Who killed the WMC Media Center of Win8/Win8.1

Computer Store News: In 2007, Vista was launched, bringing a new home audio and video system: Windows Media Center (WMC), but after a lapse of 6 years, the media The center (WMC) gradually faded from the user's mind, even sold separately in Win8/Win8.1, even Microsoft never mentioned WMC, who killed the Windows Media Center?

The main offender is the popular Xbox family game audio and video host.

▲ Windows Media Center built in Vista/Win7

Windows Media Center was originally a set of components for home entertainment, providing TV, movies and music. , Internet video and other functional services, in the 2010 Win7 era even launched China International Broadcasting Station, Sohu and Sina cooperation network video capabilities, and Thunder look at the video services provided.

It can be said that Windows Media Center has been brilliant, but Microsoft has almost never upgraded it, and even the extensions are provided by third-party partners. Therefore, the Windows Media Center ended with Microsoft's technical support, but also faced the difficulty of expanding the development, the number of expansion is short, and TV partners are not active.

But the subsequent Xbox home console laid the groundwork for its death. Especially after bringing a lot of revenue to Microsoft, Microsoft’s mind never returned to the Windows Media Center.

Immediately after 2012, the Windows 8 system went public, and the Windows Media Center was castrated from the system and sold as a separate Media Pack.

Subsequently, Microsoft further integrated the Internet video on demand function on the Xbox game console, namely Xbox Video and Xbox Music service, and added the HDMI video output interface.

It can be said that in the future, network video mainly depends on devices such as set-top boxes, while Windows Media Center cannot meet the needs of modern network users.

This time, the history of Windows Media Center was terminated directly by Microsoft's new son Xbox.

Although there are still users like HTPC who still rely on the video function of Windows Media Center, it is only a matter of time before retiring, such as Windows XP.

Fortunately, HTPC users also have XBMC media center options, and even consider media centers such as LinuxMCE.

Finally, I still remember the Windows Media Center and walked all the way.