Windows Media Center (WMC) is a defunct

digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...

and media player created by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on

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 ...

(MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate editions of

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 ...

, as well as all editions of

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 ...

except Starter and Home Basic. It was also available on

Windows 8 Pro Windows 8, a major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system, was available in four different editions: Windows 8 (Core), Pro, Enterprise, and RT. Only Windows 8 (Core) and Pro were widely available at retailers. The other editions focus ...

and

Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...

Pro as a paid add-on, before being discontinued in

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

, although it can reportedly be unofficially reinstalled using a series of Command Prompt commands. Media Center can play

slideshows A slide show (slideshow) is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be manua ...

, videos and music from local

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

optical drive In computing, an optical disc drive is a disk drive, disc drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives ...

s and

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

locations. Users can stream

television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...

s and

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

s through selected services such as

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

. Content can be played back on

computer monitor A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls. The di ...

s or on

television set 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 ...

s through the use of devices called Windows Media Center Extenders. It is also possible to watch and pause live TV. Up to six

TV tuners A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the digital vi ...

on a tuner card are supported simultaneously. Both standard- and high-definition unencrypted video are supported through

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Febr ...

and

ATSC Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an American set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard and, like that ...

standards. It is possible to view encrypted cable television channels by using an internal or external tuner that supported

CableCARD CableCARD is a special-use PC Card device that allows consumers in the United States to view and record digital cable television channels on digital video recorders, personal computers and television sets on equipment such as a set-top box not pr ...

. Shortly after Windows 7's 2009 release, Microsoft disbanded the Media Center development team, thus abandoning any further software developments. Consequently, the Media Center interface remained unchanged for Windows 8 and 8.1 users. In May 2015, Microsoft announced that Windows Media Center would be discontinued on

, and that it would be removed when upgrading; but stated that those upgrading from a version of Windows that included the Media Center application would receive the paid

Windows DVD Player DVD Player is an app developed by Microsoft that plays DVD-Video on Microsoft Windows. DVD Player was introduced in Windows 98, and was included in Windows ME and Windows 2000 before removal from Windows XP and beyond. After Windows XP, DVD ...

app for free to maintain

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

playback functionality.

Version history

Windows XP Media Center Edition

Windows Media Center, codenamed "Freestyle", was first included with

Windows Vista

A new version of the WMC was included in the Home Premium and Ultimate

Windows Vista editions Windows Vista—a major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system—was available in six different product editions: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate. On September 5, 2006, Microsoft announced the USD p ...

. The

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

was redesigned and tailored for the 16:9 aspect ratio. Support for multiple tuners was added in later releases and varies depending upon the version of the operating system purchased. Support for many

Windows Media Center Extender 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 to a computer running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows Vist ...

hardware devices, that had been released pre-Vista, was also dropped leaving many owners out of luck if they did not upgrade to one of the supported Windows Vista versions from the Windows XP Media Center Edition. Also introduced to U.S. users was

Internet TV Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air aer ...

, which allows access to

streaming content Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

through WMC. It also allows

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

content. Each button in the main menu, which contains sections such as "Music", "Videos", and "TV", gets encased in a box when selected, and for each selection, a submenu comes up, extending horizontally. When any of the options is selected, the entries for each are presented in a grid-like structure, with each item being identified by

album art An album cover (also referred to as album art) is the front packaging art of a commercially released studio album or other audio recordings. The term can refer to either the printed paperboard covers typically used to package sets of and 78-rpm ...

, if it is an

audio file An audio file format is a file format for storing digital audio data on a computer system. The bit layout of the audio data (excluding metadata) is called the audio coding format and can be uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file size, ofte ...

, or a

thumbnail image Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and imag ...

if it is a

picture An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...

, a

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

or a TV recording, and other related options, such as different views for the music collection if "Music" is selected, extend horizontally along the top of the grid. Similarly, other items are identified by suggestive artwork. The grid displaying the items is also extended horizontally, and the selected item is enlarged compared to the rest. Other features of the WMC include: * Support for two dual- tuner cards. * Native

MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic video coding format, coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of Lossy compression, lossy video compression and ...

support. * Addition of ''Movies and DVD'' button which lists all the

movies A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

on the hard drive and DVD. * ''Tasks'' button that provides access to jobs such as setting up and configuring a media center extender device. * Any video playing is overlaid on the background of the

, if the UI is navigated while the video is still playing. * Support for high-definition (HD) content, and CableCARD support. * Uses the .NET 2.0

CLR CLR may refer to: * Calcium Lime Rust, a household cleaning-product * California Law Review, a publication by the UC Berkeley School of Law * Tube_bending, Centerline Radius, a term in the tubing industry used to describe the radius of a bend * Cen ...

. Microsoft later updated WMC with a feature pack known as TV Pack 2008. This release, codenamed "Fiji", was only made available via

OEMs An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

for new computers that came preinstalled with the update. It is not available as an update for existing WMC users. The update tweaked the user interface, added support for

digital subchannels In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compressi ...

QAM Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is the name of a family of digital modulation methods and a related family of analog modulation methods widely used in modern telecommunications to transmit information. It conveys two analog message signal ...

, DVB-S and

MHEG MHEG-5, or International Organization for Standardization, ISO/International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC 13522-5, is part of a set of international standards relating to the presentation of multimedia information, standardised by the Multime ...

, and increased the total number of each type of tuner allowed. It used files instead of .

Beta version A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

s also supported

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 ...

format but this feature was removed upon release to manufacturing.

Windows 7

An updated version of the WMC was included in all the

Windows 7 editions Windows 7, a major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2009. Only Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate were widely available at retailers. The other editions f ...

except Starter and Home Basic. Much of the functionality added with TV Pack 2008 was included with the version of Media Center included in

, along with an update to the

. The WMC has retained much of the design and feel of its predecessor, but with a variety of

shortcuts and browsing capabilities. Playback of H.264 video both locally and through a Media Center Extender (including 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 generation ...

) is supported. Some notable enhancements in the WMC include a new mini guide, a new scrub bar, the option to color code the guide by show type, and Internet content that is more tightly integrated with regular TV via the guide. All Windows 7 versions now support up to four tuners of each type (

, CableCARD,

NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...

, etc.). When browsing the media library, items lacking

are shown in a range of foreground and background color combinations instead of using white text on a blue background. When the left or right remote control buttons are held down to browse the library quickly, a two-letter prefix of the current album name is prominently shown as a visual aid. The Picture Library includes new

slideshow A slide show (slideshow) is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be manu ...

capabilities, and individual pictures can be rated. Also, while browsing a media library, a new column appears at the top named "Shared." This allows users to access shared media libraries on other Media Center PCs from directly within Media Center. For television support, the Windows Media Center "TV Pack" released by Microsoft in 2008 is incorporated into the WMC. This includes support for CableCARD and North American (

) clear QAM tuners, as well as creating lists of favorite stations. A

gadget A gadget is a mechanical device or any ingenious article. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as '' gizmos''. History The etymology of the word is disputed. The word first appears as reference to an 18th-century tool in glassmaking that was develo ...

for the WMC is also included. The Public folder also contains a hidden Recorded TV

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

that appears in the

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...

side pane when TV is set up in Media Center for the first time.

Windows 8 and 8.1

The WMC was not included with any of

Windows 8 editions Windows 8, a major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system, was available in four different editions: Windows 8 (Core), Pro, Enterprise, and RT. Only Windows 8 (Core) and Pro were widely available at retailers. The other editions focus ...

. Instead, it was part of a Windows 8 Media Center Pack add-on available only for retail versions Windows 8 Pro, and Windows 8 ''Pro Pack'' that upgrades Windows 8 to Windows 8 Pro available through the Add features to Windows 8 service. The Windows 8 Pro Pack was available for US$69.99, while the Windows 8 Media Center Pack was available at no charge from October 26, 2012, until January 31, 2013, as a promotion to encourage users to upgrade to Windows 8. After the promotion, the price of the Windows 8 and 8.1 Media Center Pack changed to US$9.99, until it was discontinued on October 30, 2015. The WMC cannot run on

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

or on top of other

windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

because of "new Windows OS requirements and behaviors".

Windows 10 Technical Preview

On Windows 10 Technical Preview builds, adding Windows Media Center using a purchased

product key would result in the system subsequently identifying itself as "Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center", along with a warning that the OS has not been activated. The issue also prevented users from getting updates, patches and future preview builds.

Discontinuation

During the 2015 Build developers' conference, a Microsoft executive confirmed that Media Center, with its TV receiver and PVR functionality, would not be updated for or included with

; thus the product would be discontinued. Those upgrading to Windows 10 from a version of Windows that included the Media Center application would receive the paid

app for free to maintain

playback functionality after the first

Windows Update Windows Update is a Microsoft service for the Windows 9x and Windows NT families of operating system, which automates downloading and installing Microsoft Windows software updates over the Internet. The service delivers software updates for Wind ...

. Some users who wanted

to provide an official port of the Windows Media Center for Windows 10 created two

change.org Change.org is a worldwide nonprofit petition website, based in California, US, operated by the San Francisco-based company of the same name, which has over 400 million users and offers the public the ability to promote the petitions they care abo ...

petitions and sent thousands of requests to Microsoft via their Windows Feedback app included with Windows 10.

Electronic Program Guide

In early July 2015,

announced that the

Electronic Program Guide Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for ...

(EPG) for Windows Media Center was being updated on July 7, 2015 with new video data packages. This update to the EPG changed the service provider from Zap2It to

Rovi TiVo Corporation, formerly known as the Rovi Corporation and Macrovision Solutions Corporation, was an American technology company. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company is primarily involved in licensing its intellectual property ...

. Since the update a large number of reports have been posted to the Microsoft Media Center Feedback page indicating that the EPG data feed from Rovi has significant data quality issues relating to incorrect channel lineups, outdated and incorrect program data and failure to download the EPG data from Rovi through Microsoft's servers. This update was not given to the early Insider Preview builds of Windows 10 even though they included the WMC.

Program Guide Data Service

Support for Electronic Program Guide service officially ended on January 14, 2020, coinciding with the end of support for Windows 7. This applies to all versions of WMC including users running WMC on discontinued products such as XP and Vista. Despite the announcement, EPG data continued to be updated until the first week of April 2020. Alternatives exist that acquire program information and load it into the WMC EPG data base. Some use fee-based subscription services to obtain the information. Some require multiple processing steps but are generally automatable. Some alternate TV listing providers are: * epg123 (free software that lets WMC get EPG data from other sources) * WebGrab+Plus (standalone EPG software) * SchedulesDirect (provides EPG data for software like EPG123, at a cost of $25 per year) * EPG Collector (open-source software to insert over-the-air EPG data into Windows Media Center 7) Some DVR-like alternatives to WMC that support Program Guide Data: * Emby DVR – cost $5 per month, $55 for 1 year or $119 for lifetime * Plex – cost $5 per month, $39 for 1 year, or $119 for Lifetime * SiliconDust Dvr – $35 per year * JRiver – Windows license $60 * MediaPortal – unknown

Features

Media Center uses TV tuner devices to play back and record TV shows from standard antenna, cable or satellite signals. Users can record television programs manually or schedule recording via the

electronic program guide Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for ...

. Recordings can be burned to Video DVD or, barring copy restrictions, be transferred to a

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...

. Media Center supports both analog and digital tuners and allows up to six of each tuner type (analog, digital

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...

Clear QAM QAM is a digital television standard using quadrature amplitude modulation. It is the format by which digital cable channels are encoded and transmitted via cable television providers. QAM is used in a variety of communications systems such as Di ...

, CableCard) to be configured. All the tuners use the same guide data but it can be edited and configured to include additional channels such as Clear QAM not found or included in most Titan Guides. While playing live television, the program keeps a buffer that allows users to rewind or pause live TV and skip commercials. A third party progra
MCEBuddy
allows automatic commercial skipping on recorded programs. Media Center can stream both live and recorded contents to

s such as the

console, but other Windows computers can just access recorded content. Playback of content on television is possible through Media Center Extenders or by directly connecting a computer running Windows Media Center to a television. The menus of Windows Media Center are displayed in a 10-foot user interface suitable for viewing on large screen televisions and can be navigated using various

remote control In electronics, a remote control (also known as a remote or clicker) is an electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operate devices such as ...

s. Windows Media Center PCs require a sensor to be able to interact with the remote control. To advertise Media Center support, remote controls must also have certain buttons such as the Green Media Center logo Start button and buttons for navigation, playback and volume controls, power and channel flipping.

Media file support

Windows Media Center organizes and displays videos and music found on both local and networked computers. Music albums are arranged with accompanying album art that can be downloaded off the Internet automatically or added manually into Media Center. Users can create playlists of different songs or albums as well. While playing music, the user can pause and fast forward songs and view

visualization Visualization or visualisation may refer to: *Visualization (graphics), the physical or imagining creation of images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message * Data visualization, the graphic representation of data * Information visualiz ...

s. Analog

FM radio FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting using frequency modulation (FM). Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to provide high fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting is cap ...

support is also available if the user's TV tuner supports it. Media Center allows users to browse pictures and play them in slideshows, as well as play video files. Media can be categorized by name, date, tags, and other file attributes. In addition, users can organize and play

s through the "Movie Library" feature introduced in Windows Vista Media Center. Through the "Internet TV" feature, users can also stream television and web shows from select content providers.

CableCARD support

Windows Vista Media Center introduced support for CableCARD devices. However, CableCARD was only supported on OEM hardware that had been certified by

CableLabs Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs) is a nonprofit corporation promoting innovation as a research and development lab founded in 1988 by American cable operators. System operators from around the world are eligible to be members. Th ...

. Windows 7 Media Center supports adding CableCARD to existing hardware, provided the hardware meets certain requirements. Shortly after the release of Windows 7, Microsoft released the Digital Cable Advisor tool to verify that the requirements are met before activating CableCARD support.

Portable devices

Windows Media Center allows synchronization with certain portable devices. These devices include

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

Portable Media Center Portable Media Center (PMC) is a portable media player (PMP) platform developed by Microsoft. Announced at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and released in early 2004, it was originally positioned as a competitor to Apple's iPod. All it ...

s and other players that can sync with

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on ...

. Microsoft's

Zune Zune is a discontinued line of digital media products and services marketed by Microsoft from November 2006 until its discontinuation in June 2012. Zune consisted of a line of portable media players, digital media player software for Windows Per ...

cannot use the sync function, but can play Media Center recorder TV files when they are copied to a Zune monitored folder. While synchronizing television shows, Windows Media Center encodes the shows using

Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Encoder (WME) is a discontinued, freeware media encoder developed by Microsoft which enables content developers to convert or capture both live and prerecorded audio, video, and computer screen images to Windows Media formats for ...

to a

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 ...

format at a lower quality than the original format used for viewing on the desktop media center. This is to complement the limited storage space and processing power of such portable devices. Optionally, music can also be re-encoded to a smaller file size upon synchronization.

Application development

Windows Media Center was designed as a programmable platform; other programs can tie into the Media Center UI using the WMC

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

, which is provided as a managed API. The functionality of Windows Media Center can be extended by three different types of applications:

Presentation Layer Applications

These are managed applications written using the WMC

and packaged as CLI assemblies. Presentation Layer applications can have full access to both the

.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...

as well as the Windows Media Center API, with the latter exposing a managed

object model In computing, object model has two related but distinct meanings: # The properties of objects in general in a specific computer programming language, technology, notation or methodology that uses them. Examples are the object models of ''Java'', ...

to access and manipulate the current states of the media management and playback, live television, video recording as well as the presentation capabilities of Windows Media Center. Presentation Layer applications are rendered using the

bitmap In computing, a bitmap is a mapping from some domain (for example, a range of integers) to bits. It is also called a bit array A bit array (also known as bitmask, bit map, bit set, bit string, or bit vector) is an array data structure that c ...

-based ''Windows Media Center Presentation Layer'', the user-input and presentation system of WMC. Presentation Layer includes support for animations, dynamic layout, keyboard/mouse as well as remote navigation. Presentation Layer applications can be streamed over RDP to Windows Media Center Extenders; so Presentation Layer applications run on the extenders without any modification. Presentation Layer, however, exists only in the Windows Vista version of WMC. Presentation Layer applications are created using an

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

based declarative

markup language Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the document ...

, known as ''Media Center Markup Language'' (MCML). MCML is used to define the user interface, with animation, text input, navigation, data binding, and local storage support available from the markup itself. If custom code or other functionality is required to implement a certain feature, CLI assemblies can be referred. Any CLI language can be used to write the

code-behind ASP.NET Web Forms is a web application framework and one of several programming models supported by the Microsoft ASP.NET technology. Web Forms applications can be written in any programming language which supports the Common Language Runtime, s ...

assemblies that implement the required functionality. An MCML document defines the interface as a collection of UI elements, each exposing four attributes: Content which defines what that UI element will display, Properties to control the presentation aspects of the element, Locals which enumerate the set of private state data for the element, and Rules which allow the attributes to be modified based on certain triggers. By modifying these attributes at runtime, either from markup or code behind classes, the interface is generated. Presentation Layer applications can either be locally installed, or downloaded from the web as necessary. However, in the latter case, the code is untrusted; only the .NET classes that are marked as safe for use by Internet-originating code can be used. Before an application can be used, it has to be registered with Windows Media Center. An application can either register itself as a top-level menu item, in any of the sub-menus (depending on the type of application), as an autoplay handler, into the ''Program Library'' (the menu category for all programs), or as a background application without a user interface running as long as a WMC session continues.

XAML Browser Application

WMC can also act as host for

XAML Browser Applications XAML Browser Applications (XBAP, pronounced "ex-bap") are Windows Presentation Foundation (.xbap) applications that are hosted and run inside a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer. Hosted applications run in a partial trust sandbox en ...

(XBAP), which are rendered in the WMC UI itself. XBAPs are rendered using the

vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...

-based resolution-independent

Windows Presentation Foundation Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a free and open-source graphical subsystem (similar to WinForms) originally developed by Microsoft for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, previously known as "Avalon", was initia ...

component of

.NET Framework 3.0 Microsoft started development on the .NET Framework in the late 1990s originally under the name of Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS). By late 2001 the first beta versions of .NET 1.0 were released. The first version of .NET Framework was ...

. XBAPs have their UI written in

XAML Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML ) is a declarative XML-based language that Microsoft developed for initializing structured values and objects. It is available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. XAML is used extensively ...

with code behind in any

.NET language The domain name net is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from the word ''network'', indicating it was originally intended for organizations involved in networking technologies ...

. XBAPs are also limited to Windows Vista. WMC provides limited support for streaming XBAPs to Windows Media Center Extenders. XBAPs have been declared deprecated in Windows Media Center SDK version 5.3.

Hosted HTML Applications

WMC can host

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

within its own UI (using WMC UI widgets) and can display web pages and web applications. This feature is supported in both Windows XP and Windows Vista. Web applications written specifically for being hosted in WMC can use a subset of the WMC API which is exposed via

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

. HTML applications are also not fully supported for streaming to extenders.

References

External links

*
Official website: last archive.org copy of defunct full site

The Green Button Forum

The Media Center Sandbox: Official developer's forum

Windows Experts Community: Official user forum
{{Windows Components 2002 software Discontinued Windows components Microsoft Windows multimedia technology Television technology Television time shifting technology Video recording software Windows media players Windows components Products and services discontinued in 2015