Shortly after the release of Windows 8 last year I upgraded my front-room PC to the new OS. I rarely use that PC for anything more than watching videos, but I was keen to see whether the Media Center application would have any new or improved features in Windows 8 – and besides, I thought, what have I got to lose?
Today, a PC Pro reader asked me whether, with the benefit of experience, I consider that the upgrade was worth it. I have to say it wasn't.
In short, I find running Windows 8 on a front-room PC a slightly worse experience than Windows 7 was. This is partly because the option to launch Media Center automatically when Windows starts up has been removed. Microsoft, with depressing dogmatism, has decided that it doesn't want your PC to boot into anything other than the Metro Start screen, so if you want to launch Media Center you'll now have to do it yourself.
And maddeningly, the green button on your Media Center remote control doesn't work at the Start screen. You have to use the cursor buttons on the remote to navigate to your Media Center tile (which hopefully you've moved somewhere convenient), and launch it from there. Alternatively, you can manually open the desktop and then press the green button. Or, you can do what I've done, which is use a third-party program such as ClassicShell to automatically switch to the desktop and run Media Center. Setting it up is a faff that really oughtn't be necessary, though.
Windows 8 refuses to support the native 720p resolution of my TV
Another irritation is the fact that Windows 8 insists on a minimum vertical resolution of 768 lines. This means it refuses to support the native 720p resolution of my TV (something Windows 7 did without a murmur of complaint). The television is thus forced to use the only other mode it supports, namely 1080i emulation. We end up in the ridiculous situation of 720p media being upscaled to 1080 lines by Windows, only to be resampled back down to 720 lines by the TV. I can't believe this is conducive to optimum picture quality.
No improvements
Once you're over these bumps, the experience seems identical to using Windows 7. So far as I can discover, the Windows 8 Media Center application brings neither extra features nor improved performance. It's true that using Windows 8 does open up a new world of tablet-style media apps, such as the full-screen Netflix and 4OD offerings. That might sound appealing, especially since Netflix UK doesn't integrate into Media Center in the way the US service does.
Annoyingly, though, these single-tasking front-ends don't fully support the Media Centre remote. In the Netflix app, for example, the play and pause buttons work as you'd hope, but skipping, searching and accessing your recommendations still requires a keyboard and mouse. If you're going to put up with that, you might as well stick with Windows 7 and use the web interface.
For these reasons, if upgrading your front-room to Windows 8 with Media Center were free and easy, I'd advise you not to bother. In reality you're looking at £190 for a Windows 8 Pro upgrade, and then a further £7 for the Windows Media Center Pack, so draw your own conclusions. To be clear, Windows 8 does have advantages over Windows 7 for desktop and tablet users, but nothing that's relevant to front-room use.
What future?
Frankly I'm disappointed to be telling you this. I've happily kept a Windows PC in my front room since the days of XP MCE, and the Media Center approach – an appliance-type front-end running on top of a full Windows back-end – has suited my needs better than anything else I've come across. I had hoped that Microsoft would continue to support such a role for Windows.
Instead, it looks as if the company is losing interest in that model, in favour of touch-friendly tablet-style apps – even though those simply don't do the same job. True, this could be only a temporary shift of focus, to support the Windows 8 app framework while it's still getting off the ground; but the augurs aren't encouraging. This week's revelation of the Xbox One makes clear that Microsoft sees Metro-enabled consoles, rather than full-blown PCs, as the front-room entertainment hubs of the future.
For now, Media Center isn't dead, and it remains a perfectly powerful and versatile system. The concern is that support for consumer editions of Windows 7 runs out in January 2015 — a date which is galloping towards us at a surprising pace. After that, moving up to Windows 8 might be the only way for us Media Center diehards to keep using the software we love. From the way things are going I wouldn't like to bet that it'll make it into the next version of Windows at all.
Article source: http://www.thongtincongnghe.com/article/44575
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