Following our announcement at WinHEC enabling third parties to build their own MCE Extenders, we now have a MCX Partner Site:

If you’d like to receive more information as it becomes available, including developer documentation, resources, and the Media Center Extender Platform Adaptation Kit, please send an email to mcxprtnr@microsoft.com

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I’m sure many of us were unable to attend Will Poole’s WinHEC keynote yesterday so I thought I’d quickly scan the transcript and see what was announced for Media Center. Here are some highlights:

• [MCE has] just been a breakout success for us. Today we’ve sold over 10 million copies with our partners of Media Center PCs, and we’re selling at a rate of over 1 million per month.
• One more Sideshow device, the last one here is this WiFi remote from Exceptional Innovation. This remote is used to control your Media Center PC. It can function as a voice over IP handset, and even as a portable music player. With Sideshow technology integrated into this device we’re able to access your media library from any PC in your house, and select songs for playback. You’re also able to see your program listings for your TV, and select shows that you’d like to record. So really some cool scenarios, and that’s whether the TV is on or off, and whether that PC is in the room that you’re in or in another room in the house. CEPro has an article with photos.
• What I can do now is I can actually watch and record the latest movies from premium channels like HBO right onto my machine in high definition. Previous versions of Windows let you record standard def over the air, now I can watch and record the high definition.
• Over a million hours of extended usage have been logged today on Xbox 360s.
• We’ve been working with several companies to have products available to for launch, and today we’re announcing the Media Center Extender Partner Program. What that program will do is, it will allow companies to have access to design information, documentation, and the necessary components to embed Extender functionality into devices like TVs, DVD players, set-top boxes, and digital media adapters.

In my opinion the biggest news is the announcement of a partner program for equiment manufacturers who want to build their own Extenders. They even showed a working design from Sigma Designs. So this should enable tons of new exciting form factors!

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This is pretty neato. Stream DivX movies to your XBox 360 using MediaCenter (via Ian). It transcodes your DIVX to WMV on the fly.

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Have an Xbox 360 and a MCE? Thinking about setting them up together to get Media Center Extender (MCX) working? Here are some resources:

• Microsoft.com: Setting it Up
• Microsoft.com: XBox 360 Connection video
• Xbox Forums: Media Connectivity

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I got an email from a user who had an issue with their .MPG videos showing up in My Videos on their MCE but not showing up on their MCX. The problem is very likely due to permissions. The easiest way to check if it’s a permission problem is to copy (not move) one of the .MPGs in question into the Shared Video directory and see if it shows up on the MCX.

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