RIP Windows Media Center

...or running an older version of Windows which is more suitable for the task(s) required. It's so crazy that it might actually work! :D
 
pxc said:
...or running an older version of Windows which is more suitable for the task(s) required. It's so crazy that it might actually work! :D
Click to expand...

I will miss it but, since I moved my computer off the TV, I have not used the Media Center since. Only thing now is, I have to figure out what I need to do to rip my DVD's and Bluray's to be able to play from my NAS to my Xbox one.

Can anyone suggest or help me with that?
 
ManofGod said:
I will miss it but, since I moved my computer off the TV, I have not used the Media Center since. Only thing now is, I have to figure out what I need to do to rip my DVD's and Bluray's to be able to play from my NAS to my Xbox one.

Can anyone suggest or help me with that?
Click to expand...

Yea check this site out

www.google.com
 
Looks like I'm staying with 7. Or maybe move my htpc to 8.1 one day. Has anyone tried media portal?
 
Verge said:
Yea check this site out

www.google.com
Click to expand...

Umm, how about so straight up suggestions. Google pulls up good stuff and straight up crap mixed together. I am asking here because I figured some of you have already done the same or similar thing of what I am asking.
 
I wonder what exactly this is. I am unsure if it is an application you would install to view TV from your HDHomeRun Prime or if it is some sort of software for your storage devices. I suppose I need to read up on this as soon as possible as I currently view TV on my PCs with various Hauppauge CableCard devices. Looking at Sichbopvr, it does not appear to be compatible with any of the ones I own. Same goes for Open Media Portal.
 
This means cable card is dead too. *sigh*

Someone needs to get Cablecard software support and quick. MediaCenter was the best at it.

I really want to cut the cable cord, but there are still too many of the premium channels that my GF and I watch that aren't found on Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Prime yet. Fuck renting a DVR. I've done it. They blow so much.

rene mauricio said:
I wonder what exactly this is. I am unsure if it is an application you would install to view TV from your HDHomeRun Prime or if it is some sort of software for your storage devices. I suppose I need to read up on this as soon as possible as I currently view TV on my PCs with various Hauppauge CableCard devices. Looking at Sichbopvr, it does not appear to be compatible with any of the ones I own. Same goes for Open Media Portal.
Click to expand...
This needs to support copy-once for premium channels, or it too will die. I see nothing in the documentation for that product that it will support copy-once. Plenty of other software and hacks to use that support copy freely already. Time Warner marks everything copy-once, even broadcast channels. Such a pain.
 
Last edited:
I hear you. I would not exactly say this will 'kill' CableCARD as there are plenty of alternatives - of which I have yet to find one that is simple and efficient. So far my only alternative seems to be WinTV 8 but that thing has no guide and seems to be constantly streaming regardless of the application being open or not.

I wonder if it is still possible to stream the channels via Media Player as it currently sees my CableCARD device as a DNLA server. Then again, it might only be doing that because Media Center is installed...
 
Why not keep offering it, it serves a vital need for many people and has no equivalent. Its not as if its old or doesn't work.

And they could also open source it rather easily if they manage to work out some sort of deal with the cable card alliance aka cable mafia, its not as if that's a thriving industry.
 
I've never used WMC much - but can't XBMC/Kodi do most of the same things?
 
MrCrispy said:
Why not keep offering it, it serves a vital need for many people and has no equivalent. Its not as if its old or doesn't work.

And they could also open source it rather easily if they manage to work out some sort of deal with the cable card alliance aka cable mafia, its not as if that's a thriving industry.
Click to expand...

Microsoft doesn't Open Source it's code (yes, I'm sure there is an exception somewhere). But what if they did. Every hacker would be all over that code, and soon enough, we would have all kinds of media infected with malware. Just my 2 cents.
 
x509 said:
Microsoft doesn't Open Source it's code (yes, I'm sure there is an exception somewhere). But what if they did. Every hacker would be all over that code, and soon enough, we would have all kinds of media infected with malware. Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...

That's not how open source works, in fact I've never seen malware in any open source project.

And MS has done it for huge projects like .NET , CLR etc.
 
MrCrispy said:
Why not keep offering it, it serves a vital need for many people and has no equivalent. Its not as if its old or doesn't work.
Click to expand...

The critical piece, the CableCard support, cable companies would never allow Microsoft to open source.
 
ManofGod said:
I will miss it but, since I moved my computer off the TV, I have not used the Media Center since. Only thing now is, I have to figure out what I need to do to rip my DVD's and Bluray's to be able to play from my NAS to my Xbox one.

Can anyone suggest or help me with that?
Click to expand...

I don't mess with dvds much anymore but bd rebuilder is very nice app for converting bds to dvd-5 size or whatever (which in my opinion looks the same as full size or dam close) its a free app so far http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=143716...you just need anydvd which is not free to copy the bd to your pc first.

You can store a lot of bluerays on one harddisk this way and most cheap media players like the ones western digital make work great, but i have never tried playing on an xbox from a hard disk.....should work i would think
 
Tsumi said:
What would I use for Xbox 360 streaming?
Click to expand...
For personal media? Plex is probably your best bet.

I don't really know of any other live-TV solution for the 360 besides using it as a media center extender for Windows Media Center, though...
 
Tsumi said:
What would I use for Xbox 360 streaming?
Click to expand...

I think the removal of MC is basically Microsoft admitting the 360 no longer has any place in their ecosystem aside from being a way to play "legacy" games.
 
rene mauricio said:
I hear you. I would not exactly say this will 'kill' CableCARD as there are plenty of alternatives - of which I have yet to find one that is simple and efficient. So far my only alternative seems to be WinTV 8 but that thing has no guide and seems to be constantly streaming regardless of the application being open or not.

I wonder if it is still possible to stream the channels via Media Player as it currently sees my CableCARD device as a DNLA server. Then again, it might only be doing that because Media Center is installed...
Click to expand...

I assume that is a HDHomerun device. DLNA will only stream protected content to DTCP-IP supporting clients.
 
Tawnos said:
Windows media player, xbox video, any other dlna player should work.
Click to expand...

Is there anyway to play ripped dvd's and Blurays to Xbox Video on Xbox One and 360 from a NAS? (They were ripped with DVD Decryptor and AnyDVD. I own every one that I have ripped.) I used to play these through my PC with Window Media Center but I no longer have that hooked to my TV.
 
MrCrispy said:
That's not how open source works, in fact I've never seen malware in any open source project.

And MS has done it for huge projects like .NET , CLR etc.
Click to expand...

It's not that the hackers will infect the Open Source apps. They will find vulnerabilities in those apps and the infect the files that those apps run. Adobe Acrobat has been a favorite for hackers. They know all the vulnerabilities in older versions of Acrobat reader, and then infect PDFs. For other "rendering" programs, it could be jpgs or mp3s. Etc

And when MS does do an Open Souce, it ain't exactly out of benevolence. They want .NET to work on other platforms, to fight against things like Java Beans ( ? - someone fact check me on this) Microsoft may not be evil the way Google is, but they never forget the profit motive.
 
It doesn't really matter w.r.t open source/malware etc. It all comes down to politics, Media Center was abandoned because management decided they didn't want to offer it anymore, its not like its had any resources spent on it the last few years, they just wanted to distance themselves.

Offering it as a download with no support, or giving the code away, costs them nothing, except for internal politics. Plenty of high profile projects get cancelled due to stuff like this. Since WMC wasn't 'aligned' with Xbox (management types love to use the word aligned), it had to go, and they'll doubtless have a bunch of powerpoint slides to justify the 'synergy' this achieves.
 
MrCrispy said:
Offering it as a download with no support, or giving the code away, costs them nothing, except for internal politics.
Click to expand...

The only thing in WMC that's really unique is the CableCard support. Cable companies would never allow that code to go public.
 
ManofGod said:
Is there anyway to play ripped dvd's and Blurays to Xbox Video on Xbox One and 360 from a NAS? (They were ripped with DVD Decryptor and AnyDVD. I own every one that I have ripped.) I used to play these through my PC with Window Media Center but I no longer have that hooked to my TV.
Click to expand...

Dunno about the 360, but you can play MKV and other such formats on the xbox one.
 
MrCrispy said:
IMedia Center was abandoned because management decided they didn't want to offer it anymore, its not like its had any resources spent on it the last few years
Click to expand...

At least when I left the Windows team a bit less than 3 years ago, that wasn't true. Even without updates, supporting WMC took a fair amount of resources from other development. You might be right for why they don't want to offer it, but I don't know. Usually these things are way more complicated than speculating forumgoers realize.
 
Tawnos said:
At least when I left the Windows team a bit less than 3 years ago, that wasn't true. Even without updates, supporting WMC took a fair amount of resources from other development. You might be right for why they don't want to offer it, but I don't know. Usually these things are way more complicated than speculating forumgoers realize.
Click to expand...

Its really not very complicated. Microsoft saw little or no way to monetize giving people the ability to stream online, cablecard tuners or from local media files, because they lacked the vision and execution to make themselves gatekeeper for monetization before letting the cat out of the bag. So the official corporate policy on viewing/renting movies and music became Xbox-Xbox-Xbox, since its a sterile and closed environment where they do have that end to end control.

Its not unlike their policy on PC gaming - they were asleep at the wheel as usual and missed the opportunity and vision to be Steam, so the corporate policy toward videogaming became Xbox-Xbox-Xbox and to hell with PC gaming, excepting an anemic DirectX iteration every 3-5 years tied to an OS revision to maintain platform lockin.

And now with the Magical Cloud fad that MS is hitching their wagons to, there's less room for a locally oriented media and CableTV management system than ever. I'm not surprised its not in Windows 10, but I think its pretty rotten that it gets removed if you already had it installed in Windows 7 or 8. One more reason to avoid Windows 10.
 
DPI, you've spammed the forum with more anti-Microsoft vitriol in your past two years than the sum total of my posts in the past 13+ years. It's okay to come into a topic and try to be constructive rather than be a pigeon (you know, shit all over everything then strut around like you're the best?).

Even where Microsoft has seen those ideas in the past (before my time here), there has been a sad history of being too early to market and/or too late. Too early: tablets, web tv, smartphones, etc. Too late: quite often, the same list. There have been many missteps along the way, along with a ton of advancements (some prematurely abandoned and then brought back years after someone else ran all the way with an idea), but it's got nothing to do with the view you propose. A lot of skilled, passionate engineers put in countless hours to work on their projects, and if there's one thing I've found here, it's that there is no cut and dried reason that anything goes the way it does.

What I can say, however, is that I've seen more to excite me in the past year or so than I have in the prior decade. Yes, this means some projects get cut, but it appears to me to have nothing to do with your your claim of sterile, closed environments and control. Instead, I'm seeing a focus on shrinking the variety of competing internal teams to focus on delivering the things customers request, faster. Instead of a half dozen fiefdoms each competing to put forth their sometimes disparate vision (Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Microsoft TV, Silverlight, Xbox (which came from Zune but dropped a ton of what Zune did and has slowly gained it back), etc for video playback alone), there is a renewed focus on producing better software, faster. Yes, the goal is still to provide the platform and products customers want to use, because at the end of the day we are a company and have jobs that need to support our living, but that isn't about control, it's about our drive to compete while doing awesome stuff.
 
Tawnos said:
DPI, you've spammed the forum with more anti-Microsoft vitriol in your past two years than the sum total of my posts in the past 13+ years. It's okay to come into a topic and try to be constructive rather than be a pigeon (you know, shit all over everything then strut around like you're the best?).

Even where Microsoft has seen those ideas in the past (before my time here), there has been a sad history of being too early to market and/or too late. Too early: tablets, web tv, smartphones, etc. Too late: quite often, the same list. There have been many missteps along the way, along with a ton of advancements (some prematurely abandoned and then brought back years after someone else ran all the way with an idea), but it's got nothing to do with the view you propose. A lot of skilled, passionate engineers put in countless hours to work on their projects, and if there's one thing I've found here, it's that there is no cut and dried reason that anything goes the way it does.

What I can say, however, is that I've seen more to excite me in the past year or so than I have in the prior decade. Yes, this means some projects get cut, but it appears to me to have nothing to do with your your claim of sterile, closed environments and control. Instead, I'm seeing a focus on shrinking the variety of competing internal teams to focus on delivering the things customers request, faster. Instead of a half dozen fiefdoms each competing to put forth their sometimes disparate vision (Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Microsoft TV, Silverlight, Xbox (which came from Zune but dropped a ton of what Zune did and has slowly gained it back), etc for video playback alone), there is a renewed focus on producing better software, faster. Yes, the goal is still to provide the platform and products customers want to use, because at the end of the day we are a company and have jobs that need to support our living, but that isn't about control, it's about our drive to compete while doing awesome stuff.
Click to expand...
I get the point you are trying to make.

However, WMC in its Win7 iteration was so damn good, they literally copy-pasted and used it as a stand alone product for Win8 before the broke up a majority of the development team around 2010. Big picture wise, the thing nearly took care of itself and likely didn't need a massive support team. Other than a few outstanding bugs left it was probably 95% stable.

I understand that there was little to no use of it on a grand scale, but what it did, it did better than anyone else. And that was all-in-one DVR, cablecard, netflix (with plugin), hulu (with plugin), and amazon prime (with plugin) integration. I have a world of media at the push of a little green button.

I think MS is missing the scope of what is possible. They can sell it as-is, right now, as a separate package like they do Office. Its that good that the people who really truly need it are willing to pay a small sum for it. People are willing to pay the $30/year subscription like HDHomerun DVR that is set to come out, so why can't MS beat them to the punch? Open it up more to allow 3rd parties to make more plugins and let them lead further development. It also lets MS have a convenient cop-out when things get unstable.
 
It may have taken resources to support it and keep it working, but I'm sure there plenty of other legacy products at Microsoft that don't generate revenue and cost just as much.

MS have shown time and again they are willing to abandon perfectly great products and exit markets because they believe its not consistent with some global strategy, and thats the wrong approach for a product like this.

For another example, consider Live Mesh, which was axed with no ceremony and no replacement and the replacement SkyDrive/OneDrive still isn't as feature complete and has tons of issues still.

It wouldn't have taken much to integrate WMC's code into Xbox One, or even commit to that as an option and expand the product. It's a fantastic product that customers universally love. Microsoft had the whole content business, then they decided to get rid of Mediaroom (which was AT&T's Uverse) and it could've been combined with WMC too.
 
heatlesssun said:
The only thing in WMC that's really unique is the CableCard support. Cable companies would never allow that code to go public.
Click to expand...

Linux based softcams can handle those cards already afaik. At least my sat receiver works with S2/T2/C band tuners and paid channels.
 
B00nie said:
Linux based softcams can handle those cards already afaik. At least my sat receiver works with S2/T2/C band tuners and paid channels.
Click to expand...

Kinda not really. MythTV can handle some CableCARD setups, particularly the HDHomerun Prime. The caveat there is that any channel marked Copy Once will only work with win media center, MythTV won't touch it.
 
FnordMan said:
Kinda not really. MythTV can handle some CableCARD setups, particularly the HDHomerun Prime. The caveat there is that any channel marked Copy Once will only work with win media center, MythTV won't touch it.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about openMIPS, openRSI, openVIX etc. CCacm lets you even share cards through internet. I can also permanently decode HD content and save it for regular later viewing. Don't know about this copy once thing.
 
Tawnos said:
At least when I left the Windows team a bit less than 3 years ago, that wasn't true. Even without updates, supporting WMC took a fair amount of resources from other development. You might be right for why they don't want to offer it, but I don't know. Usually these things are way more complicated than speculating forumgoers realize.
Click to expand...

Microsoft could practically give away Windows 8 but they can't afford to support an app they charge $10 for (on top of the cost of 8 Pro)? There havent been any major updates to Media Center in years.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Microsoft could practically give away Windows 8 but they can't afford to support an app they charge $10 for (on top of the cost of 8 Pro)? There havent been any major updates to Media Center in years.
Click to expand...

They can't afford to because it encroaches on their vision for the Xbox. If you use the PC you already own instead of buying an Xbox, Microsoft sees that as a lost sale.
 
HisSvt76 said:
Yeah everything but play my live tv thru my xbox 360's and thats a BIG thing
Click to expand...

but you can still get this same kind of behavior with MythTV/NextPVR/Media Portal/etc. backend and a Raspberry Pi-based XBMC/Kodi front-end.

I actually have on of my Raspberry Pi's plugged into the USB port on my TV as a power source so there's not even a need for an extra power plug.
 
svet-am said:
but you can still get this same kind of behavior with MythTV/NextPVR/Media Portal/etc. backend and a Raspberry Pi-based XBMC/Kodi front-end.

I actually have on of my Raspberry Pi's plugged into the USB port on my TV as a power source so there's not even a need for an extra power plug.
Click to expand...

That is missing the point,
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top