I’d really like to know what’s going through Microsoft’s head right now. Let’s examine the life of a unique product that Microsoft released:

Stage 1: Release the product to limited OEM’s, and have high system requirements.

Stage 2: Release an upgrade to the product, but keep it to OEM’s. Overhaul the user interface and lower system requirements. Release updates to improve stability, and begin the process of creating an avid user base.

Stage 3: Release an update to the product, but incorporate it with a mainstream product. Overhaul the user interface, include new features, all while keeping your avid user base happy.

Stage 4: Release a highly-anticipated update, but keep it to OEM’s. Include support for several new features, but keep some very important features out of the picture.

You’ve probably already picked up that I’m talking about Microsoft’s Media Center technology. It started out as a very limited-exposure product, became more popular with MCE2005, and received mainstream attention in Vista.

Since Vista was released, Microsoft has been hinting at a secret project that was codenamed “Fiji.” At first it was thought that Fiji was a kernel update that focused on Media Center. As time went on, things got really quiet and Microsoft didn’t say much about it. Then within the past month Microsoft released a statement about Fiji, saying that it supports new standards (ClearQAM for us, and some DVB stuff for Europe).

It was hoped that Fiji would be the ticket for DirecTV’s HDPC-20 tuner, but thus is not the case either. Nor is there any h.264 support.

At least there’s support for new standards. And the ability to use analog and digital tuners. But there’s a catch. Unless you’re a tester or you’ve purchased a new machine from a vendor, you’re not going to get this update. It’s OEM only.

Allow me to rant on this for a moment..

Way back in the day when I first started testing Media Center, my grand vision was having a home theatre PC that controlled all of my media. I didn’t want a lot of boxes, and eventually I wanted to get a case that looked like it was a part of a home theater setup. It was a grand vision, and still is–just partially realized (I’m still missing the case).

There’s a lot of people out there who live and die by Media Center, but don’t rely on a OEM to get them there. They’re like me: building a machine how I want it, plug it into a TV, and stand in amazement at how cool the media center concept is.

When I’ve dedicated a high-performance PC to power my Media Center, it’s an insult when a major update is released that completely writes you off. When something goes mainstream, I don’t think major updates should go through the OEM channel. If anything, they should release it for general use, but not through Windows Update. They’d keep the general population happy because their “you need your OEM to hold your hand through this” updates would not go mainstream, and they’d keep us enthusiasts happy because we have access to updates that we can install if we so choose. 

Nevertheless, I’ll end my ranting. Despite the fact that this update is OEM only, you can still get the update through “other” channels. And that’s what this post is about.

I acquired KB953272, and despite Microsoft saying it only works on a fresh install, I was able to install it on my machine just fine. My TV settings were wiped, but it only took a couple seconds to get everything back together.

Having the “Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008″ installed for a short time, I’ve noticed the following differences:

- Native ATSC support. My ATSC channel lineup looks correct now (10.1, 10.2, etc. instead of the oddball 10xxx channels).

- Better UI usage. When I re-ran the TV signal setup and told VMC to use 1080p, it changed the colors a tad and spread out where things were laid out on the screen. It feels much nicer, where previously it felt like the middle of the screen was a little crowded (or like VMC knew you were on a widescreen, but it still kept things within a 4:3 setup).

- Better Guide. In the old guide, VMC would only get the main channels (10, 18, 24). Any subchannels were ignored, and the media guide displayed no data. Now all channels are detected and the entire channel guide is listed. Very cool!

- UI Quirks. Not sure if it’s because of the update itself, or because of my “unsupported upgrade path,” but the UI is a little jumpy sometimes. If I’m watching live TV with a caption showing the current program, pressing the up/down buttons will bring up another dialog under the previous dialog with the channel changer. I have to wait for that previous dialog to disappear.

- Speed. Many parts of VMC feel faster, while other parts feel a bit sluggish (mostly when accessing the network to playback files. The playback is fine, but navigation seems a tad slow).

- dvr-ms is dead. Long live wtv! Unfortunately, nothing but Media Center plays it..

Now begins stability testing. Let’s see how well this upgrade works in the long run..

~Jaker