DownloadfreeSlingboxMultipleUsersHacksoftwareWindows Media Center is dead here are the best alternatives. Microsoft recently announced that after a dozen years, it would no longer include support for Windows Media Center WMC in the upcoming Windows 1. WMC was novel when introduced as a special edition of Windows XP in 2. The premise was to leverage the power of PC hardware to enable an all in one media center, capable of playing DVDs, videos, photos and music with a 1. Perhaps the biggest feature, at a time when not everyone had a DVR, was the live TV recording functionality it offered when paired with PC TV tuner devices. While WMC never really became hugely popular, it has a dedicated and vocal community. The user interface was clean, relatively simple, and one of Microsofts better UI implementations. The DVR capability let you own your own recorder with the expandable space of a PC hard drive, as well as not having to pay a fee for the electronic TV guide as either the TV providers or Ti. Vo charge. Over time, WMC also added a number of improvements that extended its functionality plug in support, extenders Xbox and third party set top boxes for viewing, access to online content, and extensibility via Windows Media Player to support formats not supplied by Microsoft. Despite these improvements, the focus in home entertainment shifted to consumer electronics CE devices. The cost and simplicity of renting a plug and play DVR from the TV service providers outweighed the benefits of WMC, and streaming services starting around 2. Blu ray players and other devices that were easier to set up and maintain than a full fledged Windows PC in the living room. WMC ceased development in 2. Windows 7 release. A port for Windows 8 was offered based on requests from the WMC user community, but it offered no new features. Microsoft has moved a lot of WMC like capability into the Xbox platform. Download Free Slingbox Multiple Users Hack Software' title='Download Free Slingbox Multiple Users Hack Software' />The Xbox One will have live TV viewing capability that will support third party, over the air tuners from Hauppauge and presumably others in the future. It also offer the ability to feed cable or satellite video into the Xbox One and use Microsofts One. The latest PC gaming hardware news, plus expert, trustworthy and unbiased buying guides. Weve had some issues with home security recently, so before anything serious happens I bought a QSee QSD2316C16500 DVR from Costco. The system is a network. Guide program guide. Vt Transaction Software Download. But theres no return of DVR functionality, or at least not yet. So if WMC is a dead platform, where do you go from here PC based alternatives. WMC has always had competition, on both Windows and other platforms. Perhaps the biggest contender is Kodi, which is the new name of the open source XBMC Xbox Media Center. XBMC started as a hack of the original Xbox, which was essentially a locked down, Intel based PC in its first incarnation. Over the years Kodi has been tremendously extended in scope and platform support. It offers playback of just about any type of audio and video file, an extensive plug in architecture, heavy customization of the UI through skins, and the all important DVR functionality with third party TV tuners. KodiXBMC now runs on a great variety of operating systems and hardware. It supports ARM and Intel processors, Windows, OS X, and several shades of Linux. Theres even the Linux variant Open. Elec, a purpose built version of Linux for running Kodi thats light enough to run on a Raspberry Pi. With all the ports available, Kodi can run on old hardware with some limitations on performance, like the first generation Apple TV, and newer boxes like Amazon Fire TV and the current Apple TV. Part of the beauty of Kodi is that it can run in this hardware while coexisting with the original software. Among its long feature set, Kodi even supports Apples Air. Play, albeit in a reverse engineered way that doesnt work with protected content like Netflix. Plex is a fork of the original XBMC open source project that first became available in 2. Originally finding traction on the Mac as a media server, it has since been extended to Windows and Linux. It consists of the free Plex Media Center, and various clients that now include Windows, OS X, i. OS, Android, Xbox, Roku, and Smart TVs from Vizio, LG, and Samsung. Like Kodi, the Plex Media Center automatically organizes photos, movies, and TV shows, and can present media on various clients with a 1. It does not support DVR or live TV capability. Despite the products original open source roots, Plex is a commercial startup that raised 1. Kleiner Perkins. While very useful parts of it are free, there are paid features that extend the functionality to mobile and other devices. Among the Plex Pass features 3. Gracenote music metadata, and Vevo music videos. Media. Portal is another free open source media center, but this one is exclusively for Windows. It is designed to be a relatively lightweight application that can run on lower powered Windows machines. It has a clean 1. Windows Media Center. If you bought a Windows media PC in the past decade, you may have one floating around your house. Similar to Kodi, Media. Portal organizes all your music, video, and photo content and can add metadata for commercial content. It can play DVDs and Blu rays, and virtually any content format. It also has built in DVR functionality when paired with a PC tuner. It also has a plug in architecture and skins, but there is not as much available in this regard as there is for Kodi. JRiver MC is a mature media player that has a long history. Like the others, it can play and organize all kinds of media formats. It distinguishes itself in a few ways from others. MC has very extensive tweaking capability for audio, and is prized by audiophiles for the ability to extract the best sound quality from music on Windows, usually feeding an external DAC or a high end sound card. It is paid software, but does have a free trial period. Unlike some others, JRiver has a normal full desktop Windows interface along with a 1. WMC remotes. On the video side, they have also curated the codecs to make it easy to play just about any combination of stereo and surround audio with movies. It also supports TV tuners and DVR capability. Game Consoles. Both Microsofts Xbox and Sonys Play. Station have long offered extensive media capabilities. Both the Xbox 3. 60 and Xbox One have a large amount of the mainstream media streaming services like Netflix and Hulu built in. While they can stream local content over the network or play it from an attached drive, they are more limited in the audio and video formats they support directly. However, if you run a DLNA server on your network, these devices can handle content formats they may not support through server transcoding. Kodi and Plex offer that, and there are many more specific DLNA servers, free and paid. Sonys PS3 had DLNA built in, and the more gaming focused PS4 can have similar capabilities with the right apps. Neither is a direct replacement for a HTPC, but both the Microsoft and Sony Consoles offer lots of media streaming options. Sonys 5. 0month Vue over the top TV service has been running in Chicago and Philadelphia, offering cloud based DVR functionality that brings live TV into the available media choices. The Big Four Streamers and Tivo. Free Dual Layer Burner Software more. Id be remiss to not mention the current crop of popular streaming devices here. They are also not direct replacements for a HTPC, but they are part of the reason that WMC is discontinued.