I love my Media Center.  I love the UI.  I love the fact that I can extend it anywhere in my home rather easily.  I love the fact that Media Center runs on a PC and I can add applications to provide me more info and programming options.

But my Media Center is a lot like a family member:  While I’ll always love it, sometimes I don’t like it very much.  The problem with this is that it’s not MCE’s fault that I don’t like it sometimes.  It’s MCE’s parent that causes this:  Microsoft.  It’s like having a niece/nephew that you take a special interest in because you can see the parents are too busy taking care of the older siblings to care very much.

Ok, sorry for all of the analogies.  I’m done now.  What is prompting this is a very simple point that, if corrected/updated, would make my Media Center perfect and allow me to like it as well as love it.  This thing has been requested of Microsoft in the past.  People have asked for explanations and been given answers that don’t answer anything.  I’m speaking about codec support in extenders, specifically the Xbox 360.

If you take a look at this thread, stared by cw-kid over at TGB, you’ll see that many people want better codec support for the 360.  MS repeatedly told us how we would be able to stream our media to any set in our home using a Media Center PC and an Xbox.  What wasn’t said was that you would be able to stream only two formats to the other locations in your home:  (Three if you count dvr-ms recorded TV.)  WMV and Mpeg2.  That’s it, that’s all.  Hardly seems to me like I can get all of my content where I want it now does it.

After a time, Microsoft added support for Mpeg-4, H.264 and AVI to the dashboard.  Yeah!  Now I can watch my files!  Oh wait, I have to leave the Media Center UI, go to my 360 dashboard and then head back into MCE to watch recorded TV, etc.  Hardly seems like I should have to do that does it?  And it’s hardly convenient or what MS stated:  that Media Center would stream your content to any location in your home.  Obviously the 360 can handle playing those codecs so with the right programming the MCE UI should be able to as well, right?

Back to the forum at TGB.  The thread was started on 12/3/2007 with the following first post:

Hello Microsoft Media Center Team.
Why is the MCX on the XBOX 360 not being updated in line with the dashboard and other V2 Extenders to play MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) and MPEG-4 ASP (DIVX/XVID) ?
When can I expect to see these features being added to the XBOX 360 MCX ?

The only reason I bought an XBOX 360 in the first place and not a Sony PS3 was because I was told it was a Version 2 extender, but I fail to see how MS can claim this now when it doesn’t do what the new V2 extenders can.
Thanks in advance for your reply.
From a frustrated MS customer.

I’ll allow you, the reader to follow the rest of the thread.  The first response to these questions was posted by Jess Zahn on 12/10/2007.  (As a note:  The MS employees who post on The Green Button are volunteers.  It is not a part of their job and they post when they can.  Delays can be expected and I for one appreciate anything they can help with.) 

And I quote:

Hmm. So, for the most part, I’m the only person who has officially said I will respond to stuff.

I work on the TV team. I don’t work on the Extender team. I really don’t know the answers here.

I’ve said many times I read every thread and pass along information to those it pertains to; those people may choose to respond themselves, or they may ask me to say something, or they may do nothing at all except hear me tell them stuff.

And it is true what someone said below: I volunteer to do this because I like to. It’s not a job requirement (although my team has acknowledged me in positive ways for doing it).

I will definitely continue to pass along your frustrations to relevant parties. In the meantime, you can vent all you want.

Ok, fair enough.  Jess doesn’t work for the Extender team.  As such, she’s hardly in a position to explain the lack of support but she was good enough to answer anyway.  It’s not her fault that she doesn’t have direct access to the info that people are looking for.

The next response from someone at MS didn’t come until 2/12/2008.  Again, I understand that these people volunteer but two months?  Anyway, here is the quote:

Yes, we read these things. And yes, we take it to heart. And yes, we’d like to give you every single feature you ask for within days of your request.

Then reality sets in — and it can be painful.

There are numerous reasons why [insert feature here] isn’t in the product: budget, licensing, time, resources, etc. If any of you have ever developed a product which ships to millions of people you will have a good understanding of these constraints.

The really short answer is this…

1. If you require DivX / XVid support within a Media Center Extender RIGHT NOW there are options for you — you can purchase MCX devices which support these codecs within the Media Center Extender session today.
2. If you aren’t willing to invest in those devices because you believe we should ship this stuff on something you already have (say, an XBox 360) the only thing you can do is wait to see if it happens. (And, no, I’m not trying to imply it is or is not on the roadmap.)
3. If watching DivX / XVid content on your XBox 360 is a must there are also options for you to consume the content. Granted, it’s not within the Media Center Extender session — but it IS possible — cw-kid points it out here. I could be personally more sympathetic if you folks were completely blocked from this content — but the reality is you aren’t.

I’ve forwarded this thread to some friends on the MCX team. Perhaps they can respond, perhaps they can’t — but I can guarantee you they have seen this feedback. So, all I can say is we listen. Sometimes we can respond publicly, sometimes we cannot. Our silence on any particular subject should not be interpreted as inaction.

---

Charlie Owen
Program Manager
Microsoft Corporation
http://blog.retrosight.com

Now, I don’t know Mr. Owen but I’ve read some of his stuff and he’s very knowledgeable but this is not an answer to a question.  Telling people who have already invested upwards of thousands of dollars in equipment to go buy more is, to be honest, rude and condescending.   Not all of us have to resources to simply run out and spend a few hundred dollars on equipment.  And, quite frankly we shouldn’t have to.  Sure, the fine print on the box for a 360 tells you what codecs it will play.  But putting that there while you talk about bringing your content together is hardly fair.  Not only that but it was advertised as a version 2 extender…well the other version 2 extenders can play more codecs than the Xbox 360.  Ok, so we had a choice…but wait!  Not at first as the 360 was marketed as the ONLY Version 2 extender for quite some time before an alternative was offered.

The next post from someone at MS comes the next day from Jenelle Coberly, a part of the MCX team:

We (the MCX team) are aware that some of our users (and many folks here judging by the traffic on this thread are interested in support for MPEG-4 parts 2 and 10 via Media Center Extender on Xbox 360.  We are evaluating our options for enabling this as part of a future update to Media Center, and at this point cannot comment specifically on when this functionality might be enabled.

Now this is a little better.  Someone admitting that people want the support and that they will look into it.  I don’t take issue with this at all.  At least it’s better than saying I should go out and buy another $200+ piece of equipment.  I can handle a business looking into a topic before committing to saying something.  That’s just good business.  Thank you for the post.

Here we are in October of 2008 and no one from MS has had anything more to say.  While I like that Ms. Coberly was good enough to try and calm people back in February, it now looks like a push off.  Just shutting everyone up while they forget about the topic.  I’m sure this wasn’t her intent, it just smells like it since there’s been no word since.

The fact of the matter is that it has been over a year since MS updated the Xbox 360 dashboard to handle additional codecs.  Why this has yet to be done with the Media Center UI has yet to be answered.  Not answering questions while you try and decide whether or not you can address them is one thing.  Pushing a community off so the topic goes away is another.  This is what is starting to happen.

What Microsoft fails to realize is that while the OEM market provides them the most money, it’s the enthusiasts at TGB and other sites that provide them the marketing.  The people who frequent The Green Button have put more money, and time into not only building great systems and networking their homes, they’ve also (if they’re anything like me) spent time and effort evangelizing Media Center to friends, family, whoever they can.  Many of them have spent time beta testing and finding bugs in Media Center which MS has then been able to fix.  And for all of that we get no response to our questions. 

Microsoft has to ask itself what will happen when the people who support you the most move on, and what will that mean to the people who have yet to discover a great product?  How does it help you to shun a community that has supported you even though things weren’t perfect?

No one at TGB or any other community expects Microsoft employees to divulge company secrets or to violate any NDAs they may sign when the work there.  We’re not stupid.  Having said that however, neither are we stupid enough to think that after this length of time some sort of real answer could not be provided to a community that has supported Media Center through all of the problems it’s suffered and all of the unanswered questions.

I’ll say it again:  I love my Media Center.  I love the UI, I love the fact that I can extend it and I love the fact that it centralizes all of my media.  I also love that niece/nephew who doesn’t get enough attention from his parents.  That doesn’t mean I’ll put up with him stealing from me or sneaking out of my house and not telling me what is going on.  We all have our limits.  Mine are higher than some of the people at TGB and lower than others.  All we’re asking for here is to be treated with some respect.  There are thousands of Media Center users out there and Microsoft would be remiss in ignoring us.