For those not familiar with the tragedy, Microsoft hired Doug Berrett a few years back and he was the developer of one of the greatest 3rd party plugins for Vista Media Center. His WebGuide would not only let you do something that even the crapiest of DVRs can do today, remotely schedule recordings, but it would also let you watch your recorded shows over the internet. Well with Windows 7 came a new Media Center EPG database which broke WebGuide and while Microsoft built show streaming right into Windows 7, the void for the rest has never been filled. Recently we've seen two new add-ins that try to fill in the gap with the latest being Big Screen EPG "by remote." But we're sorry to say that the wait isn't over. The problem with Big Screen EPG isn't that it is a pay app, but that it is using Microsoft's guide data. Now this is a problem because they don't have a licensing agreement to use this data (that we know of) and we'd be shocked if Microsoft let this go unnoticed. But the bigger issue is that the remote interface is built on Silverlight which means it doesn't work on mobile phones -- although the developer left a comment stating that mobile browser support is on the road map -- and since Microsoft doesn't seem interested in letting Doug spend some company time on this, who knows how long this wait will go on.
posted February 28th 2010 2:37PM
It's not out yet but windows phone 7 will likely support silverlight which would be good enough for me. I would still rather have something deigned for a phone though (directv has a pretty good UI on phones)
Well once these new set top boxes make their appearance, I dont think people will bother with WMC anymore..but who knows
As far the crapiest DVRs allowing remote scheduling, I can atest there are DVRs out there that do not offer that functionality. I was formerly with a relatively new regional cable company (not Comcast) until late last year in the SF Bay Area that used Scientific Atlantic DVRs that offered basic basic functionality in their standard and high definition DVRs. It was by far the worst experience I've encountered.
Hi Ben,
I'm the developer of the Big Screen Products - and just wanted to note (or correct) you blog that the Mobile version is definitely part of the plan for this product (and never wasn't). This 'tech preview' that was released (which just exposed the Silverlight UI) - had the sole aim of testing that end users could correctly access their EPG and send through recording requests. As such - a lot of the UI features in the Silverlight UI and access to the Mobile version (which I blogged about and showed screenshots of around 12months ago) was intentionally disabled and taken out of this tech preview release. Expect to see some of the Mobile features reinstated in upcoming versions (a tech preview of iPhone/iPad browser version will be available in next interim release due in next few days with other XHTML mobile support shortly afterwards). Also upcoming (hopefully by the time this product goes to 'beta' status from 'tech preview') are a load of other intended features (now in prototype) - such as streaming of recorded tv to silverlight clients (ie. mac included) and a lot of new features in the UI.
Also - in regards to your comments regarding EPG access - what has been done is absolutely no different to what was done with webguide prior to Doug working at Microsoft. The access to this data is very strictly controlled (ie. compressed/encrypted) - so that the only possible way end users can get to the data is via the Big Screen EPG 'by Remote' UI's running on Windows 7 Media Center (and by no means opens up the EPG to access for other 3rd parties). Further to this - a large amount of existing users are actually accessing EPG data they manually supplied via the core 'Big Screen EPG' product due to MS not supplying EPG data for their countries - and this is a fully supported and approved scenario by Microsoft. (and this product has been around since beginning of last year and allows users to import EPG data from multiple XMLTV based sources).
Anyhow - hope that clears things up - and hope you will update your blog entry to reflect the correct facts of the matter. Please also feel free to contact me directly should you have any questions or require any clarifications.
thanks
Niall (bigscreenglobal.com)
@(Unverified)
Thanks for the comment, I updated the post to reflect your plans to add mobile support.
A quick question about the EPG data. Are you saying that Microsoft explicitly permits 3rd parties to use its EPG data in this way? I ask because my understand is Microsoft goes out of its way to prevent people from accessing the data. The most evident fact being that the MC SDK does not include ways to access this data.
The point in my post is that if Microsoft didn't give you permission to use the data and has gone out of its way to prevent developers from accessing it, what makes you so confident Big Screen EPG will continue to work?
@BenD
Like many of the 7MC applications out there - this product (by Remote) taps into 'unsupported' functionality in Windows + Windows Media Center (which means there's absolutely no guarantee by MS it will continue to work as they might do with a published public API) - and it's purely up to the end user to determine the legalities of what they are doing/using. (much in same way that media players will playback whatever media you ask it to - and doesn't aim to make it easier for material to be reproduced for other purposes).
Also - in many cases (ie. myself and most people in Australia/NZ and many other countries - the actual current userbase of Big Screen EPG) - the epg data is actually injected from non MS sources such as XMLTV or Inband data (as MS do not supply EPG data for us) - and hence the rules of usage differ from country to country. These users all would have access to the raw EPG data to begin with in this case anyhow. (and accessing it via Media Center is more about ensuring that the metadata for recording requests etc matches directly with known data in the system). My product does however go out of it's way to ensure that end users cannot 'republish' any data that has been accessed (they only see rendered output) - and can only use the product if they already have Media Center up and running (so it's not providing a vehicle for other Media Center alternatives/rivals to get to epg data).
@(Unverified)
I should also mention that at the end of the day this is a 'remote control' application for Windows Media Center - and it doesn't actually give you any more access/functionality then what you could already do with the many remote desktop solutions already out there (MS RD, Logmein, VNC, Live Mesh, PCAnywhere etc). Where it differs is that it's done in a way thats optimized for low bandwidth/web access scenarios - and of course it's a '2 foot' experience designed with mouse usage in mind (wheras remote controlling a 10 foot focus UI may be cumbersome).
Great to see people like Niall and the Remote Potato guy trying to find a solution. I'm with Ben in that the biggest flaw of Media Center is the lack of remote guide control. I really cannot understand why Microsoft doesn't have this as a standard feature. It seems so obvious. (as well as transcoding on the fly for Zune and iPhones).