A look at Windows 7 Media Center
This post was written by Guest Writer Azhar from Geeyk.com. Please take your time to submit a rating for the post after you have finished reading it.
We all remember Windows XP Media Center, an operating system Microsoft had made that was intended for people to watch TV on their computers. In theory, it seemed like a good idea but it ended up failing to impress users and sales were low. Microsoft has learned a big lesson from their XP Media Center mistake and is aiming for a much better and useful TV on computer with Windows 7 Media Center. We’re going to take a look at some of Windows 7 Media Center’s new features and how it could possibly change the way we watch TV in the future.
A few of the new features we’ll find in Windows 7 Media Center include easier access to content on IPTV, well integrated TV guides with IPTV, standard and hi-def content, rich touch-screen capabilities, more customizable content and superior tools for finding, accessing and navigating through a variety of video content. PC based TV viewing is still not yet mainstream as Microsoft had hoped. They still have a long way to go before users start watching TV shows on their computers as a replacement for high end LCD or Plasma TVs. For now, Microsoft is hoping to generate interest in the PC-as-TV concept with some clever strategies to attract new users.
First and foremost, Microsoft is gaining access to exclusive content that can only be watched on the Media Center PC. One unique service they are offering is called SportsLounge, which is a hub for all the sports fans to view current sports played, track fantasy football teams’ performance, and highlights for missed matches. Microsoft also gained a lot of exposure during the Beijing Olympics where they had partnered with NBC to deliver the games to Media Center customers. Any sports fan could watch or download footage of a specific sports event rather than having to also go through the ones they didn’t want to watch on TV. There is also MSNBC news for Media Center which is more interactive and user-friendly than any news channel or news website out there.
Any Media Center user could also download specific clips based on his liking for viewing later, news can be searched based on topics, keywords, editors choice, etc. With this, you can process news much faster and to your liking rather than being at the mercy of news channels.
Microsoft has also been getting serious about IPTV, which will be huge in the coming years as internet speeds increase. One problem Microsoft had with Media Center XP was that users were unwilling to install TV-tuner cards on their PCs. They’ve improved this in Windows 7 Media Center to have it first check for a cable connection, and if it doesn’t find one it will only show listings from internet programming.
The Interface and Navigation of Windows 7 Media Center has been improved substantially. The touch screen capabilities are very intuitive with flick capabilities. The interface also automatically knows if you are using a keyboard and mouse configuration or a TV remote to navigate and will adjust the interface accordingly. Windows 7 Media Center looks to be very promising and it seems Microsoft has put in lot of effort to get it right this time. Let us know your views about Media Center and do you think it will be the new TV?
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Tags: media center, windows 7, windows 7 media center
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27 Responses to “A look at Windows 7 Media Center”
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I believe it will replace DVRs at one point due to the fact their will be no monthly fees except maybe cablecard rental. That is generally $5 or more dollors cheaper. With media center extenders, people can still watch HD content on LCD TVs.
Not to be a naysayer, but I really only gleamed a few points from this, most of which are rather old news.
All of Windows 7 will be touch-enabled, adaptive, yadda, yadda.
Media Center will load MS’s IPTV channels… something they’ve said they would do all along, the requirement for cable channels was due to needing the guide data for testing and diagnostics.
The NBC integration is already in TV Pack 2008, freely available to download for Vista customers. SportsLounge should be around shortly.
What remains to be answered, are the questions Microsoft has promised to answer to me personally (and on my blog) for five months… namely, when will CableCARD DRM restrictions be removed (per the new CableLabs policy), and will Microsoft require hardware makers to enable ClearQAM in order to be certified for Windows 7.
(Most TV tuners today support ClearQAM for unencrypted digital cable, but very few work with Media Center today).
It is Microsoft, out of touch as usual.
1) what resolutions? 1080P is manditory or you might as well pack it in.
2)lightweight? TV’s cost and power consumption vs computer/monitor. I am guessing this is Vista code and will consume ram, CPU and hard drive space ten fold more than it needs to.
I will need a reason to change from my present TV and Windows XP movie player/server. I will not be changing for a prettier interface as I use this to watch TV and movies. I certainly will not upgrade my RAM or video card to change OS.
Impress me please, make this more efficient. I don’t need more features but I could use a lower electric bill.
Good article!
Windows 7 MC looks promising, though so far what you’ve mentioned has already been released for existing Vista Media Center PCs installed w/ TV Pack 2008.
Having built my first HTPC a month ago, I’ve advanced my knowledge of this TV on PC concept a lot. VMC, for all its good, just has a lot of annoying bugs that I feel the Microsoft team isn’t as quick to fix as they should be. Lately, I’ve been dealing with corrupted XML files, and the on-screen guide glitches don’t help either (TV Pack 08 glitches that is)
Regardless, I’ll be watching this topic closely and with great anticipation. Windows Media Center is a cool idea, but for god sakes Microsoft, fix the bugs!
? ? ?? ??????? 7 ?????? ?????????? ?? ?????? ????? ???? ??????? ????? ????? ??????? ?? ??? ?? ????????
I na windows 7 nemogu smotret Online TV pishit “You need a Windows Media Player plug-in to view this “
here why they push it…
look this the FUTURE TV MEDIA CENTER
Umm… so what remote control will people use? Is there any plans for Microsoft to announce a new remote control? I looked on their site and they don’t seem to carry them anymore. I liked the one that I use for MCE2005 because it is very simple. Logitech ones are hard to use and too expensive. Anyone have any insights on this?
We ditched Sky last month and have been using Windows Media Center on Vista since. It has been pretty good, from what I can tell and the series linking functionality is far better than Sky’s ever was!
I can’t wait to install Windows 7 at the weekend and see how that measures up!
Have been running win7 as a htpc-server for several weeks, it has a dual tuner card and the HDTV television is conneted to a D-Link DMS-750 MCE extender in the family room. Works great and is very stable. The live-tv works like an advanced PVR, it easily finds the programs I like, records them and sorts them out for me to watch when I want to. Only challenge is the file sharing, too many options and confusing, seems file sharing works one minute then not the next. Very clean interface, good performance tools for monitoring whats going on in the background. My plan is to purchase one more extender for the upstairs tv and get 5 copies of a software mce extender(when it comes out) for the other computers so live tv, pvr and dvd library will be available on all devices in the house.
Just wondering if they have released any sort of software media center extender yet… this post is about the only thing that I have been able to find other than webguide which is a good solution… just not as elegant as the media center interface. Any help / comments would be greatly appreciated
http://asciiexpress.com/webguide/default.aspx
their live tv is sorely lacking. once again microsoft dictates what the user is “allowed” to do with their computer. If you want to watch tv with windows media center, it constantly writes to your hard drive while you watch tv. constantly. it writes a buffer, and you are not allowed to disable this “feature”. you are not allowed to set the buffer to say, 4mins, which is about what most people would find useful for pausing live tv etc, but no. you MUST have at least a 30 min buffer for live tv. i wonder how long our hard drives will last being forced to run constant sustained writes?
Vinny,
The mce for live tv behaves the same as any cablco pvr, or tivo. As you watch tv it records the program incase you want to rewind to the beginning. Based on the guide it will record the entire 30/60 minutes or as long as the guide indicates. The harddrive will last about 10000 hours or about 1.5 years, so yes you will need to replace your hard drive about every 2 years. And yes I do agree with you that is it lacking in several features that are annoying, I guess they try to only enable stuff that works well and as expected by the customers. I have tried almost every other media server and each one has better stuff that sometimes works and small things that just dont work. Aswell keep in mind that Microsoft walks the fine line between complying with copyright laws and building a flexible system, so there are alot of DRM things that go on in the background that slow down the server and limit funtionality, I guess it sucks to be Bill.
I have had MCE2005 running as a sole htpc & media streaming server for over 7 years. I have 2 drives in Raid 0. Never had a problem.
In addition 4 minutes of buffering is not close to enough for an average pause in my experience over the last 7 years.
hi.driver cardtv windows7
I am sure this its the future.
look at this
Windows 7 Tv Media center Launch.
http://www.ii-view.com
they Are OEM Microsoft and Partner on new Tv Media center
http://121.15.245.50:8080/MTC-47.jpg
Thanks alot, for the great post!
I found a youtube video about watching tv online that I would like to share: International tv online.
but seriously, amazing post and thank you so much !
i look forward to your next article !
<3
But still, Windows 7 Media Center still has the same annoying “feature” where on a dual monitor setup, once the MC goes fullscreen on a monitor, it kidnaps the mouse, preventing you from using the mouse for doing other things on the other monitor.
yep. I agree. they need to fix this. You can minimize MC and it will release the mouse, but it is annoying.
I am not into TV watching, I a more an internet surfer
Thanks a lot for your helpful publish. I have been investigating for this for a long time in many sites. Windows 7 is a admirable software ever. I know a software called Win7Zilla to tweak Windows 7 efficiently
liked this article!
“We’re going to take a look at some of Windows 7 Media Center’s new features and how it could possibly change the way we watch TV in the future.”
Where I have been able to read about this?
Greetings from Michigan! Just ran across your site. Actually visited your article, I’ll pass it along! B) Have a excellent day!
All those saying stuff about it already being available for vista.. vista sucks! Windows 7 actually works and the internet tv is very simple to use and works very well I use media center all the time
ExcellentWebsite you got here.. BTW, nice theme also..