If you want the ultimate HD media machine, it is hard to beat Vista Media Center. Seriously, you've got HD
CableCARD support,
HD DirecTV tuners are right around the corner and for less than $300 you can get a
dual format HD DVD and Blu-ray drive. And no matter what your feeling are about Microsoft, it's hard to argue that the Vista Media Center isn't a pleasure to use. But the are a couple of caveats that are keeping us all from the ultimate HD media experience. The first -- which should be just a matter of time -- is the lack of support for any of
the next-gen audio codecs, but the second might not ever happen.
Vista Media Center can seamlessly playback DVDs, HD DVD or Blu-ray discs require a 3rd party application. Sure, it still works, but the overall flow is lost. Many had hope that eventually MS would come around and at least add native support for HD DVD, but considering the Blu-ray spec requires BD Java -- and we know how much MS loves Java -- MS insiders like Chris Lanier don't think it'll ever happen. So if HD DVD does go away only leaving with Blu-ray, we might not ever see the ultimate HD media experience all in one box.
posted January 25th 2008 12:27PM
i think ms will eventually get all of the xbox live content in media center like their internet tv beta and it wont matter not having native hd-dvd or bluray support.
I've heard that they were planning to add native HD DVD support in Rollup 1. They are also planning on adding QAM support. This will be a separate update from SP1 though. Probably won't be released until Q2 or Q3 2008.
In the mean time QAM support in Media Center can be had throgh HD HomeRun tuner. It is awesome. I record all my locals in HD for free (which makes up about 90% of what I watch). I only pay for basic cable.
I get QAM using the ATI TV wonder .. And As soon as i feel like dealing with comcast i will have cablecard as well
Doesn't Windows Media Center already support QAM with a compatible tuner?
The point is with how HD DVD appears to be on the downfall, the addition of native support (if it ever is released) will likely be pointless in the long run (eg. everyone going BD).
Media Center doesn't currently support QAM. The HD HomeRun works by tricking Media Center into thinking that it's receiving OTA HD. You have to use their software to assign the proper channels. It all works pretty well however.
Well your wrong Media center DOES support QAM by its self , I'm using it right now , with nothing else needed , i just connected the ATI tv wonder and when it found it , i clicked " Other services" and it got all QAM stations
Media Center only supports QAM using a Digital Cable Tuner/OCUR/CableCARD Tuner. It doesn't support QAM from any other card. The HDHR can be used for QAM if you don't have a CableCARD PC.
Oh Microsoft, your support tactics really don't make anysense, your claim full on support of HD DVD. But you don't provide the neccesities to get the format out their. Does anyone know if computers that come equiped with HD DVD drives or standalone drives come with software that allows you to playback HD content? Or is their a brochure in their that directs the consumer over to PowerDVD's moto of $50 for support.
Typical Microsoft response for not including support for any technology damaging to themselves:
We just dont see any customer demand in %something%, so we wont support it.
(replace something with Blu-ray, ODF, Ogg, etc)
They could quite easily enable Blu-ray in their Media Centre, so why not? If they must disable Java outside of MC, it could be done.
During CES a couple years ago they showed HD DVD support built into vista even making a managed copy. My understanding was that it would be built into 64-bit versions of vista already. I don't have that though so I can't test it out. Either way. By the time the HD Disc market gets stabalized and the war is just a memory and it really starts to take off Windows 7 will be close to coming or out already. For the relatively few people that are trying to do it now, i'm sure it's a pain, but by the time HD Discs are mainstream it will be a non-issue.
Playback of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is already supported in Vista Media Center. ArcSoft has a plugin for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray playback in Vista Media Center already.
http://www.arcsoft.com/products/totalmediatheatre/
Before making a post about something out of the blue (er...blu), you really might want to check to see if it is actually correct. :)
Playback of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is already supported in Vista Media Centre.
No, it isnt because you said: ArcSoft has a plug-in for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray playback in Vista Media Centre
It also costs another $90, yeah, that sounds worth it
(I believe what the article is getting at is native support)
I guess... I just figured the extenders would add that blue ray support. The box should be in the garage anyway doing things like dscrabling shit, serving content, and not breaking. Consumption should be through extenders IMO. This computer in the living room is just never going to be big, hell the partners should go ahead and start bundling v2 extenders with the boxes, probable triple customer sat scores.
This is their quote: "Sure, it still works, but the overall flow is lost. So if HD DVD does go away only leaving with Blu-ray, we might not ever see the ultimate HD media experience all in one box."
With a plugin, there shouldn't be a loss of flow. It should work within the Media Center interface. I figured that was their issue. :shrug:
Oh, and regardless, in an article about HD-DVD and Blu-Ray playback in Media Center, they really should mention any software that does make it possible.
The fact is no software currently makes it possible for native playback. That's the subject matter that I was writing about in the original article, not playback within Windows in general. Two really different subjects.
The majority of my readers (and readers here at Engadget HD) know that you can playback the discs on a PC.
What exactly is "native playback?" What is the requirement for this?
Does a decoder have to be included with the OS in order for there to be native playback? If so, then even XP and MCE 2005 didn't have native playback. There was no DVD decoder included with XP in any form. Instead, you needed to use a 3rd party codec, just like you need to use a 3rd party system for blu-ray and hd-dvd.
At least the support is included to integrate this 3rd party HD-DVD and Blu-Ray system seamlessly into Media Center's interface.
Native playback means within the application. Media Center has always had native support for DVD playback. I'm not talking about simple things like decoders being included in a box.
The differences between HD DVD and Blu-ray are quite large when you factor in software support using a framework that has already been developed.
Read more at http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2008/01/25/1480420.aspx
While still searching for the convergence holy grail, it just seems like separate devices still do it better for cheaper.
The main advantage of a HTPC over STBs in my opinion seems to be having a catalog of ripped DVDs and streaming those DVDs. Native support for HD DVD and Blu Ray would add HDM to the DVD library part of Media Center, and that would be awesome, but ripping and hosting content are two things the industry doesn't really want (look at how the DVD Forum treats Kaleidescape).
I don't believe we ever will see a fully-functional soup-to-nuts solution from MSFT. Just look at most of their products, they do a half-a$$ job with everyone of them and always leave their customers desiring for more/better. It must be their desire to target the lowest common denominator functionaliy, which leaves the leading-edge techies disappointed.
Integrated Media Center support is much less important than the issues below.
#1. The PC is not compliant with HD Deep Color despite what your display's capabilities are. No current PC will support HDMI 1.3 because there is no OS that can handle 36-bit color depths required for Deep Color. No Microsoft OS, including Vista, can accomodate more than 24-bit RGB color.
#2. Newer, HD quality, audio is not possilbe on a PC for 2 reasons. The first has to do with playback downsampling and the second has to do with hardware (see #3). PowerDVD (the only commercially viable playback software for HD and Blu-Ray) downsamples HD audio from both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs to 48KHz / 16-bit (standard DVD quality). When Cyberlink PowerDVD Product Manager, Louis Chen, was asked about this in an interview, he said, "digital output without protection is not possible due to AACS requirement. Digital and analogue output with protection (HDMI) is also not possible due to lack of an internal secure audio path in a Windows PC."
Ben mentions that this "should be just a matter of time." I guess he is referring to the Realtek ALC889a codec that supports HDCP content encryption. Hopefully, Cyberlink will work with Realtek or other companies to come up with a secure hardware/software solution for content protection. While this may be just a matter of time, there is still a big problem left: there is no secure physical connection that has the bandwidth to transmit the digital signal from the PC to the receiver (see below).
#3. There is no way to convey a digital HD audio signal from a PC to a receiver. Even if PowerDVD or another software company decided to forgo downsampling audio or develop a secure mechanism for transmission, you still could not take advantage of HD audio. While HDMI can handle the newest digital HD audio with 8 channels, all current HDMI output solutions on a PC are from a Toslink cable. Therefore, there is no way to get digital HD audio to the receiver. Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF cannot carry a full DD+ signal, DTS-HD HR signal, full 5.1 PCM signal, TrueHD signal or DTS-HD MA signal.
Until there is a protected path for PC HD audio content AND an HDMI mechanism not hindered by the limitations of Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF, the HD HTPC is nice hobby but you are sure missing out on many of the reasons to upgrade to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Since audio via an HDMI cable requires a video signal (though a video signal does not require audio), I would imagine that a sound card manufacturer and a video card manufacturer would need to collaborate to come up with a pure HDMI product (that does not take its audio feed from Toslink). Ben, I have a feeling that this is going to be much longer than simply "a matter of time."
This will handle #3:
http://www.auzentech.com/site/company/press.php
You know I am not sure about this. When HD-DVD goes the way of the dodo, BluRay will be the standard. At the end of the day Microsoft is in the business to sell software. So if Bluray is the standard how can they realistically not support it? That would totally open the door for competitors in the media center sector, and we al know how much Microsoft likes competition.