In a recent Building Windows 8 blog post, Microsoft announced the new product editions for Windows 8. For HTPC-enthusiasts, the announcement turned out to be a good news/bad news proposition. The good news was that Microsoft plans to streamline their offerings, reducing the number of product editions that they plan on offering for x86/x64 PCs to just Windows 8 and Windows […]
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Well it seems that Microsoft has answered the question that many devoted WMC users have been asking since the initial builds of Win8 were released to the public: “Will Media Center be included?” And the answer from Microsoft, buried deep within a blog post describing the various versions of Windows 8, is no. Instead it will be available as an […]
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Media Browser has received a minor update, bringing the popular media management plugin for Windows Media Center to version 2.5.3. The update is focused on bug fixes rather than new features. For instance there is a fix for memory leaks in the Media Browser service and a couple of fixes to ensure that podcasts and TV episodes show up correctly […]
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Microsoft will be attending the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, but not just for Windows Phone. Microsoft will also be hosting a Windows 8 Consumer Preview event to launch the next phase of their Windows 8 beta program. While launching the Windows 8 Consumer Preview at WMC will lead to all sorts of speculation about how Windows 8 will tie […]
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While not directly HTPC or Media Center related, Microsoft has announced that Kinect for Windows will be available starting February 1st. There is currently no mentioning of Media Center support or anything along those lines but it is a bit interesting to see Microsoft go this route. Only time will tell what this will really get us but having voice […]
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MadeforMediaCenter.com has added a new Windows Media Center plugin to its catalog: Media Center Calendars. As the name implies, Media Center Calendars brings your calendar into WMC. The free plugin can import your Outlook 2010, Exchange, Windows Live, or Google calendars into WMC and you can even run an optional background app to provide appointment alerts. I’ve only used the […]
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MPC MediaFile Premium, an application for organizing media files and metadata, has been updated to version 1.2. I started using MPC MediaFile a couple of months ago for sorting my disorganized TV episodes into a proper folder structure and have been pretty impressed with it. The new version adds several new features including support for VIDEO_TS folders, native Media Center DVD Library metadata, […]
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In the run-up to the “Titan” release of Media Browser, the MB team launched the Media Browser Store where MB users could purchase premium plug-ins and themes. From the beginning, the Media Browser Store allowed developers to bundle together popular plug-ins for a discount. Now, the Media Browser Store has come up with another way to encourage users to buy […]
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In the last year or so, the only version of Windows that seems to have given Windows Media Center a whole lot of love is Windows 7 Embedded. Windows Media Center was a showcase feature in Windows 7 Embedded Standard and pitched at set-top box OEMs. Windows 7 Embedded Standard even included OEM-only tools for customizing WMC’s start menu and […]
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It doesn’t happen often, but I don’t currently have any Nvidia GPUs in my house and so I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing the problem of WMC throwing a black screen during playback. If you have been experiencing black screen issues during playback on your Nvidia equipped HTPC, it might be a good idea to download Nvidia’s 285.79 drivers. […]
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