First details on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2006?

Shuttle's Media Center XPC prototype has enough going on in its own right—it's running on the new Alviso chipset, and has some nice touches like a removable hard drive bay—but to be honest what we really care about is the fact that it's designed to run on the next version of Windows XP Media Center Edition (rather than the new one which just came out). Obviously a lot could change between now and the third quarter of this year when Windows XP Media Center 2006 is due out, but according to AndandTech the next version of the software is definitely going to add support for CableCard, which means you'll be able to plug digital cable directly into the box and natively record HDTV programming. Windows Media Center XP 2005 did add support for HDTV tuner cards, but they're only able to record over the air HDTV broadcasts.

[Via Digital Media Thoughts]

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

This is so cool!

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I thought the next version of Windows Media Center Edition was coming in the Longhorn wave, called Slalom.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

As long as they allow for radio to be recorded then I will upgrade.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I find it extremely unlikely that content providers will let HDTV shows be recorded directly as a digital stream to a regular computer, if this thing takes off. What kind of obnoxious DRM will they have to cripple this thing with until the movie studios are happy, I wonder...

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

plz thisacount free for media center 2005
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