Windows Media Center Extenders (officially "Extender for Windows Media Center" and code named "Bobsled") are devices that are configured to connect over a

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

to a computer running Microsoft

Windows XP Media Center Edition Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) is a version of the Windows XP operating system which was the first version of Windows to include Windows Media Center, designed to serve as a home-entertainment hub. The last version, Windows XP Media Cen ...

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

Home Premium/Ultimate,

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

Home Premium, or

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

with a Pro pack to stream the computer's media center functions to the Extender device. This allows use of the Media Center and its features (such as view photos, videos, listen to music, watch live television and use DVR functions, watch recorded TV, etc.) on a

television receiver A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...

or other

electronic visual display An electronic visual display, informally a screen, is a display device for presentation of images, text, or video transmitted electronically, without producing a permanent record. Electronic visual displays include television sets, computer monito ...

. The advantage with these devices is that a household's primary computer, hosting Media Center, need not be near the device used for display. Additionally, with an Extender, the Media Center can be accessed at the same time by several users. The

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

gaming console has Media Center Extender functionality. The Ceton Echo is a stand-alone extender.

Technology

Media Center Extenders (MCX) can either be dedicated hardware devices, such as set top boxes or televisions, or software based implementations such as the

. First generation hardware based devices were based on the

Windows CE Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...

operating system whereas the second generation devices can use other embedded OSs such as

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

as well. The Extender creates its own user account on the host PC(MCX1, MCX2, etc.) and then uses a version of

Fast User Switching Fast user switching is a feature of a multi-user operating system which allows users to switch between user accounts without quitting applications and logging out. In Linux The Linux kernel's VT subsystem dates back to 1993 and does not under ...

to enable the use of the host computer and Extenders at the same time. Version 1 Extenders only support Media Center versions up to Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2 - they cannot support the version of Media Center incorporated in Windows Vista Home Premium/Ultimate Edition and later. The server software, which runs on the host PC and streams the media, is built into

Windows Media Center Windows Media Center (WMC) is a defunct digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate ...

. An MCX device must be paired with the MCE software before use; this is done by pairing the MCE software with an identifying number generated by the MCX device. The MCE software makes the user interface available via the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP, which is also used by

Remote Desktop In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a ...

client). All processing done by the MCE software and plug-ins happen at the host computer; only the user interface is streamed to the MCX devices. As such, the device can render the interface even though the Media Center-specific software (or the plug-ins) might not be installed there. However, the media files are streamed over a different

protocol Protocol may refer to: Sociology and politics * Protocol (politics), a formal agreement between nation states * Protocol (diplomacy), the etiquette of diplomacy and affairs of state * Etiquette, a code of personal behavior Science and technolog ...

. To render the media, an implementation of the

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

used to package the media must be locally installed on the Extender; having the codec on the host computer is not enough. Alternatively media can be trans-coded on the fly by the host computer to a codec that is supported by the Extender. In Windows 7 this is now a standard feature which will probably relieve Extender vendors in the future from having to include such a wide variety of codecs.

Version 1 Extenders

* HP x5400 * Linksys WMCE54AG * Xbox with Media Center Extender Add-On All Version 1 Extenders have been discontinued and are not supported in Windows Vista.

Version 2 Extenders

For quite some time, the

was the only Version 2 Extender available that could work with Windows Vista. When connecting an

to a Windows XP Media Center Edition PC, a free download is required to connect for the first time. When connecting an

to a Windows Vista PC, no download is necessary as all required components are built into Windows Vista. Microsoft eventually announced the v2 Media Center Extenders from partners (Linksys, D-Link and Niveus Media) on 5 September 2007. Version 2 capable Extenders support animated transitions between screens and additional capabilities of Windows Vista to handle newer video formats, notably, DivX,

Xvid Xvid (formerly "XviD") is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 video coding standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi mas ...

Windows Media Video Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technology ...

HD and

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...

. They can stream

HDTV High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

(including

1080p 1080p (1920×1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen ve ...

) through

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...

like the

, can stream protected content and many incorporate draft

802.11n IEEE 802.11n-2009 or 802.11n is a wireless-networking standard that uses multiple antennas to increase data rates. The Wi-Fi Alliance has also retroactively labelled the technology for the standard as Wi-Fi 4. It standardized support for multipl ...

wireless connectivity. In addition to these updates, Extender manufacturers will be able to integrate Extender technology into other popular consumer electronics devices. Examples include DVD players, HDTVs, HD DVD players, Blu-ray players, etc. Windows Media Connect and Windows Media Player Network Sharing are able to connect to them on Windows XP; however, they do not work with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 as extenders.

is the only device that can work as an extender with both

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

Media Center as well as

. As of 2020, there are no commercially available Extenders. Discontinued Products: * D-Link DSM-750 * HP MediaSmart Connect - x280n * HP MediaSmart HDTV (With software update from April 2008) * Linksys DMA2100 * Linksys DMA2200 (Integrated DVD Player) * Niveus Media Extender - EDGE * Samsung MediaLive Digital Media Extender MR-00EA1 * Xbox 360 (Works with MCE 2005, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 Media Center) * Ceton Echo (Does not work with Windows 8 Media Center)

Energy usage

The various versions of the Xbox 360 consume between 70 and 200 watts of power, depending upon model and activity (the 360 S consumes 70 W while idlingwinsupersite.com: Xbox 360 S Review, 6 October 2010
/ref>). The Ceton Echo claims to use less than 5 W. Energy cost depends upon electricity prices, model, and use, but for an Xbox 360 running continuously can be a significant fraction of the purchase price every year. The Ceton claims to save up to

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

60 a year on electricity compared to a cable box or Xbox 360 used as an extender.

References

External links