SuperSite Blog : Content

Not So Fast

pthurrott — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:14:59 GMT

Like most of you, I'm sure, I understand the hamster-wheel nature of the business we're in and how the relentless march of technology brings with it both good and bad. I wrestle with this on a regular basis, and while I at least can claim not to be a gadget-of-the-moment-shilling-fool like some others, I can certainly be part of the problem when it comes to the technology-is-everything mentality. I try, but sometimes it's easy to forget that technology is a tool, or a means to an end, and not the end itself. Anyone who has been consumed by the need to always have the latest and greatest, indeed anyone who spends time on sites like this, owes it to themselves to read this Wall Street Journal commentary, which is excerpted from an upcoming book, The Tyranny of E-Mail, I'm quite interested in reading. All we can do is try...

Not So Fast by John Freeman

Sending and receiving at breakneck speed can make life queasy; a manifesto for slow communication

The boundlessness of the Internet always runs into the hard fact of our animal nature, our physical limits, the dimensions of our cognitive present, the overheated capacity of our minds. "My friend has just had his PC wired for broadband," writes the poet Don Paterson. "I meet him in the café; he looks terrible—his face puffy and pale, his eyes bloodshot. . . . He tells me he is now detained, night and day, in downloading every album he ever owned, lost, desired, or was casually intrigued by; he has now stopped even listening to them, and spends his time sleeplessly monitoring a progress bar. . . . He says it's like all my birthdays have come at once, by which I can see he means, precisely, that he feels he is going to die."

We will die, that much is certain; and everyone we have ever loved and cared about will die, too, sometimes—heartbreakingly—before us. Being someone else, traveling the world, making new friends gives us a temporary reprieve from this knowledge, which is spared most of the animal kingdom. Busyness—or the simulated busyness of email addiction—numbs the pain of this awareness, but it can never totally submerge it. Given that our days are limited, our hours precious, we have to decide what we want to do, what we want to say, what and who we care about, and how we want to allocate our time to these things within the limits that do not and cannot change. In short, we need to slow down.

Our society does not often tell us this. Progress, since the dawn of the Industrial Age, is supposed to be a linear upward progression; graphs with upward slopes are a good sign. Processing speeds are always getting faster; broadband now makes dial- up seem like traveling by horse and buggy. Growth is eternal. But only two things grow indefinitely or have indefinite growth firmly ensconced at the heart of their being: cancer and the corporation. For everything else, especially in nature, the consuming fires eventually come and force a starting over.

The ultimate form of progress, however, is learning to decide what is working and what is not; and working at this pace, emailing at this frantic rate, is pleasing very few of us. It is encroaching on parts of our lives that should be separate or sacred, altering our minds and our ability to know our world, encouraging a further distancing from our bodies and our natures and our communities. We can change this; we have to change it. Of course email is good for many things; that has never been in dispute. But we need to learn to use it far more sparingly, with far less dependency, if we are to gain control of our lives ...

Please be sure to read the full commentary.

Wal-Mart pulls an MSN, reverses cancellation of DRM servers

pthurrott — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:02:43 GMT

In case you’re not up on this issue, Wal-Mart briefly foisted their own WMA-based music service on the world and then proceeded to take it offline. The problem, of course, is that since Wal-Mart sold DRM-protected music via this service, users who purchased that music would need to occasionally connect to Wal-Mart’s DRM authorization servers to prove that they owned the music. (This would happen if they reinstalled the OS on their PC or copied the music to a new PC, for example.) Anyway, Wal-Mart announced recently that they would take these servers offline. And as Microsoft discovered previously with MSN Music, this didn’t sit so well with customers. So they’re reversing course.

Based on feedback from our customers, we have decided to maintain our
digital rights management (DRM) servers for the present time. What this
means to you is that our existing service continues and there is no
action required on your part. Our customer service team will continue
to assist with DRM issues for protected windows media audio (WMA) files
purchased from Walmart.com.

While our customer support team is available to assist you with any
issues, we continue to recommend that you back up your songs by burning
them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you insure
access to them from any personal computer at any time in the future.

We appreciate your support and patience as we work to provide the best
service possible to you. As we move forward with our 100% MP3 store,
we'll continue to update you with key decisions regarding our service
and your account via email.

Thank you for using Walmart MP3 Music Downloads.

The Walmart Digital Music Team

Just so we’re clear. DRM is bad. But anyone who did purchase music from one of these services is advised to convert them to an unprotected format, preferably MP3. Because these servers will eventually go offline for good.'

Thanks Alex.

Amazon launches On Demand video service

pthurrott — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:19:13 GMT

Amazon PR:

Amazon.com today announced that customers can now instantly watch ad-free movies and television shows on Macs or PCs with Amazon Video On Demand, Amazon's digital video service offering thousands of movies and television shows. Previously, customers could only download titles and watch them on a PC (using the Amazon Unbox application) or on their TiVo box. Now customers can either watch instantly within their web browser or download using the Unbox application and watch anytime. Additionally, customers can now rent or purchase Amazon Video On Demand movies and TV shows directly through Sony's BRAVIA Internet Video Link device on compatible BRAVIA(R) television sets (currently in beta).

Starting today, to make it even easier for customers to decide whether they want to rent or purchase a title, the first two minutes of every movie and TV show automatically plays for free as soon as they visit the product detail page. At any time during the free viewing period, customers can choose to purchase or rent the title to watch it in its entirety. Once a customer orders a video, it is automatically added to Your Video Library. With the new Your Video Library, customers can access and stream their Amazon videos through popular web browsers on Macs and PCs. Customers can also access Your Video Library through the Sony BRAVIA Internet Video Link device on their compatible Sony BRAVIA televisions.

Amazon Video On Demand, operated by Amazon Digital Services, Inc., is the only U.S. digital video service that gives customers the choice to stream or download premium movies and TV shows. With over 40,000 licensed movies and TV shows, customers can now watch on their Mac, PC, Sony BRAVIA TV, TiVo box, Windows Media Center extender devices such as Xbox 360, and portable media players. The Amazon Unbox Video Player will remain as the client application for downloaded content, allowing customers to watch purchased content on their computer when they are not connected to the Internet or transfer it to a portable media player. With Fall TV starting in early September, Amazon Video On Demand will have a full selection of the most popular returning and new shows, including pilots, premieres, and full episodes.

So this is surprisingly good. If you're familiar with the Netflix "Watch Instantly" service, compared and contrast: Amazon On Demand doesn't require a monthly fee, works with all Web browsers (Windows and Mac, and not just IE 6 or 7, as with Netflix), and has four times the content. That said, all of Netflix's content is available for online viewing (or via a device like the Roku Netflix box) as long as you're an active subscriber.

What I really like about Amazon's service, however, is that most of the TV and movie content I've purchased from Unbox previously is now available for instant streaming from any Web-connected PC. That's cool, and for people on the road a lot, this kind of thing is really useful.

Picasa 3 (beta) and Picasa Web Albums update

pthurrott — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:02:24 GMT

As promised, Google has released a beta version of Picasa 3 for Windows today, and updated its Picasa Web Albums online service.

Picasa 3 (beta)

Find, organize and share your photos.

Picasa is a free software download from Google that helps you:

Locate and organize all the photos on your computer.

Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks.

Share your photos with others through email, prints, and on the Web: it’s fast, easy and free.

Take your photos further with Picasa from Google. Find out more.

Download Picasa 3 (beta)

Picasa Web Albums

New! in Picasa Web Albums

Discover photos from around the world on the Explore page

Upload photos by email.

Add Creative Commons licensing to your photos

I've also noticed that while Google has not addressed the flat view of your albums per se, they have now started limiting the number of folders that appear on the PWA front page by default. This speeds the site dramatically for me, since I have several hundred albums.

Photosynth comes out of the lab

pthurrott — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:49:58 GMT

Microsoft has taken its Photosynth Live Labs project (previous site) public:

We’re pleased to announce the first full release of Photosynth, available now at photosynth.com. Photosynth takes a collection of regular photographs and reconstructs the scene or object in a 3-D environment. For those of you who have seen the videos or tried our tech preview, you could experience synths that we made in the lab and get a feel for what Photosynth is and how it works. But now, for the first time ever you can create synths from your own pictures and share them with your friends. Explore great synths from others or create a few of your own.

Don’t know where to start? Check out these great synths available today:

National Geographic did an a great synth of Stonehenge. Normally you are not allowed inside the center ring of Stonehenge, but their photographers got special permission so you can experience it here. Can you find the rabbit living at the base of one of the stones?

Ever wanted to check out a Ferrari 575 Superamerica up close? We snuck into the local dealership and shot a synth just for you.

You don’t need to go to all the way to London to see the London skyline—you can see it right here at Legoland

Imagine stumbling across a guy proposing to his girlfriend right in the middle of Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Now imagine making a synth of it.

While there are plenty of interesting synths to check out already, the best ones will come from you. If you need help creating a killer synth, check out our photography guide for some tips. Or just watch our short how to synth video which gives you a quick overview of the best way to take pictures that will make a good synth.\

Absolutely amazing stuff.

The Lessons From the Kindle’s Success

pthurrott — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:02:37 GMT

As I've often noted here, I love the Kindle. I realize it's still too expensive, but it's an amazing eBook reader, with daily newspapers and other periodicals that are automatically downloaded to the device, a pervasive wireless network and device-based online store, and the best collection of content ever seen on such a device. Is it successful? I suppose in the realm of eBook readers, it's a stunning success. As a mass market consumer electronics product, maybe not so much. But my favorite NYT blogger says that Amazon's device is selling faster than expected. And that's good news all around, especially if you're a fan of reading as I am.

Amazon.com’s Kindle is not the flop that many predicted when the e-book reader debuted last year. Citibank’s Mark Mahaney has just doubled his forecast of Kindle sales for the year to 380,000. He figures that Amazon’s sales of Kindle hardware and software will hit $1 billion by 2010.

Amazon hasn’t confirmed these numbers, but the e-commerce giant has said that of the 150,000 titles it now sells for the Kindle as well as in paper, more than 10 percent of the sales are in Kindle format.

Anecdotally, I know several people who are absolutely gaga for the Kindle. They happen to be exactly the sort of people for whom Amazon said it had designed the device: heavy readers who want an easy way to carry several books around with them. These Kindle fans are also delighted by how easy it is to shop for and download books onto the device using Amazon’s wireless store.

I think there are a few lessons from this. First you can’t underestimate the miracle that happens when you make something really easy for people.

The second lesson is, to quote a cliché, it takes all kinds. Steve Jobs dismissed the e-book market because “people don’t read anymore.” That may be true broadly, but there could well be a $1 billion business for Amazon serving the tiny share of people who read a lot.

For others — me, for example — software to read Kindle books on an iPhone would be great.

That would be great. Another thing that would be great is a software utility for Windows that would do the same: I'd love to be able to access my Kindle content from a laptop or Tablet PC while traveling.

Anyway, I'm ecstatic it's doing well. The Kindle is one of three technologies that have arrived over the past 12 months--the other two being Windows Home Server/HP MediaSmart Server and Live Mesh--that have really had a measurable (and positive) effect on my life.

Xbox 360 and Netflix Team Up

pthurrott — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:14:31 GMT

Looks like Netflix customers are going to have another avenue for enjoying movie content this fall:

An exciting new home theater experience is coming to living rooms this holiday season. At E3, Microsoft and Netflix, the world's largest online movie rental service, today unveiled an exclusive partnership to offer the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to your television via Xbox 360.

Xbox 360 will be the only game system that lets you instantly watch movies and TV episodes streamed from Netflix. This movie-watching innovation will be available to Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix subscribers, and will let those users enjoy streaming movies from Netflix on Xbox LIVE at no additional cost.

A growing library of more than 10,000 movies and TV episodes will be available from Netflix when it launches on Xbox LIVE in late fall, with more choices added over time. Through this agreement, along with the existing Video Store, Xbox 360 will be home to more movies and TV shows on demand than any other device connected to the TV. Xbox LIVE quickly and easily connects you and your friends to the entertainment you want—with no PC required for viewing.

Interact, Play, and Enjoy
Netflix on Xbox 360 is an important component of the new Xbox experience, a new generation of games and entertainment experiences that will be available on Xbox 360 this fall. The new Xbox experience represents the first time in history that a mass-market consumer electronics device has been re-invented through free software, giving people more fun and intuitive ways to interact, play, and enjoy entertainment content.

"Watching movies at home will never be the same. Netflix on Xbox 360 is an entertainment first, and we are bringing friends together with the best in entertainment content like no other device in the living room, " said John Schappert, corporate vice president of Interactive Entertainment LIVE, Software and Services Business at Microsoft . "We are creating a completely new social entertainment experience, and Xbox 360 will be the only video game system where you can access your library of instantly streamable movies from Netflix and turn any room into a virtual movie theater."

Highly Personalized Experience
From the Netflix Web site, simply add movies and TV episodes to your individual instant Queues. Those choices will be automatically displayed on the TV screen via Xbox 360 and available to watch instantly. Once selected, movies will begin playing in 30 seconds or less. In addition to instantly streaming movies to the TV, Gold members can fast-forward, pause, and rewind—all using either the Xbox 360 Controller or Media Remote. In all, the user interface creates a highly personalized experience that puts viewers in control.

"Netflix and Xbox 360 are a perfect combination, the leading online movie rental service and the leading games and entertainment system joining forces to create an all-in-one entertainment experience with content for everyone," said Reed Hastings, chairman and CEO of Netflix. "For Netflix, it represents an important step forward in making instantly streaming movies on the TV more broadly available to our members."

The library of movies and TV episodes that will be available for instant streaming from Netflix via Xbox 360 includes scores of Academy Award winners and nominees, episodes from a number of popular, currently running and classic TV shows, and 24 of the movies rated by the American Film Institute as the greatest ever.

Very interesting.

RealNetworks goes DRM-free

pthurrott — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:50:45 GMT

So RealNetwork announced this morning that it is just the latest online music service to offer DRM-free MP3 tracks. What's interesting about this is the press they're getting: Apparently no one realizes that the Rhapsody subscriptions still use DRM. Anyhoo, here are a few links:

Taking the Wraps off the New Rhapsody
BusinessWeek Online

Digital media concern RealNetworks will announce on June 30 a sweeping expansion of its music store, including the launch of its long-awaited partnership with Verizon Wireless that will bring its Rhapsody music subscription service to millions of Verizon Wireless customers.

Additionally, RealNetworks will join the ranks of online music sellers like Amazon in selling MP3 music files without copyright-protection lock technology known as digital rights management, or DRM. Amazon has been selling DRM-free MP3 songs since last year. RealNetworks will begin aggressively marketing its new offerings under the phrase "Music Without Limits."

Apple has been offering DRM-free songs via its iTunes store for some time, but as yet has only EMI in its corner. Rhapsody's songs, as MP3 files, will be compatible with practically every digital player on the market, including Apple's iPod and iPhone product families. Its catalog of DRM-free music will rival that of Apple's.

Until this point, Rhapsody has generally been known as a subscription service, where customers buy memberships for a monthly fee, usually $12.99, then check out music from the service and listen, mostly from their PCs.

The company says it delivers about 5 million songs a day to its subscribers. For $2 more per month, customers can put their music on portable digital players, including those from SanDisk.

Rhapsody to challenge iTunes by embracing the iPod
Reuters

Digital music seller Rhapsody is launching a $50 million marketing assault on Apple's iTunes, offering songs online and via partners including Yahoo Inc and Verizon Wireless, Rhapsody said on Monday.

The songs will be sold in MP3 format, which means users of the Rhapsody service will be able to play them on iPods.

"We're no longer competing with the iPod," Rhapsody Vice President Neil Smith said. "We're embracing it."

Yeah, sort of. Obviously, an iPod-compatible subscription service would be a much bigger deal. I still feel that Apple could make this work, though it would have to cost $9.99 a month or less. Maybe Apple's success with the iPhone 3G pricing model—where a price hike is disguised by a lower upfront cost and higher monthly fees—could be applied to the iPod market as well.

The press release can be seen here.

(More) High quality Vista wallpapers

pthurrott — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:03:36 GMT

I while back, I wrote about Hamad Darwish and the high-quality Windows Vista wallpapers he had made, both those that are included with the OS and many more that are similar but not included with Vista. (You can find the complete collection here.)

But wait, there's more.

It turns out that some of the wallpaper images included with Vista were from Microsoft employees. And one of them, Mike Swanson, has made a great collection of wallpapers available, including a couple that are in fact included with Vista. They're all available in 1920 x 1200 and 1600 x 1200 sizes, which should fit the bill for virtually anyone. And they're beautiful.

Check 'em out, and enjoy.

Apple sells over 5 billion songs via iTunes Store

pthurrott — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:46:53 GMT

From Apple PR:

Apple today announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded over five billion songs from the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com). iTunes is the number one music retailer in the US and features the largest music catalog with over eight million songs. Also, iTunes customers are now renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies every day, making iTunes the world’s most popular online movie store.

iTunes features movies from all of the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. iTunes Store customers can also purchase new movie releases from major film studios and premier independent studios on the same day as their DVD release.

Good stuff. But record companies, how about giving Apple some more DRM-free movie to dole out? Protected AAC is so ... 2003.

MSN Music Store Support Notification

pthurrott — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:33:03 GMT

Bowing to complaints, Microsoft announces they're doing the right thing. Via email:

On April 22, Microsoft notified you that as of August 31st, 2008, we would be changing the level of support for music purchased from MSN Music, and while your existing purchased music would continue to play, you would no longer be able to authorize new PCs and devices to play that music.

After careful consideration, Microsoft has decided to continue to support the authorization of new computers and devices and delivery of new license keys for MSN Music customers through at least the end of 2011, after which we will evaluate how much this functionality is still being used and what steps should be taken next to support our customers. This means you will continue to be able to listen to your purchased music and transfer your music to new PCs and devices beyond the previously announced August 31, 2008 date.

Microsoft continues to recommend that you back up your music on CD or hard drive along with other important data.

Sincerely,

MSN Music team

Top 10 Tech Podcasts: #5, Windows Weekly

pthurrott — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:51:48 GMT

A nice bit of praise from Automated Home, which is much appreciated:

Podcasts, netcasts, time shifted radio and IPTV. Whatever they are, they've come of age. Less and less of my time is spent consuming regular TV and Radio these days as my hunger for tech-tainment grows. I listen to podcasts on the way to and from work in the car. I watch video podcasts on my PC in my lunch break. I listen to tech shows on the lawnmower and I even fall asleep listening to them at night.

Never before has there been such a variety of shows, or quality of production. If you aren't subscribed to some tech shows you are certainly missing out. So after years of listening and much deliberating here's our top 10 technology podcasts recommendations

5. Windows Weekly

Home Page | iTunes | RSS

Format: Audio / Typical Length: 45 mins

Paul Thurrott joins Leo Laporte for a weekly chat on Windows. Paul tells it like it is and his obvious passion for the OS doesn't automatically mean he's a Microsoft fan-boy. Regularly the chat turns to Mac too and in recent shows he's revealed his laptop of choice is a MacBook, his mobile is an iPhone and he's a .Mac subscriber too. His regular trips to Richmond provide a good insight into what's coming from the mighty MS. He's a fan of Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server and his pick of the week always brings an interesting new app or service that’s worth checking out.

Thanks! --Paul

OK, AAC failed. How about MT9?

pthurrott — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:24:46 GMT

Seriously, give me a break:

The Motion Pictures Experts Group, otherwise known as MPEG, will meet this month in Germany to consider making a new digital audio format called MT9 an international standard.

Developed by the South Korean company Audizen, the MT9 format -- commercially known as Music 2.0 -- splits an audio file into six channels, such as vocals, guitar, bass and so on. Users playing the track can then raise or lower the volume on the different channels like a producer on a mixing board, to the point of isolating a single item.

According to the Korea Times, its inventors say the new format will replace MP3 as the standard for all digital music. But certain music industry realities stand in the way of their goal.

Two comments here.

How could any article write about a successor to MP3 and not mention AAC, even once? It does, however, mention mp3PRO and MP3 Surround, neither which I've even heard of.
Given that AAC has been a complete failure, how exactly will yet another format succeed?

OK, I guess those are questions, not comments.

And what's up with this bit of skewed logic:

Despite the difficulties, a new digital music format is exactly what the music industry needs to kick-start digital sales.

Please. What the music industry needs is better music, not a new format.

Amazon cuts price of the Kindle

pthurrott — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:14:08 GMT

I didn't see an announcement about this, but it looks like Amazon has cut the price of the Kindle (see my review) from $399 to $359. I'm of two minds about this: First, they'll need to cut deeper to turn this thing into any kind of mass market phenomenon (though Jeff Bezos claimed just this week that the Kindle has sold far better than projected). Second, I can't overstate how wonderful the Kindle is. I use mine every single day--heck, I read three newspapers on the thing--and absolutely love it.

Product Overview

Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.

Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.

Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.

Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.

More than 120,000 books available, including more than 98 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers.

New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.

Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.

Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.

Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times—all auto-delivered wirelessly.

More than 300 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN's Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post—all updated wirelessly throughout the day.

Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.

Holds over 200 titles.

Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones—so you never have to locate a hotspot.

No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments—we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read.

Includes free wireless access to the planet's most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org.

Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.

Included in the box: Kindle wireless reader, Book cover, Power adapter, USB 2.0 cable

CinemaNow now available through Windows Media Center

pthurrott — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:08:00 GMT

From Microsoft via email:

CinemaNow’s library of over 3,400 feature-length movies is now available through Windows Media Center. This means that you can download and watch “Sweeney Todd” or “Juno” tonight, without a cable TV subscription. All you need is Windows Media Center, which you may already have if you’ve recently purchased or upgraded your computer with Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate. These movies are available right now through a new Online Media channel in Windows Media Center that provides access to CinemaNow, an online service that offers downloadable movies, TV shows and music videos.

CinemaNow has a library of over 3,400 feature-length movies, including major Hollywood studio and independent movies, and even HD-quality movies. The library includes Pay-Per-View and Download-to-Own movies, new release and catalog favorites, with titles available day-and-date of retail DVD release. Additionally, the library contains more than 3,000 TV episodes and over 2,900 music videos. Windows Media Center offers an easy way to browse CinemaNow’s library; in addition, it gives you the ability to watch CinemaNow content on your television via an Extender for Windows Media Center.

Windows Media Center is included in Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate, which make up the majority of the 140 million Windows Vista-based computers licensed worldwide. Windows Media Center turns your PC into a home entertainment system by providing easy access to all of your digital media, including your home movies, music, and photos. If you have TV tuner for your PC, you can also watch live and recorded TV using Windows Media Center’s electronic program guide. Extenders for Windows Media Center can stream this digital media to your television, offering a great way to watch downloaded TV and movies from CinemaNow on your television.

In addition to CinemaNow, Windows Media Center offers a variety of video content available on-demand. For more information, check out www.WindowsMediaCenter.com and www.CinemaNow.com.

More information:

CinemaNow offers a variety of services now available through Windows Media Center:

· Download-to-own: Hollywood movies, popular TV shows, and music videos are available for purchase, providing an unlimited viewing period on up to 3 devices. Download-to-own movies are priced from $9.99 to $19.99; TV shows and music videos are priced at $1.99. Download-to-Own movies are available day-and-date of retail DVD release.

· Pay-Per-View: Hollywood movies are available for purchase, providing customers a 24 hour window to watch the video. As with all CinemaNow downloads, customers can start watching in minutes or download the file and watch it anytime, anywhere. Pay-Per-View movies are priced between $2.99 and $3.99. Select Pay-Per-View titles are available day-and-date of retail DVD release.

· Burn-to-DVD: Enables customers to legally download a DVD, play it back on their PC, and burn a copy to a blank DVD disc. The disc can then be played in virtually any DVD player with full remote control navigation and access to all of the special features. Burn-to-DVD movies are priced from $8.99 to $14.99.

In addition to CinemaNow, Windows Media Center delivers a variety of TV and video content to millions of consumers:

· TV – Consumers can watch both live and recorded TV in Windows Media Center. A variety of TV options are supported, including broadcast over-the-air NTSC and ATSC, analog digital cable and satellite, all with a no-charge Program Guide.

· Internet TV Beta– Internet TV Beta is a U.S. offering within Windows Media Center that allows consumers to choose from more than 100 hours of TV entertainment, music concerts, movie trailers, news, and sports content, and you don’t even need a TV Tuner to watch it. Consumers can watch Internet TV Beta full-screen on their Windows Media Center PC or use Extenders for Windows Media Center to watch it on their TV.

· Online Media – Online Media gives users access to a variety of digital media, including sports news and statistics from Fox Sports, XM Radio, HSN Vision, and Showtime TV. Online Media also provides the ability to browse through top stories from NPR, Reuters and other news outlets, allowing users to quickly catch up on the day’s top stories. There are also several Windows Media Center add-ons available from the providers, which allow you to watch NetFlix, YouTube videos or check the weather, to mention just a few of the services available from Online Media services partners.

· Movies – In addition to CinemaNow, Windows Media Center provides access to Starz Entertainment’s VONGO and MovieLink, which are additional premium movie and TV downloading services. Digital home movies can also be easily accessed through Windows Media Center and watched on a television via an Extender for Windows Media Center.