I’m the program manager for DVDs and Movies so if you have questions, send them my way.

Two I got recently are…

Q: Is it possible for Media Center to remember the ‘resume’ position of multiple DVDs?

A: No, Media Center only remembers where you left off of your most recent disc. Yes, it would have been great if we could have improved this functionality when we introduced My DVDs so that Media Center would remember the position of any disc you stopped watching, but we had a tight schedule and limited resources and had to focus our attention elsewhere.

Q: Will My DVDs be available on the XBox 360?

A: No. We did not implement the ability to remotely play back a DVD from a MCE to an XBox 360 Extender so it did not make sense to make My DVDs available. I certainly understand how cool it would be if you could put your MCE and full loaded DVD changer in a closest and use XBox 360’s to watch your DVD collection from any room wirelessly but this is something that’s going to have to wait until a future release.

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Strange case form factor of the day for your next home built Media Center, FIC’s Piston (via mailing list at work).

It’s a computer boom box!

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I received an email the other day asking about the PowerFile C200 and whether or not it works with My DVDs. In short, I’m fairly certain it doesn’t.

Why? While powerfil.sys, the inbox driver which provides support for PowerFile changers, supports the C200, we never tested the C200 with either powerfil.sys or with My DVDs. Instead, we built the My DVDs feature using custom PowerFile R200DL units. These units had only one drive and by the time we were done development changes had been made to the firmware of not just the changer but also the drive. We in fact had to swap out the drives of the units with different ones. I also don’t know if the final firmware we were testing against has ever been publicly released by PowerFile, so if you have a R200DL, it likely will not work with My DVDs. But back to the drive issue, it’s because we only built and tested against single drive units that it is a known issue that we do not have code that can reliably determine which drive to use in a two drive unit.

It’s also worth pointing out that PowerFile’s software uses a custom driver, and not powerfil.sys, which we use. Which is why the C200 and R200 may appear to work identically when tested against PowerFile’s software, but differ when tested against ours.

For the best My DVDs experience I really recommend purchasing a Sony XL1 system. It has the changer that has the latest firmware for both the changer and drive, and has been thoroughly tested by both Sony and Microsoft.

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CNET reviews the Sony VAIO XL1 Digital Living System:

This is a great idea for a living-room system for home-theater buffs. We’ve been waiting for a functional PC-based changer for a long time. Slightly underpowered specs could leave casual users scratching their heads at the occasional lag.

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