Good news for the Ceton Q?

[EmirOfGroofunkistan]

I wonder if this will enable ceton to continue with the Q?
http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/14/micr ... d-roadmap/

[lithium630]

I wonder if this will enable ceton to continue with the Q?
http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/14/micr ... d-roadmap/

Which part?

[Jonny561201]

It doesnt specifically state in the article that media center is a supported feature this time around. I tried doing a little searching while at work, but came up with nothing. I might try to look through the press release to see if I can get more details, but I am guessing this may just solidify Ceton's plans to shelve the product.

[foxwood]

So Microsoft has announced General Availability of Windows Embedded 8 Pro for March. But there's no Preview release of the Pro version mentioned, and no immediate indication of whether the Media Center pack can be added to Windows Embedded 8 Pro. If the Windows 8 launch itself is anything to go by, even Ceton won't know until the end of March whether a Windows 8 based Q will even be an option - they can't even start testing with the Windows Embedded 8 Standard Release preview.

Even assuming Media Center can be added to Windows Embedded 8 Pro, there's the question of whether Windows 8 is really the right base for a Q type device. They don't need access to Windows Embedded 8 Pro to answer that question - I think the concensus here is that for a pure HTPC, Windows 8 probably isn't currently the best choice, though it might have potential. A device like this needs to have YouTube, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Netflix support out of the box, (as well as TV), and those parts of the puzzle aren't being delivered in a Media Center friendly fashion, and it's not clear that the potential benefits of having access to metro apps outweigh the immediate disadvantage of the poor integration of those apps into the Media Center interface, and how that would detract from the Q User Experience.

Bottom Line - if you can't build a no-compromises, hands-off Windows 8 Media Center HTPC with Windows 8 Pro, you aren't going to be able to build it with Windows Embedded 8 Pro either. So unless the developers at Ceton can come up with a way to integrate Metro apps with 8MC, my guess is we won't see a Q based on Embedded 8MC .

[SoundForSound]

It's astonishing to me that Ceton would not have enough contacts at MS to know whether Media Center would be available in Embedded8 or not.

[foxwood]

It's astonishing to me that Ceton would not have enough contacts at MS to know whether Media Center would be available in Embedded8 or not.

I think you've jumped to the wrong conclusion - it's not obvious that there's anyone at MS who knows whether Media Center will be available in Embedded8 or not, especially with the recent upheavals in the Windows division. Unless there's someone in MS pushing hard for Media Center to be supported in Embedded8, I can see it being ignored. That's not to say that it can't be made work, just that it may never be a tested and supported configuration, and I don't find it hard to believe that the decision to allocate the resources won't be made any sooner than it absolutely has to be.