Media Center goes retail

blog
1

I had no idea this was happening, but it is fantastic news: according to this GamePC article, the latest 2005 version of Windows XP Media Center Edition will be released as a retail product within a few weeks:

This is a companion discussion topic for the original blog entry at: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/10/media-center-goes-retail.html
2

Curse you GamePC!

Thanks for the update, Shannon. That’s really too bad.

3

Hmm, despite GamePC’s claims that MCE 2k5 will be released “within a few weeks” I see no sign of it in the MSDN universal download section… :stuck_out_tongue:

4

"Good question! I find it scary that I did not even know Media Center existed until I flew down here to interview for a job as a Program Manager on the Media Center team. "

I find it scary that they’d hire this guy to run the MCE team. Here’s hoping that there WILL be a retail version of MCE!

5

Interestly, SnapStream came out with BeyondTV 3.5, also largely written in .NET. I dig the MCE idea, but I don’t want to change my current XPPro OS. You might check BeyondTV out, it’s very slick.

6

Sweet-- webguide is now available for MCE 2005! This lets you schedule and view recordings over the internet on your HTPC:

http://asciiexpress.com/webguide/

7

Unfortunately, it looks like it might nothing more than a rumor. Matt Goyer is a program manager on the shell team of Windows Media Center and says it will only be available via OEMs, as before.
http://blog.mattgoyer.com/categories/mediaCenter/2004/10/06.html#a3708

8

He took down the post I linked to, so maybe he was wrong?

9

“I find it scary that they’d hire this guy to run the MCE team”

I agree, but with Chris Sells being added to the MSDN Smart Client team a week or so after claiming that MSN Messenger is a Smart Client, I’m not surprised.