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Monday morning, Microsoft announced the completion of Windows XP Media Center Edition, which will power new media center PCs from companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Samsung beginning next month. XP Media Center is the latest Windows version, and one of several products which rely on XP Service Pack 1 (SP1), which was finalized last week. XP Media Center adds a friendly interface on top of XP SP1 that allows consumers to access multimedia experiences--such as digital music, photos and videos, DVD movies, TV, and digital video recording--using a remote control and, optionally, a TV set.
"Windows XP Media Center Edition is an example of the amazing innovation to continue to make the PC an even more central part of people's lives," said Jim Allchin, Microsoft group vice president of Windows. "We're thrilled that industry leaders share Microsoft?s vision for a new category of media center PCs. Thanks to the hard work and collaboration of our industry supporters and partners, we anticipate that the media center PC will be at the top this years holiday wish lists."
"We wanted to make it simple, easy to use, convenient, and friendly, and make the Media Center feel as good as any consumer electronics device," Joe Belfiore, General Manager, User Experience, at Microsoft's Windows eHome Division told me last week in an exclusive interview. "We were very disciplined about simplicity. It was a key focus for us when we designed the Media Center interface."
In addition to the PC makers that will deliver media center PCs, Microsoft worked with several third party hardware manufacturers that created supporting technology, including microprocessor makers Intel and AMD, Dolby Laboratories, video card makers ATI and NVIDIA, DVD and MPEG-2 decoder makers Cyberlink and Intervideo, TV capture tuner card makers eMuzed and Hauppauge, and others.
Later today, a complete interview with Joe Belfiore will be available on the SuperSite for Windows.
_http://www.winsupersite.com
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