Integrate Zune with Windows Media Center

[Adam Krebs]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/17545/add-zune-desktop-player-to-windows-7-media-center/' target='_blank'>http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/1754...7-media-center/</a><br /><br /></div><p>"<em>Are you a Zune owner who prefers the Zune player for media playback? Today we&rsquo;ll show you how to integrate the Zune player with WMC using Media Center Studio. You&rsquo;ll need to download Media Center Studio and the Zune Desktop player software. Also, make sure you have Media Center closed. Some of the actions in Media Center Studio cannot be performed while WMC is open.</em>"</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//zt/auto/1276014883.usr1.png" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>Zune and WMC seem destined to coexist, but somewhere along the way the two haven't been integrated as well as most people had hoped. Luckily HowToGeek has a nice writeup on getting the two to play nicely by adding a Zune player tile to your WMC installation. It's not perfect, and the player still opens in its own window, but at least you'll be able play your Zune collection with most WMC remotes without leaving the experience. Give it a try and let us know how it works for you in the comments.</p>

[USArcher]

Last month Microsoft launched Windows Embedded 7 Standard which included Media Center. One of the demo videos, available online shows Zune in the MC menus.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/27/windows-7-media-center-coming-to-embedded-devices/

So it will be interesting to see if this was just a mockup, similiar to was done here or foretells things to come. We haven't discussed it much here, but I would imagine that the Zune team will have a fairly substantial update for the Zune desktop software to coincide with WP7 launch. Here are a few shots from an early build.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/zune-desktop-and-windows-phone-7-sync

..besides this, I imagine internationalization is the primary focus to the fall release. If so, the bulk of the work will likely be hammering out licensing deals.

[efjay]

Is there any other way to get the Zune software to work in Media Center? I have started buying movies to play on my Xbox and WP7 phone but my HTPC is kept out of the party when I use it to play my HD movies.