Microsoft Announces Windows XP Media Center Edition "Living-Room Windows" Emphasizes Video, Music, and Digital Imaging Eric Grevstad
Tue 7/16/02 -- There'll be a new Windows under the Christmas tree: Microsoft Corp. announced today that new family PCs from Hewlett-Packard, NEC, Samsung, and others will arrive with Windows XP Media Center Edition -- a version of Windows XP designed to highlight digital entertainment via an included remote control -- in time for this holiday season.
In addition to doing everything and running every application that Windows XP does today, Microsoft says, the updated operating system (formerly codenamed "Freestyle") will introduce "a new Windows experience called Media Center" -- a multimedia control panel designed to be viewed from across the room, letting couch surfers enjoy TV, DVDs, and other digital entertainment using a special remote control.
Media Center functions include personal video recording -- the ability to pause and rewind live television or to tag a single episode or entire series for recording to the PC's hard disk. An integrated electronic program guide will help viewers find their favorite shows or search by categories and subcategories (such as sports and NASCAR). Remote-control DVD playback and program or track info will also be available.
Browsing through family camcorder videos or digital-camera photo albums will be as easy as pushing buttons on the remote, with options to add background music, sort slides by name or date, or randomly shuffle photos within folders or across an entire library.
Finally, digital music buffs will be able to browse their collection by album, artist, or genre, with keyword searches to help find tracks. Though details haven't been released, Windows XP Media Center Edition seems sure to build on the Windows Media 9 Series (nee "Corona") technology announced yesterday for September 4 beta release, which stars a new version of Windows Media Player and high-quality, compressed streaming video and audio server platforms (proprietary ones, using Microsoft servers and snubbing the MPEG-4 standard featured in Apple's new QuickTime 6).
There are no plans to offer Windows XP Media Center Edition as a software-only upgrade, since it's designed to work with new PCs with TV tuner cards, the remote control, and other hardware features.
