCARD-encrypted); analog broadcast formats are supported in several variants of both NTSC and PAL. Media Center can record television from over-the-air broadcasts (e.g. connecting an antenna to a tuner), analog or digital cable, and analog set-top boxes via composite or S-Video connections. In the United States, digital cable is supported by connecting a Digital Cable Tuner; premium (encrypted) channels may be viewed through use of a CableCARD acquired from the subscriber's cable company. Media Center supports up to 4 tuners of each broadcast type; for example, 4 ATSC tuners and 4 ClearQAM tuners, or 4 PAL tuners and 4 DVB-T tuners. Set-top boxes are controlled via infrared blasting.
Television programs can be recorded for later playback on the local Media Center, a network-connected Extenders, or another computer. Content may also be burned to DVD if it does not have DRM or transferred to a portable device. Media Center supports pausing and replaying live TV broadcasts, and multiple channels may be recorded and viewed simultaneously, limited only by the number of tuners available to Media Center. Programs may be scheduled for recording individually, by "series" (where programs that have the same title are recorded automatically), by keyword (where the program's description is used to match against the keyword), manually (e.g. channel X at time Y for duration Z), or by actor/director.
Connectivity features of Media Center include various inputs and outputs, for example for RCA type cables (e.g., from cassette players or analog videocassette recorders), microphones, digital video signals and other inputs. Analog to digital conversion within the tuner card enables users to convert older type media to digital media.
Windows Media Center organizes and displays music stored on and network locations accessible to the computer. Music can then be played by selecting "Music" from the Start Menu. In the default view, albums are arranged in alphabetical order with accompanying album art. Album art can be downloaded off the Internet automatically, or it can be added manually into Media Center. The user can create playlists of different songs or albums, which can also be edited within Media Center or in Windows Media Player, as the music library is shared between the two applications.
When playing music, the user can pause and fast forward music, as long as the music format supports it (e.g. MP3 supports it, but FLAC does not). The user also has the option to shuffle or repeat music in the queue. Visualizations, as in Windows Media Player, can also be viewed, although Extenders do not have this option.
Pictures are browsed and managed in the same way as music, by selecting the picture gallery from the Start Menu. Pictures may be viewed singly or in a slide show, with or without music. Slide shows can be saved and used as a Windows screen saver. Simple edits, such as cropping, red eye removal, and rotation are available, and like all Media Center features, usable with a remote control. In Windows 7, the "ambient slide show" format was added, which lays out photos from the collection in a collage-style grid that pans and zooms into individual pictures. This is the default "screen saver" mode for Media Center in Windows 7.
Pictures can be imported from cameras or memory cards using Media Center through a process that activates when the camera is attached or memory card is inserted into an attached reader. This process is similar to the sync process used to copy music to portable devices from inside Media Center.
Media Center can also play back video from URLs as well as server and client side playlists. In prior versions, a plug-in was required, but this is supported out-of-the-box now.
Some TV tuners support FM radio. Media Center supports play back of all FM tuned stations, and bookmarking and naming favorite stations.
Windows Media Center has the ability to synchronize media with certain portable devices. These devices include Windows Mobile Pocket PCs, Smartphones, Portable Media Centers, and other players that can sync with Windows Media Player. Microsoft's Zune cannot use the sync function, but can play DVR-MS files using the when copied to a Zune monitored folder. Music can still be shared between Zune and Media Center, but the sync process is managed by the Zune software instead of Windows Media Center or WMP.
While synchronizing television shows, Windows Media Center encodes the shows using Windows Media Encoder to a Windows Media Video format at a lower bitrate than the DVR-MS format used for viewing on the desktop media center. This is to complement the limited storage space and processing power of such portable devices. Optionally, music can also be re-encoded to a smaller file size upon synchronization.
Windows Media Center allows skipping or fast-forwarding through commercials of recorded programs. Pressing the "Skip" button on the remote control, "next track" button on a keyboard with media keys, or Ctrl-F will (by default) skip forward by ~30 seconds. Pressing "Replay" on the remote control, "previous track" button on the keyboard, or Ctrl-B will skip back by ~8 seconds.
In Windows 7, Windows Media Center added advanced seeking controls, including a clickable timeline (i.e. clicking on the timeline will seek to that position in the content) and "multi-skip" for advanced users. The timeline also shows a thumbnail preview of the video content at that point in the timeline when dragging the "time bubble" with the mouse. Multiple skips may be executed at the same time by prefacing the button press with digit entry (e.g. to skip forward 4 times, press 4-Skip). To seek to a specific time index, one can input the time with digits followed by "Play" on the remote control or media keyboard, or Ctrl-P on a keyboard; time is entered in hours and minutes (e.g. to seek to the 1hr 10min mark, press 1-1-0-Play). If the content is a live program, one can seek to a specific "clock time" by entering the digits of that time followed by "Play" in the same fashion (e.g. to seek to what was showing at 2:30 (as long as it is in the pause buffer), press 2-3-0-Play). To seek forward or backward by a specific amount of time, one can enter the digits in minutes and seconds followed by the "Ffw" or "Rew" button, respectively.
The ability to skip commercials automatically may be added by installing external plug-ins (not supported by Microsoft) like DVRMSToolbox, Lifextender or MCEBuddy.
The final version of Windows XP Media Center Edition was 2005 Update Rollup 2 (UR2), which is basically Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (SP2) with the additional Media Center functionality. The main feature of Windows Professional Edition that Media Center 2005 lacks is support for Domain Controllers. XP MCE 2005 was the first version of Media Center that could be bought other than on a pre-built system, but it was available only under OEM licensing.
Windows XP Media Center 2005 runs well on reasonably low-end hardware, such as a Celeron D with integrated graphics (256 MB of video memory required to view HDTV content).
Windows Media Center in Windows Vista includes a redesigned menu system that takes advantage of the graphics capabilities of the operating system as well as the common 16:9 aspect ratio. Each button in the main menu, which contains sections such as "Music", "Videos", and "TV", gets encased in a box when selected, and for each selection, a sub-menu comes up, extending horizontally. When any of the options is selected, the entries for each are presented in a grid-like structure, with each item being identified by album art, if it's an audio file, or a thumbnail image if it is a picture, a video or a TV recording, and other related options, such as different views for the music collection if "Music" is selected, extend horizontally along the top of the grid. Similarly, other items are identified by suggestive artwork. The grid displaying the items is also extended horizontally, and the selected item is enlarged compared to the rest.
Other features of Windows Vista Media Center include:
Internet TV is a feature, which integrates with the Windows Vista version of Windows Media Center, and allows users to browse (using a UI like the offline video library browsing view) and view streaming, Internet-delivered video from within the Media Center interface or Windows Media Center Extender.
On July 16, 2008, Microsoft released the Media Center TV Pack 2008 after the product was beta-tested between late May and early June 2008.[2] The software, which was previously codenamed "Fiji",[3] was released as an OEM only feature and will not be released as a standalone update for people who have already bought a computer with Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate installed.[4]
Microsoft has also confirmed that, unlike other Feature Packs released for Windows Vista SP1, that TV Pack 2008 will not be included in Windows Vista Service Pack 2. Microsoft has not commented as to why TV Pack 2008 will not be included in the next Windows service pack.[5]
Aside from changes to the UI, other new features include: improved control over TV tuners, replacement of the .dvr-ms filetype with .wtv files, favorite channels listing, ability to change digital OTA channel numbers, digital OTA subchannel support, native QAM support, DVB-S support, MHEG support (digital interactive, e.g BBC Red Button) and heterogeneous TV tuner support.[6][7] In the beta there was support for H.264 (which allows for DirecTV) streams, however that feature has since been removed from the release version.[8]
In an interview, Windows Client Business Group manager Ben Green noted, "The product is designed to add new television standards support, enhance the user interface and set up experience, and add interactive TV features to Windows Media Center."[3]
The 32-bit Installer for the TV Pack was leaked on August 6, 2008 in the reply to EngadgetHD's article reviewing a copy of the update. The installer was then taken down from the source but subsequently has been posted to many other sites and the links to both the 32-bit and 64-bit installers can be found on AVS Forum. The final build number of the updated Media Center is: 6.1.1000.18273 (longhorn_mc_dev(wmbla).080702-2208).[9] which is the confirmed RTM build as stated in Microsoft KB article 955485. Microsoft's page for TV Pack hosts download information[1]. When TV Pack is installed, it is possible in Vista Home Premium to have 2 tuners of each type supported, and within Vista Ultimate this limit is raised to 4 tuners per type, allowing therefore to have 4 DVB-S and 4 DVB-T tuners working concurrently.
Windows Media Center in Windows 7 includes all of the features that were included with TV Pack 2008 as well as several other new enhancements. Users have reported that Windows Media Center in Windows 7 is significantly faster and less buggy than Windows Vista with TV Pack 2008. Some notable enhancements in Windows 7 Media Center include: a new startup animation, a new startup sound, a new mini guide, a new scrub bar, the option to color code the guide by show type, internet content is more tightly integrated with regular TV via the guide, native QAM support that also finds channels that have PSIP data, ATSC sub-channels are supported and include guide data. All Windows 7 versions support up to four tuners of each type (QAM, ATSC, CableCARD, NTSC, etc).
The beta phase ended in October 2009 with the release of InternetTV 3.2.1 through Windows Update. This version refines the UI to integrate better with the rest of Media Center and adds many more channels like CBS and PBS, shows like the original Star Trek series, clips from Showtime and CW networks and Zune podcast services including HDNet material to the existing content from MSN, MSNBC and MTV.[10] During the beta phase the UK editions of Windows 7 received an update which allowed Internet TV BETA2 and through this allowed all the content on the MSN Video Player site for the UK however later disappeared.[11]
After integrating the Netflix Watch Instantly service exclusively in Xbox360, Microsoft and Netflix brought a version of this service designed for Media Center in Windows Vista and Windows 7 to consumers in October 2009.
Microsoft has announced a deal with BSkyB to make the Sky Player with both on-demand content and 24 live streaming tv channels (content will depend largely on the package) to users of Windows Media Center, there will be an added cost where Sky Multi-room is required. The same options will appear on Xbox 360's. The service however wont be launching with any HD content and is set to launch before christmas.[12]
Windows Media Center was designed as a programmable platform; other programs can tie into the Media Center UI using the WMC API, which is provided as a managed API. The functionality of Windows Media Center can be extended by three different types of applications:[13]
UI elements, each exposing four attributes: Content which defines what that UI element will display, Properties to control the presentation aspects of the element, Locals which enumerate the set of private state data for the element, and Rules which allow the attributes to be modified based on certain triggers. By modifying these attributes at runtime, either from markup or code behind classes, the interface is generated.[15]Media Center Extenders will warn that the 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi adapter may not be able to sustain the desired rate for a peak clarity. In this event Media Centers will automatically scale back the rate with the effect of causing a temporarily reduction in visual fidelity until congestion over the Wi-Fi link is cleared up. Use of a different primary Wi-Fi channel such as 1, 6, or 11 that has less use in the environment can also address this issue.
It should be noted that Wireless Home Phones and Microwave ovens frequently cause Channel Pollution which will interfere with the Wi-Fi signal and can cause the session to reset itself. Some 802.11n Wi-Fi access points can be configured to use a different frequency to avoid this situation.
Where multiple wireless XBOX 360 Media Center Extender Clients will be used in the same home on the same Wi-Fi channel, Channel Pollution also known as contention can occur on the wireless channel. This can be avoided by setting up one access point per wireless Media Center Extender on a dedicated Wi-Fi primary channel. Alternatively, the Wi-Fi router can be connected via Ethernet to the same network switch as the XBOX 360 or other Extender. In order for all of the Media Center Extenders to communicate with the same Media Center, the wireless network on each access point should be bridged to and should be configured on the same subnet as the Media Center Computer.
