It's time to speak up for automatic commercial skipping in Media Center

Although the skeptic in us still kind of believes Microsoft may have intentionally broke automatic commercial skipping in Vista Media Center -- the developer (Andy) of DVRMSToolBox (the most popular commercial skipping software for Media Center) is no longer under NDA and has spoke out about how the TV Pack breaks his software. The long and the short of it is that the Media Center API that notifies the application that video is playing, no longer works. He sees this as a bug, and although Microsoft is aware of the issue, they have no intention of fixing it -- or even publicly admitting it. So according to Andy, our only hope is that enough people report the issue, it may just be enough to make Microsoft stand up and listen.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 3rd 2008 5:13PM]

I already have... I jumped ship to SageTV.

Microsoft has alienated and cannibalized HTPC software long enough. I will no longer tolerate format crippled, extender short comings and extreme DRM (some drm I can live with...).

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 3rd 2008 5:50PM]

Let us know where to send our comments. I'm waffling back and forth between keeping DVRMS Toolbox and installing TV Pack but really want both. :) I assumed it would take some time to get the new format to be recognized but this seems to be something more serious.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 3rd 2008 6:27PM]

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[(Unverified) Posted Sep 3rd 2008 6:26PM]

Thanks for the heads-up.

I've been waiting to hear more on this topic. Hopefully it won't be long until WTV files can be stripped of commercials like their DVR-MS brethren.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 4th 2008 1:42AM]

So where exactly do we complain? What email address do we spam, or form do we fill out to log our complaint?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 4th 2008 8:08AM]

Why exactly do people think they need Media Center Edition?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 4th 2008 8:09AM]

Digital Cable card tuner.
Great looking user interface.
Array of extenders