Official: No WMC in Win 10

Discussion of getting WMC to work on Windows 10 (unsupported)
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Ed 

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#121

Post by Ed  » Wed May 06, 2015 4:24 am

cwinfield wrote:Well Ceton also had Freescale bite them in the butt. With that said Silicon Dust is relying on Qnap and Western Digital as far as their NAS, they are also relying on google for android tv and it's adoption as a set top box is concerned but the point is moot. I will likely contribute $350 soon and take it for a ride to see how it pans out.
They're not relying on them, they're making them all options. There's a difference. If Android TV is a bust - you can still use Windows or OSX for viewing and recording copy protected content (assuming everything goes as planned). If Windows were to go under, you can use OSX and Android still; and so forth. And for the NAS - it's again, just an option. You can install to 'x' brand NAS or 'x' brand NAS if you prefer; or to a Windows/OSX computer instead. It's a much more versatile solution/ecosystem.

Ceton, basically hitched its wagon to WMC (if you wanted the full benefit of their tuner). That was the only solution (and will remain so, for the time being at least), which they never sought to get away from/develop other options.

That's what he was getting at (if I understood correctly).

Edit: Basically (assuming it came into fruition as intended, and ignoring all the additional stretch goal platforms), for the SD option to go away - it would require Android, Windows, OSX and whatever NAS manufacturer(s) to all go under/away (not likely to happen; for all of them, at the very least). For Ceton, WMC goes away, that's it. They have no (known) exit strategy.

3rob3

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#122

Post by 3rob3 » Wed May 06, 2015 12:47 pm

Ed  wrote:For Ceton, WMC goes away, that's it. They have no (known) exit strategy.
Well, they are "continuing to develop new innovative platforms for the delivery of both audio and video into consumers’ homes". :D
Can't get much vaguer than that!

Ed 

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#123

Post by Ed  » Wed May 06, 2015 6:30 pm

3rob3 wrote:
Ed  wrote:For Ceton, WMC goes away, that's it. They have no (known) exit strategy.
Well, they are "continuing to develop new innovative platforms for the delivery of both audio and video into consumers’ homes". :D
Can't get much vaguer than that!
Yeah, what do you expect though? As a company, they can't won't come out and say "We have no idea what we are gonna do/we are so f*d." :P

jamawass

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#124

Post by jamawass » Wed May 06, 2015 8:05 pm

Microsoft's strategy: develop a product,let it stagnate then kill it; WHS, Zune, now WMC. The ironic thing is that now the hardware has finally caught up to the software and the vision of htpc for the masses can now be easily realised. With intel nucs and "a pc on a stick" and network tuners, this could be the new age of the DVR.
Streaming may be the upstart but having recently purchased a Roku box, there's no way I'm giving up cable anytime soon. I watch one channel that was dropped by TWC on the Roku and most of the time it's a pixelated mess even though it's supposedly streaming in HD and if you watch sports Cable/Satellite is your only avenue to receive it.
HDHR are smart to develop their own software that realises it's in the 21st century and will stream to a host of handheld devices and streaming boxes. MS will soon be left with only Office as their main revenue generator and end up like all companies without vision and coherent execution plans, whither Palm now?

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#125

Post by adam1991 » Wed May 06, 2015 8:17 pm

Ed  wrote:
3rob3 wrote:
Ed  wrote:For Ceton, WMC goes away, that's it. They have no (known) exit strategy.
Well, they are "continuing to develop new innovative platforms for the delivery of both audio and video into consumers’ homes". :D
Can't get much vaguer than that!
Yeah, what do you expect though? As a company, they can't won't come out and say "We have no idea what we are gonna do/we are so f*d." :P
Nor can/will they, or ANY company, come out and vomit every detail of everything they're working on no matter what.

You people need to get a clue.

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#126

Post by adam1991 » Wed May 06, 2015 8:19 pm

jamawass wrote:Microsoft's strategy: develop a product,let it stagnate then kill it; WHS, Zune, now WMC. The ironic thing is that now the hardware has finally caught up to the software and the vision of HTPC for the masses can now be easily realised. With intel nucs and "a PC on a stick" and network tuners, this could be the new age of the DVR.
Streaming may be the upstart but having recently purchased a Roku box, there's no way I'm giving up cable anytime soon. I watch one channel that was dropped by TWC on the Roku and most of the time it's a pixelated mess even though it's supposedly streaming in HD
I have three Roku boxes and one Roku TV in my house. I have zero problems watching anything through Roku.

I gave up pay TV a couple of weeks ago, and am not missing it one bit. There's plenty of OTA and Netflix and what have you to fill my entertainment needs. We are trying, on a lark, Sling TV for my wife to see a few cable channels--and from a technical standpoint, it works superbly.

Going back to Halt and Catch Fire now.

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#127

Post by Ed  » Wed May 06, 2015 8:22 pm

adam1991 wrote:Nor can/will they, or ANY company, come out and vomit every detail of everything they're working on no matter what.

You people need to get a clue.
Usually, when companies actually have a plan/idea of what they're gonna do in the future- they give you a hint/idea/some details about said future plans - to keep your faith in the company and products, as well as keep you buying into said company and products. If you feel they are just playing it extremely close to the chest, fine. But, that isn't always the best/wisest course of action. You then create the possibility of people jumping ship to another company/product - because you didn't give them the impression you have any future plans.
Last edited by Ed  on Wed May 06, 2015 8:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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#128

Post by cwinfield » Wed May 06, 2015 8:22 pm

jamawass wrote:Microsoft's strategy: develop a product,let it stagnate then kill it; WHS, Zune, now WMC. The ironic thing is that now the hardware has finally caught up to the software and the vision of HTPC for the masses can now be easily realised. With intel nucs and "a PC on a stick" and network tuners, this could be the new age of the DVR.
Streaming may be the upstart but having recently purchased a Roku box, there's no way I'm giving up cable anytime soon. I watch one channel that was dropped by TWC on the Roku and most of the time it's a pixelated mess even though it's supposedly streaming in HD and if you watch sports Cable/Satellite is your only avenue to receive it.
HDHR are smart to develop their own software that realises it's in the 21st century and will stream to a host of handheld devices and streaming boxes. MS will soon be left with only Office as their main revenue generator and end up like all companies without vision and coherent execution plans, whither Palm now?
It had to be many factors but pushback from cable companies is a trend with cablecard. At one point TVs came with cablecard slots but no SDV, Google TV failed due to pushback from cable companies, remember when boxee was going to make a cable tv add on but was then bought by Samsung? The only reason cablecard ended up on PCs is I never think it was on the cable companies radar.

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#129

Post by kingwr » Mon May 11, 2015 9:37 pm

adam1991 wrote:
Ed  wrote:
3rob3 wrote: Well, they are "continuing to develop new innovative platforms for the delivery of both audio and video into consumers’ homes". :D
Can't get much vaguer than that!
Yeah, what do you expect though? As a company, they can't won't come out and say "We have no idea what we are gonna do/we are so f*d." :P
Nor can/will they, or ANY company, come out and vomit every detail of everything they're working on no matter what.

You people need to get a clue.
Previously, Ceton didn't have any problems showing off their wares and providing all kinds of details many, many months before their products (InfiniTV, Echo, Q) were available (or not, as the case was for the Q)? Assuming that strategy remains the same, I would say that we are years away from anything from Ceton - best case.

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#130

Post by RyC » Tue May 12, 2015 12:06 am

The ETH 6 just showed up out of the blue with no prior announcement or hint they were working on a networked tuner, so that's probably what they're going to do from now on

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#131

Post by RyC » Tue May 12, 2015 1:35 am


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TheOsburnFamil

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#132

Post by TheOsburnFamil » Tue May 12, 2015 12:38 pm

Matt O. ...tivo what? ...dish dvr--uh... huh? ...cable dvr fees--you're kidding, right?

3rob3

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#133

Post by 3rob3 » Tue May 12, 2015 12:42 pm

That is awesome.....lol. Anyone know who made that?

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#134

Post by holidayboy » Tue May 12, 2015 1:15 pm

Rob.

TGB.tv - the one stop shop for the more discerning Media Center user.

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STC

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#135

Post by STC » Tue May 12, 2015 1:33 pm

That's going to be fun and games polling the problematic times...
By the Community, for the Community. 100% Commercial Free.

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Ed 

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#136

Post by Ed  » Tue May 12, 2015 2:17 pm

STC wrote:That's going to be fun and games polling the problematic times...
Then they can make a new site called 'ismediacenterdeadyetdeadyet?' where they keep track of "Don't worry, we've only been without guide data for 'x' amount of days!" :D

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#137

Post by DavidinCT » Tue May 12, 2015 3:48 pm

JohnW248 wrote:We know that Silicon Dust is working on DVR software which will support cableCARD tuners and multiple platforms and I would certainly think that the Ceton people are working on something as well. They were well along wit the "Q" at one point and they got sold down the river by MSFT on the extender software when Win8 didn't support the Echo.
This is a even bigger problem. The nice thing about Media Center in it's prime days is, there really was not to many other options to do this type of thing. SO 3rd party developers would create all sorts of apps for Media Center because it was the hottest software package of it's type.

Now you have Silicon Dust creating one, and Ceton is rumored to be creating one, this is going to cause fragmentation in this market with 3rd party pulgins. One great app is available for the "other" because that dev has that software and wont create it for the competitor.
Great IDEA, it actually runs off a media center machine, and checks for guide data, as said, WMC is not officially dead till guide data stops or 7 or 8 are no longer supported (2020 and 2023).

As I looked at stuff, the Silicon Dust project is not as good as I hoped. Sure they made their goal but, How many people actually signed up for it ? As of looking today about 2200 people.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/12 ... e-imagined

When it comes down to it, that really is not a lot of people. Microsoft claimed (posted in this thread) that about 6% of Windows users use Media Center, Now how many computers are available right now that have WMC installed in it AND the users use it ? Microsoft talks WIndows installations in the multi-million, if not billons mark (in all time, WIndows 3.1 to WIndows 8.1).

It's possible a million or more people have or used WMC at one point (more than just opening and closing by mistake). Now when you look at even 5000 of the HDR orders, it's not a lot.

Microsoft is a VERY LARGE company, they need to see very large usage to support an Application, so even if MC users was around 100K, it still would not be enough for MS to open the eHome team again and start rebuilding it.

Media Center has always been more of a specialty thing and some people just use to watch TV. I am going to say 70-80% of the people who actually use it, don't even look at the web for info on it or never mind know about this site, as it just works.

The biggest impact to Microsoft is when windows 10 is actually RTM and is shipping. Users who use it, will find out, install Windows 10 and you lose it.

When Windows 8 was about to be released, a lot of US (including me) give MS a hard time about it, and IT did not come out till after 8 was out because all the users on 7 realized what was happening and created a bitch storm about it.

I know there is a lot of fans on here who use it and follow it but, I am going to say most people wont say anything about it, never mind tweet about it.

Our ONLY hope for Media Center it seems is when Windows 10 is released and those CLOSET Media Center users/fans start coming out of the closet and being very vocal about it.

At this point that is about the only way we are actually going to SAVE WMC (and by saving, just to have the SAME version dropped in Windows 10)....

Very sad indeed...
-Dave
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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STC

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#138

Post by STC » Tue May 12, 2015 4:54 pm

"Well it may actually be dead we just don't know....three days left of guide data!

Oh wait... There it goes again!"
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#139

Post by mike_ekim » Wed May 13, 2015 8:42 pm

DavidinCT wrote:
As I looked at stuff, the Silicon Dust project is not as good as I hoped. Sure they made their goal but, How many people actually signed up for it ? As of looking today about 2200 people.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/12 ... e-imagined

When it comes down to it, that really is not a lot of people. Microsoft claimed (posted in this thread) that about 6% of Windows users use Media Center, Now how many computers are available right now that have WMC installed in it AND the users use it ? Microsoft talks WIndows installations in the multi-million, if not billons mark (in all time, WIndows 3.1 to WIndows 8.1).

It's possible a million or more people have or used WMC at one point (more than just opening and closing by mistake). Now when you look at even 5000 of the HDR orders, it's not a lot.
There are a number of ways to watch and record copy-freely content with a SD tuner other than WMC. The real sticking point for many users, and the thing that will make them open up their wallets, is the ability to watch/record copy-once content - i.e. the cablecard users.
  • In June 2009 437,800 cablecard modules had been deployed for use in retail equipment (cablecard TVs, TiVos, tuners etc). http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=668876

    By 2015 only 672,000 CE devices that use CableCARDs had been sold, cumulative. All the cablecard-using TiVos, TVs, DVRs, and tuners ever sold, amounted to 672,000 Devices.
So if 437,800 cable cards were deployed in retail equipment in 2009 (and the rental cable box is not retail equipment) then how many cable card devices could have been sold since 2009? About 200,000. You can speculate that 1,000,000 people have used WMC, but it looks like in the past 5 years no more than 200,000 households could have invested in cablecard technology, and a bunch of those were TiVo users. The kickstarter backers are bound to be people who already use cablecards in a SiliconDust tuner with WMC (and statistically that's a small group), not people who use cablecards in TiVos or people who already use an OTA tuner with MediaBrowser.

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#140

Post by Starflare5 » Wed May 13, 2015 8:51 pm

I am getting so tired of this rumor, because, apparently, Microsoft may change their minds as present in an update:

Here's the issue, this is technically all a rumor and several publications are falling for it. First of all, development of Windows Media Center did not actually stop in 2009 as it was more placed on the back burner temporarily during the development of the main components of Windows 10..... Since then, Windows Media Center in Windows 8.1 has undergone a massive improvement and technological upgrade with features added on that will be present in the edition for Windows 10 by default. This update was released during the month of April in the midst of end of life for the technical preview and you must have Windows 8.1 with Media Center in order to get the update. Sorry Windows 7 users. This update has me believing that Microsoft may change their minds, or appear to, at the last minute.

That's just my 2 cents on the subject, but, what do I know?

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