Talk:Windows Media Center/Archive 1

Under Features
It is not correct that the WMC only allows 4 tuners two of each kind but that they have to come from the same. When Fiji was added it allowed 4 of each type of tuner, this was carried on and incorporated into Windows 7's Media Center. SO you could have 4 cable cards, 4 ota digitals, 4 Clear QAMs and 4 Analogs. The Cable Cards from Ceton accomplish 4 tuners with one slot but you can then add additional TV tuner cards (as many as your system can hold) to add the additional other tuners. I tried to correct this in the narrative... Please do NOT incorrectly return it to 4 tuners 2 of each kind... that was a relic of the Vista Premium era. http://www.hdtvtunerinfo.com/win7hdtvfaq.html  -  Scroll down to the 4-4-4-4 tuners part http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/p/81707/406175.aspx - Scroll down to the last answer

Please think logically about this as well I mentioned a Cable card above that does 4 simultaneous cable card connection per one cable card, windows 7 media center supports this perfectly.

I know what it says here: on microsoft's site it was something similar to that - that was quoted but it's OLD inaccurate data from Vista prior to Fiji. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-should-I-know-before-adding-TV-tuners-to-use-with-Windows-Media-Center —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.115.76.202 (talk) 16:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Music
In the Music section there is a paragraph which says: "Connectivity features of Media Center include various inputs and outputs, for example for RCA type cables (e.g., from cassette players or analog videocassette recorders), microphones, digital video signals and other inputs. Analog to digital conversion within the tuner card enables users to convert older type media to digital media." This is to do with the hardware in the computer and media center alone does not provide this functionality. Should this be removed? (Antriver 14:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC))
 * I spotted the exact same issue. If the innacuracy has been there for 3 years without anyone else noticing then I'm shocked! Will edit it now --mcld (talk) 11:27, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

how about some criticisms?
Like how MCE how hard/impossible it is to delete or remove media center, how it will not work without win media player installed, how this program is mostly "pretty pictures" with little meat, how MCE is claimed to be the same as win xp pro, but it isnt. This software is plagued with annoyances and headaches, perhaps this can be provided in the article.

Your first two assertions are information, and to some people may be taken as criticisms, so I really don't know how they should be labeled. Saying that the program is "mostly 'pretty pictures'" is your opinion, as it quite difficult to determine how much "meat" really is in a program. Your comparison of MCE to XP Pro would be better suited to the Windows Media Center Edition article. Dr G 06:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * i see part of the reason this article is nothing but postive information about a very invasive program. we have a user who is a member of the "wikipedians who use windows media center" or some such nonsense watching over the article. frickin christ, this is an information site people! what does it take to keep your little social groups out of here? we need objectivity and information at this site, not fricken social gatherings and protective editing over articles individuals have too much emotional attachment to. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.43.215.81 (talk) 06:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC).
 * It really is a major pain to delete, but as was said, there is a certain standard to be kept here, so it'll have to be carefully worded, and there has to be a certain amount of people expressing concerns of this and other problems for them to meet notability standards. In the case of deletion problems, one will have to find, for instance, reviews or articles describing this problem. Statements in Wiki articles need citations. --Safe-Keeper 21:29, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The previous assertion that it is "mostly pretty pictures" is dead-on. Plus, this is the most non-user-friendly software I have EVER used. I do software development; I understand computer languages and even wiki markup/formatting... I can't figure out how to play a damn CD in Windows Media Center. Frankly, I have turned it off and I use VLC player as my default now. The only reason I'm writing this here instead of elsewhere is that I CANNOT FIND ANY SUPPORT FORUMS FOR THIS APPLICATION. I'm hoping someone can help when they read this. But I really agree that there should be a criticisms section &mdash; lack of support should be one of those criticisms. Man this app sucks. Timneu22 00:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The bottom-line here is that criticisms aren't necessarily needed in an article unless it is something that is a notable criticism from a large portion of people or from someone important. An example would be if Bill Gates or maybe the WMC program manager criticized it publicly.  Individual preferences and concerns, if listed, constitute as original research, which is not allowed on Wikipedia.  So the only way to put up a criticism section would be to have plenty of sources because, again, the case for POV and original research can be made very easily.  Remember, this is the chief concern of wikipedia.  Brianreading 01:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * But...reputable product reviews have brought up criticisms of the product. I think positive features being listed without some nod to the negatives mentioned in review after review turns this in to a one sided puff piece that fails to give a full picture of the product. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.251.122.39 (talk) 14:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you give some criticisms that have been given by authoritative writers? Let's see some reliably sourced material, and I'll help you incorporate accordingly. Also, keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a guidebook. Brian Reading (talk) 19:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Media center.JPG
Image:Media center.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Removal of WebGuide
The WebGuide article should be removed from the Media Center Page, or at least moved to another section but not under application development.

This is a 3rd party application and should therefore not be listed in the same context as the Microsoft provided development tools.

The heading under application development says: Windows Media Center was designed as a programmable platform; other programs can tie into the Media Center UI using the WMC API, which is provided as a managed API. The functionality of Windows Media Center can be extended by three different types of applications:

Therefore it should only contain those items. dd3366 (talk) 12:07, 31 July 2008 (UTC)dd3366
 * It's taken care of. - Josh (talk | contribs) 16:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

surrond sound
Vista media center does support surround sound when watchig live anolog or digital tv. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.102.211.132 (talk) 18:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * What's your point? Did Microsoft ever claim to support that? Brianreading (talk) 20:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Citation?Jasper Deng (talk) 05:22, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

.NET app
The article should fit in somewhere that Media Center is a .NET app. - 221.128.201.54 (talk) 19:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I know this is an old discussion, but is there any source for this? Brian Reading (talk) 19:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a lot of .NET code in Media Center, but there is a lot of native code, too. You can examine the files in %windir%\ehome and determine which is .NET, and which isn't. Is that really relevant?LeaningRhino (talk) 07:31, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Digital TV transition comments removal
I've reverted the edit that added a paragraph regarding digital TV transition. The amount of contentiousness is simply not justified by a single reference of an opinion piece on a blog. Also, the wording of the paragraph contained horrible POV with phrases and words such as "causing headaches" and "easy". Brian Reading (talk) 19:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * News stories about the problem have shown up at and . Steelbeard1 (talk) 14:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Steelbeard1 has added back this information. I've since changed some wording to remove POV, and integrated the information into the rest of the article to fix the structure of it as per this policy. Brian Reading (talk) 18:11, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I removed it again, but I didn't read the Talk first. Feel free to add it back in, but it still seemed strongly POV to me. LeaningRhino (talk) 07:33, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Hardware? Software? Both?
I couldn't really tell from this article (I'm guessing some kind of combination -- the article seems to describe both hardware and software elements). Is WMC hardware, is it software (or a software suite), or is it some combination? It would probably help the article to make this more clear, right in the lede. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 12:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * WMC is software for which many pieces of hardware can interact with.Jasper Deng (talk) 05:22, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Update and clean up
I updated and cleaned up the article. There's little to remark in regard to features in the Windows 7 version - it seems to primarily be a stable version of the TV Pack updated Vista Media Center. --Jtalledo (talk) 02:18, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Well done. Fleet Command (talk) 10:16, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Although I take it that xpclient was less than thrilled. --Jtalledo (talk) 12:58, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Settled now. --Jtalledo (talk) 15:16, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Now, passing over the less-than-thrilled XpClient, I also think article still has room for improvements. For example, there are quite a lot of sources in form of plain links. These links should be re-written via Cite web or Cite news so that they have appropriate source identification information. Fleet Command (talk) 16:40, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Never mind. Someone suddenly jumped in and did it. ;) Fleet Command (talk) 17:20, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

.DVR vs. .DVR-MS
So what's the difference between these two formats? They are both identified as Microsoft Recorded TV Show and both are opened by Windows Media Center in a vanilla and up-to-date installation of Windows 7 Ultimate SP1. 85.240.135.114 (talk) 18:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Rip-off? Yura87 (talk) 18:59, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
It seems the XP version was original and was released with XP MCE. I never saw Vista's one, but suppose it's about the same as 7. So, So, Microsoft apparently ripped off XMB, only changing the directions for categories/items.

No longer freeware
The article infobox describes the license for WMC as proprietary freeware, but as it is a charged-for extra under Windows 8 this is no longer accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blingting (talk • contribs) 13:37, 13 February 2013 (UTC)