Microsoft Should Cut Windows Media Center from Windows 8 - Ben Wade

Yea I said it: Microsoft needs to remove Windows Media Center from Windows 8 and head down a new path. They need to burn that bridge, Indiana Jones with a machete style… Why Ben? Why would you publicly state something so outrageous and provoking on a Media Center focused site? Before you set Twitter aflame and curse Josh for signing a traitor on to the DMZ team, take a look at my eight reasons for wanting to ditch WMC for the new Windows 8 Start screen.

Developing for WMC is an Atrocity
You should congratulate Netflix, MyMovies and MediaBrowser for having successfully developed WMC UIs that work and look beautiful. Anyone who has seen MCML or looked at how many different files it takes just a get a basic WMC plugin knows that developing for this platform is a disaster at best. Eight different files using unique, unfriendly XML and .NET variant code are all it takes to make a WMC app with a button our two. Documentation for developers is relatively non-existent. This is why you don’t see lots of apps for Media Center, why it take forever to update the apps that are out there and why Media Center has not flourished like we all hoped it would.

Clearly no one on the Media Center team was listening when Balmer said “Developers! Developers! Developers!” You can have an Android app up on the entire Android platform with a single XML file and a Java file. WinRT is what all Media Center apps should be based on. HTML, JavaScipt, C#, C++, Silverlight. Done. Programmers, n00b and veteran, can understand and learn these languages easily. File structure is greatly simplified. As seen in the developer preview, Visual Studio 11 will have great WinRT UI WYSIWYG tools for Metro UI development. WinRT removes or lessens the barrier to developing great home theater applications, thus we could finally get the home theater support and app market we Microsoft fanatics all want and deserve.

Metro UI is WMC 2.0
The hubs and tiles of the Metro UI Windows 8 start screen respond to remote commands much like in Windows Media Center. Hubs and tiles are easily customizeable through a couple clicks of the mouse in the sub-menus of the Metro UI. There is no need to start a separate application when Windows starts, it is Windows already.
Today, Windows Media Center is pretty much uncustomiseable. If you install any new plugins, usually a new strip is created and eventually the whole system gets cluttered up. Yes, you can use Media Center Studio, an unsupported, crashy WYSIWIG editor for WMC. But that is for us hardcore Media Center fanatics, not the average Joe.

The Windows 8 Browser
You can have nearly the entire Internet at the buttons of your TV remote. Just hit the IE tile and up pops the Metro Internet Explorer. Now you can manage your streaming services, check your email or Twitter account, or pop up a YouTube video. The Win8 browser has its limits though. No support for plugins (not even Silverlight) will prohibit you from watching Netflix, VUDU or Amazon. Not to feer, that is what WinRT is for!

The Windows Store
Windows Media Center lacks a centralized location for managing, discovering and updating plugins. Yes, there is the Extras Gallery, but no one puts their apps there. Yes, the Digital Lifestyle had the right idea with their Made for Media Center app store, but it does not come pre-installed, it has no payment system for developers, and it is rarely updated. The Windows Store in Windows 8 comes pre-installed and provides a full-featured app store supported by Microsoft. This is where you will get your Netflix app and Your VUDU app and your Amazon Instant Video app and your MyMovies app. This is where you will get your à la carte movies and TV from Microsoft once they kill Zune.

Browsing Local and Network Media
Music, Videos, and Pictures are all represented as hubs in the Win8 Metro UI. However, we all know that MediaBrowser and MyMovies have much prettier UIs. There is no reason why they can’t build WinRT hubs that look beautiful and function in similar ways. If they could hack together MCML to build their rich interfaces, then doing an even better job with HTML, JavaScript and C# should be no problem.

Skype Integration
In 2011, Microsoft bought Skype in an attempt to either block others from gobbling it up or to gain some serious brand recognition in the teleconferencing market. Either way, it is inevitable that a robust Skype app will appear in the Windows Store on Windows 8. While there is a WMC plugin for Skype, a free native Windows application has to give the user a better experience.

Streaming Services
Streaming services are a primary function of home theater PCs. Netflix is already built into Windows Media Center. But what about VUDU, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, YouTube, iTunes and the soon-to-be Redbox/Verizon service? For that stuff, you either have to go through a browser or hack WMC to display an icon for a separate app that works with a streaming service. Ridiculous. Why not just replicate their HTML/JavaScript code from their websites into WinRT apps? Done. But why didn’t these companies make apps for Media Center? See my first point.

Read more at:
Microsoft Should Cut Windows Media Center from Windows 8 | The Digital Media Zone

 

[severedsolo]

XBMC is fine and dandy, but aside from the fact that of the plugins I use for WMC, only 1 is made for XBMC and is coded terribly compared to the WMC version, the UI is horrible. I'm not talking about the overall look and feel of it, (it does look quite nice) its the fact that its obviously designed to be used by someone who is actually sitting at their PC.

Personally, my HTPC is across the room, on a 32 inch LCD television. The one problem with it, is I can't read anything on it because the writing is too small. XBMC is all writing. Media centre at least has big TV friendly buttons. Ironically much like 8, I was actually seriously considering sticking 8 on this PC as an alternative. So yeah, I use Media Centre, and yeah I like it. I actually wouldn't be to bothered if it didn't ship with the OS, but a free download would be nice. Hell I would even pay for it to be honest. XBMC just doesn't do the job.

As for this fictional app, (and XBMC is not it), sure if Metro allows WMC plugins to interface directly with it then brilliant, chances of that happening, are I imagine quite low.

 

[BillWindows]

XBMC is fine and dandy, but aside from the fact that of the plugins I use for WMC, only 1 is made for XBMC and is coded terribly compared to the WMC version, the UI is horrible. I'm not talking about the overall look and feel of it, (it does look quite nice) its the fact that its obviously designed to be used by someone who is actually sitting at their PC.

Personally, my HTPC is across the room, on a 32 inch LCD television. The one problem with it, is I can't read anything on it because the writing is too small. XBMC is all writing. Media centre at least has big TV friendly buttons. Ironically much like 8, I was actually seriously considering sticking 8 on this PC as an alternative. So yeah, I use Media Centre, and yeah I like it. I actually wouldn't be to bothered if it didn't ship with the OS, but a free download would be nice. Hell I would even pay for it to be honest. XBMC just doesn't do the job.

As for this fictional app, (and XBMC is not it), sure if Metro allows WMC plugins to interface directly with it then brilliant, chances of that happening, are I imagine quite low.

Are you serious, I don't know what planet you downloaded XBMC from or if you've even got XBMC, but everything you say is wrong. XBMC is made for TV's and it's not all writing, and any writing that is there I can read very, very easily on my TV.
I think you've downloaded some other programme starting with X. I like WMC but XBMC is unreal for movies.
Do you know you can get different skins as well to make it exactly the way you want. Honestly I think you've got some other programme.

 

[FuturDreamz]

XBMC is fine and dandy, but aside from the fact that of the plugins I use for WMC, only 1 is made for XBMC and is coded terribly compared to the WMC version, the UI is horrible. I'm not talking about the overall look and feel of it, (it does look quite nice) its the fact that its obviously designed to be used by someone who is actually sitting at their PC.

Personally, my HTPC is across the room, on a 32 inch LCD television. The one problem with it, is I can't read anything on it because the writing is too small. XBMC is all writing. Media centre at least has big TV friendly buttons. Ironically much like 8, I was actually seriously considering sticking 8 on this PC as an alternative. So yeah, I use Media Centre, and yeah I like it. I actually wouldn't be to bothered if it didn't ship with the OS, but a free download would be nice. Hell I would even pay for it to be honest. XBMC just doesn't do the job.

As for this fictional app, (and XBMC is not it), sure if Metro allows WMC plugins to interface directly with it then brilliant, chances of that happening, are I imagine quite low.

1. What plugins, exactly? It's possible that there are alternative plugins that do the job. You also didn't mention when you tried XBMC. Unlike Microsoft programs, third party applications are constantly being improved.

2. Skins | XBMC