List of new features for Vista Media Center
Matt Goyer has collated a list of new features for Vista Media Center, I think sometimes people don’t realize half the new features in the new version of Media Center
- Support for 64bit machines
- You can upgrade to Windows Vista Media Center from XP
- Media Center is included as part of two Windows Vista SKUs
- No need to buy a Media Center. You can install yourself.
- Domain join
- Available worldwide in every locale that we ship Windows to (160 new locales! 15 new languages!)
- More content on screen in our photos/music/videos/TV libraries Faster perf for the music library
- OCUR/CableCARD support
- It was very hard to use a mouse in MCE 2005. We’ve made some big improvements to mouse handling.
- Likewise, hard to use with a touch screen before, should be better now
- Run on your Tablet PC
- New start menu to get you to where you want to be faster
- Start photo slideshow from Music Now Playing
- Now playing item on the start menu, should be more discoverable
- More ways to slice and dice your music collection
- New music Now Playing
- Way better queue management
- View photos and videos by folder or date
- Mini TV guide
- TV favorites/most viewed
- TV categories is now discoverable
- TV guide is an overlay
- Easy to get to TV categories
- Thumbnails in recorded TV library
- PAL exhaustive channel scanning
- Microsoft DVD codec
- Native burning solution
- Extender platform. Now any hardware manufacturer can integrate a MCX into their TV, DVD player, etc.
- Tighter integration on start menu for third parties. You’re no longer buired in More Programs
- Windows Media Center Presentation Layer, now you can build apps that have the same fidelity as Media Center
- Windows Presentation Foundation, re-use your Avalon code to build Media Center applications
- Hotstart
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Lots of nice features but will it actually work in the UK?
Will DVB-T be properly supported with MHEG?
Will it actually last more than a few days without losing the guide and programming data?
Will it sill say "unable to access guide data" ever couple of days?
Will programmes still randomly not record?
Will it actually find the correct channels and if not will there be a way of programming them manually?
Nice to get new stuff but the basics have to work first!
I find that Vista Media Center loses the TV guide on a regular basis – and this will muck up recording schedules as the data is lost – it seems you have to retune at least once a week. VERY irritating – it seems like there is no point in using the guide if you are unable to rely on it. As sceptic says – lots of good features – but unreliable!