Post by Mr & Mrs LPost by John LockwoodPost by Mr & Mrs LPost by John LockwoodMost (all but one I believe) of the radio stations available via Freeview
that had been missing from the guide for months, and months, and months, are
now finally being listed.
The only one that did not seem to be included was a new channel.
Progress at last from Microsoft.
Shame that a) the series record feature is still fubar and b) that we still
don't have DVB subtitles, DVB teletext, the red button, MSN Remote Record,
etc. etc. but progress nether-the-less.
I just can't understand how difficult it can be to enable at the very least
subtitles. You would have thought this possible in someone's lunch break?
Even dirt cheap USB DVB-T adapters give you subtitles. Having Media Center
on a PC I can live without DVB text but not having subs is blatant
discrimination against the hard of hearing and needs urgent attention. How
long have we been asking for this now?
Rumours are that the next Vista Media Center (code name Fiji) will finally
add support for DVB subtitles. I currently get the impression this is
planned to be towards the end of this year.
Having read a few of your posts John I see you are also a bit peeved at the
way us Brits appear to get a raw deal from Microsoft. Any idea if Fiji will
be an update or a completely new OS of Vista? I do hope its the former.
Fiji is merely an update to the Media Center portion of Vista. Vista itself
is supposed to get a Service Pack (SP1) much sooner. Fiji will not be an
update for Media Center 2005. Knowing Microsoft it is likely Fiji will
require you to have already installed Vista SP1. (This is not necessarily a
bad thing.)
Conspiracy theorists might take the view that only now are long overdue and
needed changes to support DVB subtitles (etc.) happening because DirecTV in
the US (part of the same Murdoch group as Sky here in the UK) now use the
same DVB standards as we have been using for years. However apparently
Microsoft has been talking the talk about supporting DirecTV for TWO YEARS,
and still has not walked the walk. (By the time Fiji is available it will be
more like three years.)
There are still no signs of Microsoft even thinking of European support for
MSN Remote Record, and practically no UK/European content in Media Center
Online Spotlight. (If anything the amount of UK/European content has gone
down.)
Microsoft are going about this the wrong way, Apple with the iTunes store
sells in all the major markets, not just the US. Apart from being able to
increase sales this way, it also increases mindshare, which in turn leads to
more sales in a virtuous cycle. Microsoft only sell the Zune in the US, so
that does not benefit from the same effect, likewise the danger is that if
Media Center continues to neglect none US markets someone will eventually
come along with a solution which does not and then will eat Media Center for
lunch. The only reason this has not happened as of yet, is that the
competition to Media Center is itself currently failing to address none US
markets and is generally a greatly inferior product as well. While the new
iTunes rentals facility with its integration to AppleTV is a possible
threat, as of yet the content is for all intents and purposes limited to the
US _SO FAR_.
It is time for Microsoft to wakeup about this before it is too late for them
and Apple (again) kick Microsoft's butt.
Note: their are suggestions that the BBC might exploit the new rentals
technology in iTunes and AppleTV to provide their programs FREE for seven
days as a catch-up service for UK viewers. This would provide an infinitely
better solution than the current ghastly iPlayer.
Are you listening Microsoft?