Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Plan for Microsoft Entertainment

Here is what needs to happen with Zune, Windows Media Center, Windows Live, Windows Home Server, Media Center Extenders, and XBOX.

Everything is controllable by the Zune:
Zune interfaces let you control your media center. This means schedule recordings, navigate content, select things to play or watch, etc. Similarly, it acts as a remote control for your extenders giving you all of the media center functionality at any TV with an extender.

Media Center should easily store things on Windows Home Servers:
Record TV, burn music, play Everything is streamable to the zune by wifi and cellular

Media Center needs to be easily cablecard compatible:
I want the full suite of comcast channels available in HD through my Media Center.

One tool should be used to manage all media, and everything should recognize when changes are made:
Song tagging, movie tagging, file names, what folders are automatically watched, etc. should all be managed centrally, with each device tapping this central location for indexing. I suppose you could have multiple tools for managing this as long as the data is shared, but why not invest time in one interface.

Advanced Tagging Included:
They need a better taggin too. I suggest looking at Tag and Rename for music and Open Media Library for Movies. ZUne needs to continue supporting the Album Artist tag. This is currently my biggest reason for owning a Zune.

Everything should stream to the Zune (Zune as an extender):
Essentially, the Zune should be able to function as a standalone extender, allowing you to access everything by wifi or cell, and also hook directly to a TV or Amplifier to serve up the movies, pics and tunes.

Zune should have card slot:
Cards are getting to be big. No need for huge storage, just make it expandable through card slots.

Add Video support to Windows Live Photo Galleries:
I love the one step publishing of photos to Windows Live, but I can't stand MSN Soapbox. Until they overhaul this, I'll just use the one click youtube.

Media Center and Extenders should play Multiple VOBs:
I want to backup my movies to Windows Home Server, preserve chapters and have it completely lossless. I don't want to convert it to DivX or anything else. I want one rip, and one format. Same goes for music. I want virtual limitless Codecs to choose from.

Zune Portable Gaming:
This doesn't interest me, and I hope there is an option for a gamerless Zune too, but why not make the Zune also like a Nintendo DS and dual as a portable gaming system. What about some sort of Xbox comaptability, I haven't thought this through. I think you can tell I don't do games right now, so my vision is not clear on this.

That's all for now.

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