An Introduction to the Media Center
Introduction
In any new endeavour it almost always makes sense to start at the beginning, and even for the experienced Media Center user there may be some interesting titbits in here. So let’s begin.
History
For many their first taste of a Media Center, or Home Theatre PC (HTPC), will have been through Microsoft’s Media Center software.
This originally shipped as a separate edition of Windows XP – Windows XP Media Center Edition – in September 2002, and was only available to large system manufacturers in an attempt to ensure the best possible end-user experience. This was based on Windows XP Professional Edition, with Domain support removed and the Media Center component added.
Windows XP Media Center Edition brought a 10ft user interface - suitable for use on TVs in a living room environment – along with time-shifted TV and hard drive recording; features popularised by TiVo’s dedicated DVR devices a few years earlier and available through some third-party software, to a wider PC audience.
This was later updated with XP’s Service Pack 2 and re-released as Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, again only to large system manufacturers. The majority of those however choose to create traditional desktop tower systems with Media Center functionality as opposed to HTPC style systems.
It wasn’t until Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005′s release in November of 2004 that Microsoft deemed the platform mature enough to open up to all system builders, available as a 2-CD OEM distribution.
As well as offering an increased range of choice to consumers this also offered a legal method for enthusiasts to build their own Media Center Edition based systems, so long as the OEM version was purchased alongside hardware.
The launch of Windows Vista in November of 2006 not only brought about some key changes to Media Center’s user interface and functionality, but also marked the first time it was included in the standard Windows versions. The Media Center Edition was discontinued in favour of it becoming a feature of the Home Premium and Ultimate Editions.
Key amongst the features introduced with Windows Vista was support for the PMP (Protected Media Path), which was the subject of much controversy leading up to, and following, the operating system’s launch.
PMP was created at the behest of content producers such as film studios in an attempt to crack down on piracy by only allowing approved, trusted, software and devices to work with certain types of media – typically commercial Blu-rays and HD DVDs.
While this move placated the content producers and facilitated the introduction of High Definition video content on the PC, it also left many consumers unable to cost effectively utilise them; a lack of HDCP (High Definition Content Protection) leaving many out in the cold with incompatible video cards and monitors.
Such measures certainly didn’t help the adoption of High Definition formats across all platforms, and of course pirated High Definition content soon became available anyway. As is usually the case the main people to suffer from anti-piracy schemes would prove to be those who tried to do things legitimately.
Eventually the fuss surrounding Vista and PMP died down, but a lot of damage had already been done to the operating system from all angles, leaving many prejudiced towards it and opting to stick with Windows XP. Ultimately this was a shame as Vista did a lot to move not just Media Center, but the Windows ecosystem as a whole, forward, and really was a better operating system than many gave it credit for.
On the Media Center side it brought in support for many essential features for the continued development of the platform, including:
- Built in DVD playback
- Support for multiple tuners
- Support for DVB-T tuners
- Support for HD content
- Redesigned user interface with wide-screen support
Finally, in June of 2008 Microsoft released the Media Center TV Pack, codenamed “Fiji”, for Windows Vista, which brought in improvements in TV tuner support, including DVB-S support, a new format for TV recordings, support for digital interactive services, and various other enhancements.
The TV Pack was initially only available to system builders but overtime became available to a wider audience. It is worth noting that previously DVB-S tuning had been implemented by some cards by identifying themselves as DVB-T devices.
Present Day
Windows 7 hit the scene to slightly ironic critical acclaim in October of 2009, bringing with it a refreshed GUI both for Media Center and Windows as a whole.
While the main Windows GUI received a fairly major overhaul the changes to Media Center were on the whole rather more subtle. Most of the major improvements over the original Vista Media Center had already been implemented in the TV Pack released the previous year. This means Windows 7 carries over the support for DVB-S, digital interactive services and .WTV recording format. It also adds a Movie library for films stored in ISO format.
One area where Windows 7 did prove a major step forward over Vista for Media Center usage however was in terms of built in video codecs, providing out of the box support for additional codecs including DivX and H.264 and container formats like 3GP, MP4 and Apple’s QuickTime. Previously these had all required third-party components.
Windows 7 also included Media Center in all versions from Home Premium upwards – Vista did not include it in the Business edition despite it being more expensive than Home Premium.
Since launch there have been a few online TV streaming services introduced for both Vista and 7, including a Beta of Microsoft’s Internet TV service which was later withdrawn, BSkyB’s Sky Player service for Sky subscribers in the UK and NetFlix for online movie and TV streaming in the US.
One area where Windows 7′s Media Center is currently a little lacking compared to Vista’s is in that of add-ons and extensions. Several popular Vista add-ons for services like YouTube are currently incompatible due to differences between the operating systems, particularly with the 64-bit version.
Future
Despite the improvements made to Media Center and its competitors over the years, their great potential for convergence and simplification of the Home Theatre set-up, and the best efforts of Intel Viiv and AMD LIVE!, the Home Theatre PC has still struggled to gain a significant foothold in the living room.
Without doubt a lot of this still has to come down to software; compared to a true Consumer Electronics device you are never more than a few button presses away from that Windows desktop, at which point it ceases to be a nice friendly remote control driven device and reverts to being the same old PC you have in your study or office. Error messages can also be a little too frequent and cryptic at times, while viruses and malware can still rear their ugly heads.
That is not to say hardware doesn’t need to advance either; true HTPC style systems have been rare and have often been more PC than CE in their appearance.
Even for enthusiasts it’s hard to find an enclosure that matches others in a typical Home Theatre set up, and those that do are often vastly over-priced; I doubt the enclosure for a Denon amp costs £50, so why should a similar size and style PC case cost 4 times that?
Pleasingly advances are certainly being made in the form-factor of the system internals. Small ITX motherboards were once the sole reserve of low-powered devices, where as now you can buy a board capable of using a relatively powerful dual or quad-core processor to fit in a small, sleek system.
Likewise many TV cards are now available as half-height cards, and graphics cards such as ATI’s new Radeon HD 5570 (a product we are very keen on testing soon) offer first rate media decoding along with reasonable game performance in a half-height and low-noise package.
Hopefully the future is going to include us working to see what products are making waves in the HTPC world and looking at how to improve the Media Center experience - I hope you visit us again soon.
