Making Windows Media Center available in Windows 8

In this post we wanted to update you on Media Center and Windows 8, specifically how we will make sure Windows 8 fully supports the capabilities of Media Center as it is in Windows 7. We took the feedback about maintaining the functionality very seriously, and we clearly understood what we’ve heard many of you saying around the value of Media Center for movies, Internet TV, broadcast TV, optical media, music, photos, and all the other scenarios it covers today. Many said in comments and email to us, that so long as the feature is available somehow it is fine. This post is how we will deliver on that and continue to support Media Center for another product lifecycle. This post was authored by Bernardo Caldas in the Windows Business Group, with help from Linda Averett who leads program management for the Developer Experience team.
--Steven
​

If you saw our recent post on the Windows 8 editions, then you know already that Windows Media Center will be available in Windows 8. You might also have noticed Windows Media Center is included in Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Media Center has always been subject of a lot of discussion and feedback in these forums as well as email. Today we would like to share more details about our plan and the motivations behind it.
First let’s step back and talk about media experiences in general. Windows 8 will deliver a world-class video and audio entertainment experience. Our focus is on providing a comprehensive video and audio platform for developers to build engaging and differentiated apps. The Windows 8 developer platform will contain a wide variety of industry-standard media formats, along with Internet Explorer 10, which supports the standard HTML5 web platform. It also includes the set of decoders (shown in the table below) and new developer functionality to deliver these modern media experiences.
Metro style apps can use any of the decoders included in Windows. These decoders are optimized for system reliability, battery life, and performance, and cover all key playback scenarios for mainstream content such as YouTube video, Netflix video, Amazon audio/video, H.264 web browsing/streaming, Hulu video, MP4 video, AVCHD video from camcorders, Ultraviolet video, and the HTML5 video tag. Metro style apps can also include additional decoders (such as FLAC, MKV, OGG, etc.) in their apps package for use within the apps.

	Video​	Audio​
Decoders	H.264​ VC-1/WMV​ MP4 Pt 2​	DD+ (non-disk)​ AAC​ WMA​ MP3​ PCM​
Format container	AVI​ MPEG-2 TS​ MP4​ ASF​	M4A​ ASF​ MP3​ WAV​

In the process of building a robust platform, we’ve also evaluated which in-box media playback experiences we want to provide. The media landscape has changed quite significantly since the release of Windows 7. Our telemetry data and user research shows us that the vast majority of video consumption on the PC and other mobile devices is coming from online sources such as YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, or any of the other myriad of online and downloadable video services available. In fact, consumption of movies online in the United States will surpass physical video in 2012, according to this recent IHS Screen Digest research.
On the PC, these online sources are growing much faster than DVD & broadcast TV consumption, which are in sharp decline (no matter how you measure—unique users, minutes, percentage of sources, etc.). Globally, DVD sales have declined significantly year over year and Blu-ray on PCs is losing momentum as well. Watching broadcast TV on PCs, while incredibly important for some of you, has also declined steadily. These traditional media playback scenarios, optical media and broadcast TV, require a specialized set of decoders (and hardware) that cost a significant amount in royalties. With these decoders built into most Windows 7 editions, the industry has faced those costs broadly, regardless of whether or not a given device includes an optical drive or TV tuner.
Our partners have shared clear concerns over the costs associated with codec licensing for traditional media playback, especially as Windows 8 enables an unprecedented variety of form factors. Windows has addressed these concerns in the past by limiting availability of these experiences to specialized “media” or “premium” editions. At the same time, we also heard clear feedback from customers and partners that led to our much simplified Windows 8 editions lineup.
Given the changing landscape, the cost of decoder licensing, and the importance of a straight forward edition plan, we’ve decided to make Windows Media Center available to Windows 8 customers via the Add Features to Windows 8 control panel (formerly known as Windows Anytime Upgrade). This ensures that customers who are interested in Media Center have a convenient way to get it. Windows Media Player will continue to be available in all editions, but without DVD playback support. For optical discs playback on new Windows 8 devices, we are going to rely on the many quality solutions on the market, which provide great experiences for both DVD and Blu-ray.
We will offer two ways to acquire Windows Media Center:

Starting point OEM pre-installed, clean install, or upgrade		End-user upgrade Acquire & install via Add Features to Windows 8		Ending point
Windows 8 Pro	>	Windows 8 Media Center Pack	>	Windows 8 Pro with Media Center
Windows 8	>	Windows 8 Pro Pack	>

Windows 8 Pro is designed to help tech enthusiasts obtain a broader set of Windows 8 technologies. Acquiring either the Windows 8 Media Center Pack or the Windows 8 Pro Pack gives you Media Center, including DVD playback (in Media Center, not in Media Player), broadcast TV recording and playback (DBV-T/S, ISDB-S/T, DMBH, and ATSC), and VOB file playback. Pricing for these Packs, as well as retail versions of Windows 8, will be announced closer to the release date. To give you some indication of Media Center Pack pricing, it will be in line with marginal costs.
We are incredibly excited about the future of entertainment in Windows. We hope you have had a chance to try some of the new Windows 8 Metro style media applications such as the Video and the Music apps. These apps embody the characteristics that make Windows 8 great for both end users and developers, and are included with the Consumer Preview install, ensuring a great local media playback experience on Windows 8. There is much more to come, as developers embrace the power of the Windows 8 platform to delight media enthusiasts around the world!
--Bernardo and Linda

More...

 

[fafhrd]

Yet another backwards step offered by Windows 8 - Add Windows Features becomes what used to be Windows Anytime Upgrade in Windows 7, and no more DVD playback in Media Player.

It will have to be dirt cheap for anyone to bother to buy it.

 

[Night Hawk]

It fits the bill! I just ran into a simlar report on how the WMC won't be included in 8 but an extra pay for item. Microsoft: Media Center not part of 'the future of entertainment' | ZDNet

VLC time for W8 it seems! That will play dvds without problem. All I know is that 7 will likely gain even more in popularity once MS finishes cutting it's own throat! 7 will soon get the rep of being the last as well as the best "working OS" MS ever came out with.

 

[Coke Robot]

Wow, no native DVD playback. Wow.

Then again, I can't even tell you the last time I watched a DVD on my PC or even KNEW someone that actually did that.

My concern with WMC is that it will be a meager port from Windows 7 to 8. It sucks quite honestly. It has NO place be in an operating system that is redesigned with metro guidelines. I once actually tried it, and it felt like using an early iteration of Windows vista: very animated verbosely, not very dynamic, and just somewhat decent looking. WMC needs the Zune software design to make it something worthwhile, along with online media streaming. It also seriously needs a dumping of codecs. It also needs to be the piece of software that unites the Microsoft Trifecta of Xbox, PC, and Windows Phone (maybe even iphone or additional devices).

 

[kapilarya]

I think we should forgot Windows 8 and remain happy with Windows 7

 

[FuturDreamz]

No DVD playback? Holy CRAP!



On the other hand, Ultrabooks and tablets won't come with dvd drives, and there wouldn't be Blu-ray playback anyways.
Theoretically Cyberlink or someone was to make a decent ( ideally clean interface, simple, relatively inexpensive) Metro Bluray player, it could do DVDs fine without app mashing (like how WMC currently hands off Blu-ray support to a third-party application).


After thinking about it, I'm actually OK with the lack of WMC. With a decent controller (like a remote or a smaller keyboard with built in track pad), the Metro interface is very HTPC friendly. I just need a decent Blu-ray Metro app (with DVD support) and I'm good.

 

[Vertex]

Wow, no native DVD playback. Wow.

Then again, I can't even tell you the last time I watched a DVD on my PC or even KNEW someone that actually did that.

My friends use WMP to watch DVD's on a laptop every night. Don't make it look like as if native DVD playback on WMP is not significant and that few people actually use it because from what I see, native DVD playback is very important to WMP if it wants to stand in the competition against other media players which it is sadly losing right now against competitors like VLC. I have used WMP decently too and I don't want to install other players. I think M$, wanting more pay for the extras, are only destroying their place in the Market because if I were MS, I would improve every single preinstalled program available since Windows 7. Heck I want Paint improved and WMP and WMC even better but now they wanted to sell those as well even if free alternatives are widely available. Its a very wrong business strategy.

 

[chev65]

In fact I use WMC everyday, and blanket statements from uninformed sources aren't going to make the bad aspects of this go away. Lots of people use WMC all the time, just because one person says they don't doesn't make it true.

This is just another way they are going to be squeezing the consumers, just like the App store. Instead of making WMC better they just remove it and start charging for it? No doubt there will eventually be an expensive App, or a few different ones to replace it. It's all about money.

This pretty much seals the fate of Windows 8, and as others have mentioned and as I said months ago, Windows 7 will become the new Windows XP and will remain so for a very long time to come. Windows 8 will fail more bitterly than any previous Op system. This is a deal breaker for me, the last straw, in fact it's the one that broke the camels back. I won't be purchasing Windows 8.

 

[Night Hawk]

I can't blame you one bit on that decision! It's like I was saying before MS seems to be cutting their own throat as far as 8 is concerned! Taking away the Media Center included in Windows since the XP Media Center edition as well as the dvd playback support in WMP which has been with Windows since the Legacy versions won't be a selling point for the new version to come.

WMP 4 started media playback support off to note as an option for 95. 95PLUS! saw the player included it. Just like IE that's a Windows feature people have grown accustomed to seeing in each version now to be cut out to some extent?

There's one thing for certain. You'll be hearing a lot of mixed reactions to where MS is going with 8! As for just the Metro UI alone thta could worked around easy enough with Start menu 7 and a few manually created Shutdown, Restart, Logoff shortcuts placed in the "C:\users\user account\AppData\Loca\Microsoft\Windows\Start\Programs\" sub folder to take care of things.

Once you start stripping features people have grown accustomed to and expect however that's a whole different ball park!

 

[Coke Robot]

I can see how people making assumptions about a broad topic like DVD usage, but then again, most of the top users on Windows 8 Forums and 7 Forums usually use Windows Media Center at least once a week I would guess.

But counting the stats from Microsoft on how MOST people are actually using Media Center, it shows that MOST people don't use it. DVD playback should be standard by default, but there are decoder licensing issues Microsoft would face further for a feature of Windows MOST people don't use. I kind of see that logic, this is primarily capitalist than anything. Frankly, if Media Center is redesigned, rebuilt, and is glorious, I would pay for DVD playback if I needed it. But since all my films are usually digital, I wouldn't care for it. If I need to pay for DVD playback of ISO files of shows like 24, then I would probably consider that additional cost if WMC is rebuilt, redesigned and is glorious; if not, bleh...

 

[FuturDreamz]

I wonder if this means Windows 8 retail will be less than $100?

 

[Night Hawk]

The one thing it does mean is that MS will be paying less for licenses. The real problem whether or not you use the Media Center or play vcds even as well as dvds on WMP is that the all too familiar items in Windows are being stripped away!

The idea has been suggested that MS would be pressuring people into paid subscriptions for Cloud services while stripping their OS down to the bare essentials in many ways?! Will you want to paying out for more 3rd party wares to replace the things Windows has always seen included?

I knew back when the 7 RC was out that the next Windows might prove to be a hard sell since 7 was obviously a success story. People wouldn't be rushing to move up out of 7 for some time soon. But MS has sidetracked away from following up on what does work for ...??? A setting up of the fail of the next version? Sounds that way!

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
I don't mourn the "Loss" of media center since nearly all the content you might want is provided by different companies such as say BBC (iPlayer) other On demand TV services etc. These usually have to be obtained from the provider and "technically" supposed to be used only in the countries they have "rights" for -- but with vpn's / proxies it's always possible to get the content you want.

This sort of stuff can't really be centrally stored in a "Media center" very easily -- this is definitely a case for some 3rd party implementation.

I'm glad the BASIC things an OS should have are being addressed -- such as Built in decent security (no 3rd party virus protection stuff needed), decent firewall, ISO Mounting (now provided in W8) .

If you have to recover the original state of your system then the new REFRESH works quite well too.

We don't really need both Internet explorer and Windows explorer -- this could be one function (you can always install other browsers if you want in any case).

What STILL needs to be provided is a decent Backup and restore system that is RELIABLE, backups that can be restored on network / external drives and restores that can be performed from bootable media.

I have no problems with 3rd party stuff say for DVD's playing etc --plenty of GOOD freebies which were always better than the MS one's anyway.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Vince53]

i found some sites that allow you to download Windows Media Player for free. I must be missing something. None of them go higher than the Vista version, so I wonder if that will be incompatible with Windows 8.

 

[Night Hawk]

The equivalent of WMP 13 is already included in 8. 12 was in 7 and 11 in Vista. You are likely looking at the downloadable version of 11 for XP. That wouldn't be compatible with 8.

The other player out there of course is the Media Player Classic which you might be thinking about as well. But WMP and the Media Center are two different things entirely. Vince53

One of the tuner cards here has it's own form of Media Center. That rules out the need here for the MC while others depend on it if viewing channels through the pc and not a separate tv set. I had to patch the 800 channel cablle box in through another component with composite out into the other tuner card since the tuner itself was limited on the number of channels as well.

We don't really need both Internet explorer and Windows explorer -- this could be one function (you can always install other browsers if you want in any case).

Don't need Windows Explorer? I find that statement a bit odd for sure there. jimbo45

In the EU agreement of course IE would be an option while WE is an essential for file, folder, drive browsing. Of course now you could download the Better Explorer released just before the Developer Preview as a more full flavored(loaded with options on menu bar) version of WE.

The sad part here for 8 will however be in WMP 13 no longer seeing dvd or vcd playback. I use WMP here regularly for testing burned disks for vcd projects as well as any dvd projects. As far as movies no need to rent them from some place like NetFlix since I can call them up by way of ISP here! Watch online or piped directly in through cable.

One thing I should add here is what I found when testing the Backup & Restore features in 7. They are quite reliable for what they are. I suspect that 8 will be just as good in that area if not seeing any other improvements or new features added into what already works.

The one thing that would be an idea for the system image option however would be what is seen with Acronis where you can mount an image as a second C drive seen in Windows Explorer in order to add or remove files from the image itself. MS could learn from that in making a Windows image mountable as well for incremental edits of images rather then always the need to replace existing ones for each new one that comes along.

As for the Windows Easy Transfer tool that also proved reliable when setting a clean install along with all of the exact same programs to restore the backup made and watching as the same two different wallpapers one for each monitor reappeared showing that was able to preserve and restore all user files and settings without any problem.

 

[Greygoose]

I have a tv tuner in my pc and use it regularly to catch up on tv programs. So far I have been able to use it in w8 except it goes straight to recording which I don't really want. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Hope this forum is ok for this post.

 

[GMan]

I have a tv tuner in my pc and use it regularly to catch up on tv programs. So far I have been able to use it in w8 except it goes straight to recording which I don't really want. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Hope this forum is ok for this post.

That's how it is supposed to work, so you can pause, rewind etc...

If you don't want these features, I recommend using the software that can be downloaded for the adapter from the manufacturer's site.

Great alternatives are: VirtualDub, iuVCR, VirtualVCR

Depending on your hardware, you may have to run a nice deinterlace filter in those programs so you don't see the comb effect.

 

[Night Hawk]

On just about any tuner card app you have to schedule a recording once the input signal is all set up. It works in the same fashion as the timer on a vcr as one example.

With it recording automatically you will want to look over the schedule options and may end up needing to uninstall the software in order to see a fresh install all over to correct a software glitch of some type. Or you could simply be running into a compatibility issue with this being a totally new version of Windows coming where you would need to see if the manufacturer releases an 8 version of the program the card uses.

 

[GMan]

On just about any tuner card app you have to schedule a recording once the input signal is all set up.

None of the alternatives I listed in my previous post work like this at all.

 

[Night Hawk]

Not every tuner card will see the exact same things. Some have their own Media Center while others are capture/tuner cards where the timed recording option is found in the app.