Video Demo Of Windows Media Connect

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/archives/000512.php' target='_blank'>http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/archives/000512.php</a><br /><br /></div><i>"We came across a gem of a <a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=13002">video demo</a> regarding Microsoft's upcoming <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/Jan04/01-07CDSTechPR.asp">Windows Media Connect</a> (WMC) media server application for network media adapters on MSDN's Channel 9 website. Jason Flaks, Windows Media Connect Team Program Manager, explains the intricacy of how the program works and how it will interact with various media adapters on the market today and in the future."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/microsoft_jason_flaks.jpg" /><br /><br />Some of the highlights of the video include the fact the WMC is currently in testing and development stage with the current crop of media adapters, and that it is aimed as serving for a migration to a common media server platform. They intend to make it a fairly seamless background application as well as an intelligent monitoring system that will update all connected devices that a certain change has occurred so that each one can react based on the change.

[Felix Torres]

Seriously interesting.

A couple of points to consider:

1- When first announced, WMC and the matching Windows Media Extender devices were described as working with Windows Media Center Edition. (Bummer, right? A lot of us already have home media servers set up.) Bummer no more, the Program Manager personally posted a notice on MSDN channel nine that WMC will be a part of *all* XP versions starting in the fall and the d/l will be available from the Windows Media area.

2- They will be providing a listing of the supported devices on the d/l page.

3- Multiple simultaneous devices will be supported, each with its own access control.

The stated date of availability is early fall so it doesn't look like it'll be part of SP2 but *will* be part of the XP reloaded campaign.

What is unclear as of yet is whether there will be a software extender app so PCs can be clients of WMC.
I suspect the functionality may be hidden somewhere within WMP10.

I'm hoping the HP xx5000 series are supported, cause the hardware on mine is nice but the software suffers from some minor but annoying quirks...