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What Might Have Happened To Windows Media Center
Phopojijo writes: Microsoft has officially dropped Windows Media Center but, for a time, it looked like Microsoft was designing both Windows and the Xbox around it. That changed when Vista imploded and the new leadership took Windows in a different direction. Meanwhile, Valve Software and others appear to be tiptoeing into the space that Microsoft sprinted away from.
And what a direction that new leadership took them! Marvellous!
Baldness truly is genius!
Microsoft, Google, Apple, these kind of companies are too big, have tons of money and have their own cartels. If Microsoft wants to, they can resurrect Media Center in three months and force it down the throat of each and every customer they have. These companies have practically limitless power over their customers, since these are already invested and tied into their infrastructure. Apple could make all iPhones and Macs neon-pink from one day to the other and nobody would be able to do much against it. Sure, new customers might be repelled, but if you have a quasi-monopoly with total control over the infrastructure, even that barely matters..
Kodi started life as XBMC. Full-featured, open source, free, what's not to love?
If it's not Steam, it's shit. Long live Valve, the only gaming company that matters!
...they might have been designing Windows around Notepad.
I would imagine that every conceivable thing has been bounced around when it comes to Windows.
First, I think many GUIs should be provided by MS and should be optional for users.
For example, if you want the traditional XP type desktop, I think MS should permit that for the foreseeable future. I'm not saying it should be butt ugly but the same buttons should be in the same places that do the same things. You can update the look of those buttons or add animations but the same buttons in the same places.
Also have a tablet interface for people that have touch screens etc.
Also have a tv remote type interface.
Also, a purely text based interface is good.
If I missed something, then just assume I suggested it. Just put them all in there.
Second, there is no good reason for the Xbox to be incompatible with the PC and the PC incompatible with the xbox. Xbox games shoul run natively on a windows machine. They are intentionally made to not work that way and that's a dumb move. Why do that? To push your console? But the console doesn't make money. The GAMES make money. Not the console. The console actually loses money initially and it takes years for the company to so much as break even on the initial console costs.
Now, a possible compromise here is that MS could say "we will permit any Xbox game to run on any windows machine but we will only permit MS approved products to run on the Xbox. And then you make part of that approval process that the company agrees to give a percentage of game sales to MS. I believe this is how Xbox games work. So MS would lose NOTHING by doing this. They'd actually start getting a cut of licensing money for PC games effectively. And porting games back and forth wouldn't be required because they'd effectively be inter-compatible systems.
Another fun thing they could do with Xboxes is permit them to work as totally normal PCs. Again, I basically think the Xbox should just run windows with TV centric GUI. But if I want to surf websites, do my taxes, or check my email on my xbox, it should be something that works basically the same way as on the PC. Why not? That would if anything improve the value of the xbox.
MS could annihilate Sony with something like this... bridging the gap between the console and the PC so that they're the same system. That would mean
Third, I'd like to see more tablets and even phones running desktop operating systems with fully accessible memory. I'd like the firmware chip for example to just be a micro SD card hiding under the battery. So if something goes wrong you can pull the stupid chip, pop it into another machine, sort out whatever went wrong, and then put it back into the phone.
here people are going to point out "but the gui on a desktop is wrong for a phone"... No shit? What is the title of my comment? My point is that you can have many GUIs for the same operating system. I'd like to see MS really grasp that and possibly during installation query the user to choose which GUI they want the system to default to on boot. It should be something that can be hot switchable without having to log off first or something.
Basically what we're talking about here are different versions of Explorer.exe. Have explorer be the old school GUI and then have a different version for whatever other variation you're interested in.
MS could instantly have more apps on their phone than any of their competitors because all the windows apps would run on one of their phones. Now sure, most of the GUIs for most of those programs are going to be inappropriate. However, just as MS can make multiple GUIs for Windows, so too can you make multiple GUIs for those programs. Ideally, MS would pave the way there by having different GUIs for their Office Suite etc.
Now see this in operation in the corporate world... imagine if corporations could put desktop apps on your phone?
Here people are going to point out the whole x86/arm thing about the various CPUs not being inter-compatible etc. I am aware. I don't credit the notion that you can't put an x86 CPU in a phone or tablet. The only thing that would be r
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There is no mediacenter but, don't worry everything revolves around a trumped up XBOX in_your_face front end. Fortunately the default software that is pinned to the new start menu is optional. If they make it so that the DRM centric front end is always pinned to the start then windows would go for a royal shit and they know it.
Fortunately it is still possible to install VLC, essentially the only media software that makes Windows worth using.
People who think that using freeware is dangerous will have to purchase codecs for windows to play any content other than networked stuff though the XBOX connection gui. Of course Microsoft will slyly intimate that it is dangerous to use anything other than software from the Windows Store.
I am certain that the slavering masses of brain dead dedicated Microsoft fanatics will eat this new bull shit up as usual. Windows is becoming a farce, they are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their customers again by putting choices in front of them that lead them to think that they need an XBOX and Microsoft account to play media files. I think it will bite them in the ass this time, it is a shame watching a company treat their customers as sheep. They are getting as bad as Apple in this regard. Losing Ballmer has not changed anything and it is foolish to think that there is going to be a cultural shift at Microsoft, otherwise there would be full support for codecs and there would also be standard USB audio 2 device support instead of a patch work of a gazillion drivers as there is now.
Here is hoping that some up and coming company eats their lunch because of their narrow focus on dominating the industry and treating customers as if they are stupid.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
XBMC demo on Linux Smart TV Box
Valve is not tiptoeing into anything, they got a boot in and they're coming in after it.
Microsoft, as ever, decided to play the hardass with users and lost. If they had embraced both Xbox and the PC solution then it would be "Steam what? Valve, they're the Half-Life guys, right?" And maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't even have to suffer uplay or origin.
Too much is being made of the Media Center connection here. Games for Windows(tm) also puts the games into the games explorer. That's a genuinely cool feature that I actually use, and I wish more games would play along. If you're going to bother doing a game for windows, you might as well make it as much like a Game for Windows(tm) as you can, so long as it's not expensive or difficult. That part is probably pretty easy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The high fidelity way to steal content was to write an audio/video driver that installs itself between the code and the device forming a T. Then silently record the stream before delivering it to the audio/video cards. So they went ahead and created the "protected audio/video path" concepts, signed drivers, accepted possible incompatibility with all the existing devices as the price to pay. ??AA did not like Apple's dominance and being forced sell tracks dollar a pop with Apple getting 30 cents commission. iTunes was allowing people who bought songs to make CDs (yes, CDs were quite dominant at that time) etc. So the logic of Microsoft was quite sound, and it makes sense among the suits.
But they forgot the crucial "IF" that formed the foundation of the logic. Can anyone thwart the alleged pirates? Even if the protected signed drivers stopped this method, there was always the analog hole. One can record with reasonable fidelity audio out. Similarly, with more difficulty, the video out too.
The entire concept of Vista was to take command of the living room entertainment center the way MS-Office took command of the corporate desktops. They could not deliver ??AA what they wanted and were promised: a piracy-proof entertainment platform. But it complicated the OS to such an extent it was very unstable. This on top the par-for-the-course bungling of MS suits. Certifying under powered machines as vista capable to play favorites with intel over AMD, that sort of thing.
The damage lingers on to this day. There is a service that runs on all Windows platform that watches all the code crashes and pop up the dialog "I saw something crash? Do you want to try it in WinXP compatibility mode?" That service collects data all day and phones home at night. Our company consolidated three locations into one new building. Some 1500 computers phoned home using the same gateway at the same time. Random crashes on machines that used to run for weeks without rebooting. Traced it to this damned thing. Somehow 500 phone-homes per gateway was ok, at 1500 it crashed randomly. There are hundreds of such things buried deep inside OS due to Vista fiasco.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
How is Windows designed after WMC? I had XP, Vista, Windows 7 and never used this tools. I do use Kodi or VLC and do not need for it.
The first replacement that comes out that works 1/10th as well as my media center will get my money. So far nothing works with my cable card because 100% of the channels are drm'd and the need for a tuning adapter to all the channels that I don't really watch anyway.
There are some things in MCE that just flat out rock as well, the excellent guide, ease of recording, just everything. [Well except for the time it forgets to record your favorite show for no apparent reason]
So it looks like I'm going to keep it running 7 until something changes and peeps are allowed to connect to the cable card with little to no hindrance.
Am I trolling because I said nice things about Valve or because I said mean things about Valve or because I said nice things about Microsoft or because I said mean things about origin or uplay?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As someone who paid for Windows 7 Ultimate in order to use WMC with a CableCard tuner I see no value in upgrading to an OS that no longer supports recording live television. I am sick and tired of MS retiring features I paid top dollar for before I have gotten my moneys worth.
Good luck doing any sort of remote computing while your tablet is away from Wi-Fi or once your phone has reached the end of its data plan with 3 days left in the month.
I have IP TV provided by my Telco.
The PVR UI has a very "Microsofty" feel about it - Wouldn't surprise me if Cisco / Atlanta Scientific licensed it from MS.
Graphics are useless if nobody is willing to buy a $60 Bluetooth controller for a $2.99 game. Touch screens are great for point-and-click genres but not much else. Without good input, graphics are a movie, and Netflix already owns that space.
there is no good reason for the Xbox to be incompatible with the PC and the PC incompatible with the xbox.
Other than that Intel was unwilling to cut costs on PC components to hit the price target that Microsoft sought. This didn't change much until the eighth generation (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One), when AMD offered its "Jaguar" laptop chipset to Sony and Microsoft at console prices.
we will permit any Xbox game to run on any windows machine but we will only permit MS approved products to run on the Xbox.
Let's say Microsoft makes Xbox games work on Windows. If end users buy Xbox games and play them on a gaming PC running Windows, they have no incentive to buy more Xbox games when other Windows games are available to them. But if users instead have to buy Xbox hardware to play Xbox games, users are more likely to buy more Xbox games to play on their Xbox hardware.
Another fun thing they could do with Xboxes is permit them to work as totally normal PCs.
That's one thing Windows Media Center was trying to be.
But if I want to surf websites, do my taxes, or check my email on my xbox, it should be something that works basically the same way as on the PC.
It already does. IE runs on Xbox, and IE can run websites, webmail, and even web-based tax preparation.
Why not?
If you were referring to native mail clients or native tax preparation, then developers could make games through the subset of Windows that the Xbox runs without tithing to Microsoft.
I'd like the firmware chip [in cellular phones] to just be a micro SD card hiding under the battery. So if something goes wrong you can pull the stupid chip, pop it into another machine, sort out whatever went wrong, and then put it back into the phone.
Is that even legal under national radio communication regulators' type approval guidelines? I thought devices had to be robust against end-user attempts to modify the devices to transmit or receive on prohibited frequencies or with prohibited power levels.
Now sure, most of the GUIs for most of those programs are going to be inappropriate.
Non-technical end users prefer the simplicity of a system that shows a list of all-and-only appropriate applications.
Why do we have to use ARM cpus?
Because end users have invested in existing proprietary applications for iOS or Android OS and expect to remain able to run them on new devices. These applications are compiled for ARM, either completely in the case of iOS or the NDK portions in the case of Android OS. It's in fact the same reason that x86 has stuck around so long: people expected to run both existing proprietary DOS apps and Windows 3.1 apps, people expected to run both existing proprietary Windows 3.1 apps and Win32 apps, and people expected to run both existing proprietary Win32 apps and Win64 apps. And these applications were compiled for ARM in the first place because iOS and Android OS debuted before Intel had a credible Atom competitor.
It sounds to me more like the x86 processors just need an additional feature added to them to make them more mobile friendly.
For the reason I just stated, this "additional feature" would need to involve emulation of ARM binaries.
"I know that people's lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps."
--Jeremiah 10:23, NIV.
Unless they're stupid enough to need an App Store to steer their choices for them, I guess.
Apparently there is such a thing as "analysis paralysis". People do prefer someone with more expertise to steer their choices. Otherwise, there would be more PCs in the living room.
I find lack of interest in Media center hard to believe despite intentional action on Microsoft's behalf to kill it. The media extender market collapsed because MS simply made it impossible for extenders to exist. What if there was a cheap HDMI dongle that could stream from media center? None of this would be an issue and they could have existed if MS didn't continuously fuck over multiple companies producing hardware for media center.
I've had a TIVO for a while and in the last month they pushed an update that removed all RSS video feeds which was more than half of what I ever watched. The rss feeds don't require TiVo infrastructure to support they just removed it because they could and felt like it and now I'm fucked.
Anymore I'm beginning to realize that I don't really care about video broadcasts. If I never see another broadcast in my life I would be ok with that.
With all "convergence" memes going around and basically replacing everything with "Internet" I just hope the remaining people who care don't let a handful of mega content companies Netflix/Hulu/Youtube..etc. own everything. A DVR with some manner of "RSSP2P" backend would provide anyone with content to distribute a cheap way to do it not controlled by anyone... which I believe is important over the long haul if for no other reason than keeping mega content honest.
Yes, consoles have consistent hardware but that doesn't mean much. That just means you have one version of the operating system with one set of drivers that are slightly better debugged than what the PC people deal with. So what.
Some things differ between video card manufacturers. NVIDIA GPUs are more efficient at some things, AMD at others. This is why Bitcoin miners preferred AMD before mining switched to FPGAs and ASICs: AMD's shader instruction set was more efficient at SHA-1 than NVIDIA's. And different video cards support different forms of texture compression. A console guarantees a shader ABI and a texture format, so you can ship precompiled shaders and compressed textures on disc. Console operating systems also tend to be far lighter than contemporary PC operating systems, so you can fit a lot more into the same 64 MB of RAM (Xbox era), 512 MB of RAM (Xbox 360 era), or 8 GB of RAM (Xbox One era).
I'm just saying that there is a net gain if the xbox is actually just a streamlined subsidized by licenses gaming PC.
Is it a "net gain" for end users not to be able to find worthwhile games among the self-published derivative amateur crap that Nintendo has in the past compared to the rejects on American Idol ? Because that's what floods Apple's App Store, which costs a developer $1000 for the hardware plus $100 per year.
Discovery of worthwhile apps is ultimately a search problem. Consoles have traditionally solved it by whitelisting only the best apps. Mobile has left it unsolved. How would you recommend to solve it?
The reason things are the way they are is because of console history.
Such as the flood of crapps that the Atari 2600 got in 1983, which turned North American retailers and end users off of video gaming entirely until 1985 (NYC)/1986 (nationwide) when Nintendo introduced its NES console with a whitelist mechanism to ensure that the worst products don't occupy valuable shelf space or player attention.
[The game console] is a legacy business model from a time when gaming PCs didn't really exist
The Commodore 64 was what you'd call a "gaming PC" in the early 1980s. Its graphics were better than ColecoVision, almost as detailed as NES. Its main fault was long loading times because most developers stuck to disk or (worse) cassette tape instead of cartridge.
I suspect [Microsoft would] be hit with more monopoly lawsuits were they [to fully unify Xbox with Windows]
I don't see how. Companies like Valve and Sony would be free to do the same thing. Steam OS is based on Debian GNU/Linux, and the Orbis OS that powers PlayStation 4 is based on FreeBSD.
Google is refusing to make a Youtube or Chrome app for Metro, and Firefox (unwisely) decided to not make a browser for Metro.
It's hard to make an efficient browser when the API sandbox does not let you implement a JIT engine for JavaScript. Like the iOS public API, the Windows Runtime API lacks a counterpart to VirtualProtect. Thus like an iOS app, a Windows Runtime app is subject to a strict W^X policy that prohibits it from translating JavaScript code into efficient native code to execute it. (Source) Or do you think end users would be happy with an interpretive JavaScript core instead of Google's V8 or Mozilla's IonMonkey?
I already have a launcher. It's called my operating system.
How well does the stock launcher work, say, if your PC is in the living room next to the TV? I tried a Windows 8 PC with an Xbox 360 Controller, and though games worked with it, the Windows 8 Start screen did not recognize it. This despite that the Windows Start screen is a rehash of Microsoft's own Xbox 360 Start screen.
even today a PC without Internet is mostly useless.
"Without Internet" meaning no connection for minutes to hours, or "without Internet" meaning no connection for days to months? There's a big difference between an intermittent connection and an expectation of no connection at all. Case in point: I carry a small laptop with me while I ride the city bus to and from my day job so I can work on hobby coding projects. I carry local API documentation so I can keep working even though the bus does not provide Wi-Fi. I could go an entire 3-hour charge without Internet, so long as I sync up when I get back to Wi-Fi at home.
cable big fail of cable card helped kill it. satellite tuners as well dish and directv where working with M$ on usb tunes for windows pc and they did not come out.
Also there is satellite ci cards but dish / directv will push hard to NOT let people use them just give out a smart card to use with them.
[Frontier's pay-TV offering] changed a few things, including the DRM settings for ALL channels they carried except for the must carry ones
Then record only must-carry channels. Call Frontier support and ask why none of your favorite channels are set to "copy freely". If they feed you a line of baloney, ask to be transferred to the retention department because you're dropping pay TV from your package.
Your game comment didn't address that the console itself doesn't make money but rather the licensing agreements that game makers have with console makers. Console users pay more for games. Typically around 60 dollars per game while PC players tend to pay substantially less. The majority of that price difference goes to the console makers and constitutes their actual profits.
Let me rephrase: If console-compatible games are not console-exclusive, then people aren't going to buy a console to play its games. This opens a possibility that people will buy a PC instead of a console with a launcher to cover some (but not all) of the convenience issues. Thus console makers won't get their cut of game sales because people are going to buy PC-exclusive games for their PC instead of the more expensive console-compatible games.
Further consider that there are projects like Project Aria
I was initially confused. "Aria" means other things, such as the "accessible rich Internet applications" spec, while you meant Project Ara. But good luck getting carriers to offer any sort of financing for the Project Ara hardware.
As to most non-technical users, they are going to appreciate being able to use the same program across all platforms especially if the developers adapt the UI so it dynamically defaults to given UI elements in different contexts.
But if an application listed in a device's app store fails to adapt its UI, non-technical end users won't know this. They will think the device is broken. Therefore the device will have to hide devices that don't already have an adapted UI if the device maker wants to preserve its reputation.
For one thing, all the popular mobile apps will be ported to whatever phone OS becomes dominant. But really, you're going to get so much more by gaining access to the desktop apps that complaining about losing the mobile apps is mind boggling.
A new phone OS can't become dominant without mobile apps. And there are a lot of key mobile apps whose developers intentionally shun desktop computers, such as Vine, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and some people's favorite games.
I had not used it in so long I forgot it even existed. Too many other and better free choices available.
Quad HD+ (3200x1800) on a postage stamp. But then it's scaled so that it looks exactly like regular old HD (1366x768). Does this make sense? Can anyone explain it to me? But on larger screens which would actually benefit from higher resolution, the manufacturers continue to use the lowest possible pixel counts. Isn't it time for the minimum standard to be upgraded a little? Wouldn't it be better for HD+ (1600x900) to be the minimum standard on 14 and 15 inch screens, with FHD (1920x1080) or better being the upgrade options? Cuz I gotta say, HD on 14 or 15 seems kinda empty.
Also, speaking of media, what's the point in having a wide screen if playing a DVD is not an option? DVD over USB? You've got to be kidding me. For one thing, a spike in CPU causes the DVD to pause. For another, those external drives don't last very long. When the drive is inside the computer, it benefits from being handled carefully, because no one wants to damage their expensive computer. But when it's external, the user is less careful, and it breaks much more quickly.
You know, maybe PC sales are tumbling because our only choices are kluges and downgrades.
I have wondered why Microsoft didn't try releasing an mini Office suite for the Xbox 360, or Xbox One, like Microsoft Works. Put up some Live servers, with some Cloud features. Would be easy to administer for the workers that use only light office work.
cable companies for going all encrypt zealous. My TV card became obsolete when they started requiring set top boxes for their precious encrypted basic cable stations. Since hten, Media Center stopped being used, and disabled. It was so nice having it unsleep to get to a scheduled recording of a specific tv show, loads better than the WinTV app shit.
So how do you suggest to solve the "mostly economic problems" of data caps so that users of apps can retain access to these large data sets rather than working around them by doing without?
With Desktops you can run into some problems here because it isn't convenient to move them around. But that isn't a huge problem really. How many PC gamers go to lan parties on occasion and you're not just moving your computer from one room to the other but taking it to a friend's house.
A LAN party is something that one plans in advance, not something your kids can just up and do after school.
If you want to fuck over console users and make it harder for developers to reach as many players as possible... then keep it how it is... It serves no justifiable purpose in the existing market with the existing technology.
The North American video game market went into a recession in 1983-1984. This was in part caused by a loss of consumer confidence due to a flood of bad games for the Atari 2600 console. People who wanted a good new game could not find a good new game. If console makers were to stop "mak[ing] it harder for developers to reach as many players as possible", they too would be flooded with crap, as I explained in another comment. Can you name a particular "existing technology" that would help an open console avoid another crash like that of 1983?
MS started breaking WMC long before Vista came around. I used WMC a lot. I've had Vista. WMC has been falling apart for many years. Mostly because as you described for one reason or another they made the decision to value corporate interests over their consumers. I've been tinkering with WMP and WMC for years using codecs and the like to try and get things to work. The best I get is that most things work. However no matter what I do, there will be stuff that just isn't compatible. About the only reason I use it is my remote is "compatible" with WMC. Every now again again, when I hit that file that no matter what I do (and at this point whatever I do seems to fix one, then break another format), I just give up and use VLC, as it just works. I'm actually really surprised that someone hasn't come along and replaced WMC by now as it has been a pretty big gap for a long time. Hopefully MS pulling the plug on WMC would prompt someone to make something better that isn't purposefully broken...