Here are some Windows Media related headlines that caught my eye recently:

• Microsoft has released new “preview” versions of Expression Blend and the Expression Media Encoder that work with Silverlight 1.0 RC.
• Vishal Sood has a nice post up about Server Side Playlists with Windows Media Services.
• Engadget has heard that FairUse4WM is capable of stripping the DRM from files acquired via the BBC’s new iPlayer.
• For developers: David Mullet explains how to automate Windows Media Player using Ruby.
• Long Zheng has dug up additional information on Vista SP1. Among other things, it should include an update to DirectX 10.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Podcasting support is coming to the Zune! Though as the Zune Luv guys point out, it was always a matter of when, not if. Here’s the news from Whiz Byte:

Features – we’ll move towards parity with iPod building in support for video, podcasting, etc and at the same time build on key differentiators such as the wireless feature, the FM tuner, etc.

The other two areas of focus for expanding the Zune are device family (sizes, styles, etc.) and geographic markets.

Here’s what Cesar at Zune Insider had to say about the story:

We have not confirmed any new devices or features. We have, for several months, been saying that we intend to develop the Zune business along three axes - expanding our device offering, adding new features and scenarios and considering new international markets when the time is right.

Somewhat vague, but essentially a confirmation.

Will a new Zune with podcasting support be in stores by Christmas? There’s a good chance the answer to that question is yes. Stay tuned!

If you’re a Live Spaces user, you might have run into a little bug recently. If your Space is unavailable, it might be due to the Windows Media Player module. The LiveSide blog has the scoop:

So for anyone with the Windows Media Player module installed on their space and set to “invisible” before the update, that site is now “unavailable”, but there’s a pretty easy workaround…

0. Sign in passport

1. Go to “http://youralias.spaces.live.com/?_c=WMP ” (no quotes, insert your spaces name)

2. Change “Display mode” as full — DO NOT Set “Display mode” as Invisible

3. Save

Not too hard to fix, but kind of annoying. Evidently the bug should be fixed soon. Good luck!

Windows Media Center Extenders are devices that allow you to “extend” the experience you get with Media Center to other locations on your network. The most well-known example is the Xbox 360 - you can look at pictures, play music, and watch recorded video that is stored on your Media Center PC. The Xbox 360 is the only so-called “version 2″ extender, but Microsoft has long promised that other extenders would be available, and now we have some proof:

Nathan Weinberg points to another post that shows some of Microsoft’s recent domain name purchases. Some of them on our radar would be MediaCenterExtender.net, MediaCenterExtenderSandbox.com, MCExtender.net, and ConnectsToMediaCenter.com.

Okay, so all we’ve got are domain names, but still - that’s better than nothing right?

Come on Microsoft, give us some new extenders!

Who decided that you can only eat bacon and eggs for breakfast? Seems like a useless “rule” to me, and thankfully restaurants like Denny’s allow me to order breakfast food 24/7. Similarly, who decided your Media Center has to be in the living room? That “rule” is also useless, and thankfully there’s MCEDev to make the devices useful in other rooms, like the kitchen (via TV Squad):

The idea is simply – why not use the powerful Media Center platform in the kitchen? Watch news, your favourite episodes or let the Media Center play some music while you’re cooking.

What would be the most interesting application for a kitchen? Correct - a cookbook.

Sounds like a pretty cool application - an interactive cookbook that helps you with recipes, everything from preparation to a step-by-step walkthrough.

Even more amazing are the mirror displays that adnotam makes (they approached MCEDev about the app). They make the kitchen look like a normal kitchen when the Media Center is turned off.

Awesome! What other rooms would be good for Media Center customizations? Maybe the garage?

Today Microsoft released financial figures for the fiscal year ended June 30th. Notably, they announced that annual revenue has surpassed $51 billion. As you can imagine, that gigantic figure is attracting lots of attention, meaning that this announcement from Microsoft’s Cesar Menendez has been somewhat hidden:

Today on the earnings call Microsoft announced that Zune has achieved our goal of one million units sold in, as well as Microsoft earning over $50 billion in annual revenue. We actually went above and beyond our goal: we sold 1.2 million units.

That’s good news for the Zune team! In the comments on that post, Brian points out that Zune’s sales are probably lower than iPod’s in the first year, though it is difficult to compare (given the differences in the size of the market).

Time for a new goal Zune team!

I recently did a couple of guest posts for the last100 blog that WindowsMediaBlog.com readers may be interested in. In part one, I looked at the history of Microsoft’s television-related products and services. In part two, I took a closer look at what the company offers today, and speculated on some of the things that we can expect in the future.

I had fun writing the two posts, and I’d love to know what you think!

A couple of Zune news items for today. ClicZune reported earlier that the Zune Marketplace DRM has been hacked! BoingBoing has the details:

Abdul sez, “A new version of FairUse4WM v1.3 Fix2 from Doom9 is available that claims to remove the DRM license protection from songs and music downloaded from Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace allowing you to play them on any portable media player.”

You can read the doom9 posting here. Users are reporting mixed results, but for the most part, it seems legit.

Also today, a press release from Microsoft announcing that Zune will “have a significant presence at 28 Live Nation concert venues” in the US this summer.

Zune will have a strong on-site presence with its Zune Spots, inviting consumers to try the devices and see the latest summer colors. The innovative Zune Spots are actually converted freight containers that have been redesigned to bring the brand to life for concertgoers.

For more information, check out Zune.net and LiveNation.com. Also, here’s the Wikipedia entry for Live Nation.

I guess the old adage when it rains it pours really is true. Microsoft folks are usually pretty quiet in the blogosphere when it comes to Windows Media, but not today. First, there’s a new blog at IIS.net called the IIS Media Delivery Blog:

IIS team members working on media will be posting here to talk about technologies in the pipeline and already here today that will help you better serve media content to your users.

The author (known only as brflem - dude, introduce yourself!) goes on to explain that the Windows Media Services team is now part of the IIS team, a reflection of the convergence of multimedia and web applications. Welcome to the blogosphere! You can subscribe to the blog here.

Secondly, there’s a wonderful post from Vishal Sood on Server Side Playlists (part 1 of a series):

Definition: Server-side playlist is a list that identifies what content is played for a client, the time at which it is played, and the order in which it is played. The server-side playlist for a Windows Media server is an XML document.

Looks like it’ll be an interesting series, so check it out if you’re serving digital media using Windows Media Services.

Microsoft’s Program Manager for HD Photo (aka Windows Media Photo) Bill Crow was on hand yesterday at the Pro Photo Summit in Redmond to show off the photo technology that Microsoft has been working on. In his presentation he used the recently announced Windows Live Photo Gallery to compare HD Photo and JPEG. Don’t worry if you weren’t there, because Bill has a post up today comparing High Dynamic Range Editing with the two formats that I suspect captures the essence of his presentation:

Higher fidelity images can be stored in a high dynamic range, wide gamut format using either fixed or floating point numerical encoding. HD Photo retains image content that would otherwise fall outside the visible range and be clipped using the more typical unsigned integer numerical representation (TIFF, JPEG, PNG, and most other formats.) This may happen when the camera converts from RAW, or during any other editing or conversion operation.

His post contains a bunch of screenshots of Windows Live Photo Gallery as well as links to the two sample photos he used, so check it out!

Adobe Photoshop CS2 and CS3 users can download a free plug-in to add HD Photo support on Windows Vista and Windows XP. Bill says in his post that a version for OS X (both PPC and Intel) is coming soon.

The Register is reporting today that the BBC Trust has asked to meet with the Open Source Consortium (OSC) to discuss the group’s concerns with the forthcoming iPlayer application (see our previous post for details).

Sources at [Ofcom] told The Register that although its formal role in the process was completed when it delivered its market impact assessment in January, it felt the OSC’s concerns that Mac and Linux users will not have access to iPlayer demanded a hearing.

Before the trust got in touch on Wednesday, OSC CEO Rick Timmis said: “Everything we’ve done in the trust’s direction has fallen on deaf ears. They’ve completely ignored us.”

I’m not sure what the meeting will accomplish, as the BBC seems pretty set on the Windows Media DRM-based iPlayer moving ahead with a launch later this month, but it’s good that they are at least going to talk.

A somewhat related article in The Guardian today suggests that Silverlight (and the open source Moonlight) could be a solution to the cross platform compatability problem:

Many media companies, including the BBC, have been using WMV (Windows Media Video) because Microsoft’s DRM is openly licensed and lets them control how content is used. Videos can, for example, be time-limited. But they have also been attacked because the protected videos don’t run on Macs or Linux boxes. Silverlight could be a solution.

Who knows, maybe the BBC’s iPlayer will be replaced before long with a Silverlight-based alternative.

I’m sure you know about the Zune’s wireless music sharing capabilities, but I bet you didn’t know that Microsoft wants to pay you a commission when someone purchases a song you have shared! I didn’t either, until I saw this post over at ZuneScene describing a recently discovered Microsoft patent application:

According to the patent, Microsoft would like to erect a system by which pirated music (yes the term pirated is used in the document several times) can be transferred to other Zune devices, and the sender can be paid a sales commission. Of course this would work with legally obtained music also.

Apparently the idea is to make pirated music “encrypted” when shared with another Zune. If I understand this correctly, it works like this. I have a DRM-free song on my Zune and I send it to your Zune. You can then play the song three times, before you have to purchase it. When you do, Zune Marketplace, me, and the copyright holder all get paid.

Converting illegal music into legal music is an interesting concept, but I am not sure how well such a system would work in practice.

You can view the patent details here.

E3 is now underway, so expect lots of Xbox-related news over the next few days. Though I don’t know how it could get much better than what was announced tonight! For starters, Disney is now offering movie rentals via Xbox Live effective immediately. Their catalogue of content will add to the already impressive 2350 hours of entertainment available at the Xbox Live Marketplace.

The best stuff though, was announced by VP of Marketing Jeff Bell, as Twittered live by majornelson:

Jeff just announced that by the end of this year, Video Marketplace is coming to Canada and Europe. (link)

125 Million dollars from Video Marketplace. (link)

Jeff just announced that Xbox LIVE is now at 7-million members..that is one new Live member every 8 seconds. (link)

It sounds like the Xbox Live Video Marketplace is doing very well. As a Canadian I am particularly happy to hear that the service will finally be available in my country.

Check out Xbox.com for complete coverage of E3.

It was confirmed last week that Bill Gates will once again keynote at CES 2008, and it now appears as though Silverlight will be making an appearance too. Well, as much of an appearance as a technology can make, anyway! iStreamPlanet Co., which provides webcasting services to CES, World Series of Poker, American Express, and other major clients, announced today plans to use Silverlight:

“We are very excited about the benefits the new plug-in has to offer and intend to release a full suite of applications integrated with Microsoft Silverlight by late summer of this year,” said Mio Babic, Founder and CEO of iStreamPlanet Co.

That seems like a very aggressive timeline to me, but I hope they pull it off! Microsoft is apparently working with iStreamPlanet on the integration, so any problems or other issues that crop up will likely be fixed very quickly. And that’s good news for the rest of us who are interested in implementing Silverlight.

You can learn more about iStreamPlanet here, and more about Silverlight here.

According to a report published at MediaGuardian.co.uk (registration required) last Tuesday, British Sky Broadcasting is in talks with Microsoft to make its proposed pay-TV service available to computer users via Windows Media Center. BSkyB COO Mike Darcey made it clear that his company sees this as the wave of the future:

“The delivery of premium services to Media Centre PCs in this way will place the UK’s DTT platform at the forefront of innovation and at the centre of the convergence of the TV and PC industries.”

If such a deal could be struck between the companies, it would definitely strengthen the case for BSkyB’s proposal as it would allow customers to subscribe to pay-TV without having to use a set-top box.

It would also be a good thing for Windows Media Center users in Britain, who likely would appreciate the ability to keep their PC as the “natural epicentre of their entertainment world” as Darcey put it.

If approved, BSkyB’s service could be launched early next year.

Source: Ian Dixon