Microsoft Lets the Digital Media Play
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Microsoft is making a major push into the entertainment world with the launch this week of its Portable Media Center platform. The software, which will be available first on a device from Creative, allows
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Microsoft is set to unveil the latest version of its media playback software on Thursday, giving its partners powerful new tools for selling digital entertainment services even as it launches its own music download store.
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Microsoft Corp.  is making a renewed push this week to get its software into living rooms with the launch of a new version of its Windows XP Media Center, a personal computer designed for viewing movies, listening to music and scrolling through digital pictures.
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Microsoft has announced a version of their digital rights management platform geared specifically for mobile content.
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Microsoft is promoting its Windows Media Center Extender devices as the easiest way to get music, photos and video from a Media Center PC to a stereo or TV.
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New options for managing your digital media means more than just mp3s in your pocket. October 14, 2004 - Microsoft held its Digital Entertainment Everywhere launch this past Tuesday and unveiled new products
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Software giant Microsoft unveils a music-downloading service to rival Apple's iTunes and other providers.
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O is making a  renewed push this week to get its software into living rooms  with the launch of a new version of its Windows XP Media  Center, a personal computer designed for viewing movies,  listening to music and scrolling through digital pictures.
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O on Tuesday  unveiled a new version of its Windows XP Media Center, along  with an array of new devices and services aimed at capturing  consumer spending on movies, pictures and music.
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LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) - Microsoft launched a preview version of its new service for downloading digital music late Wednesday, placing it squarely in competition with Apple&#39;s rival iTunes music service.
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SAN JOSE, California - Microsoft Corp. has strategically nurtured its Windows Media Player, making it by far the world&#39;s most dominant program for playing digital music and video on computers.
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Windows Media Player (WMP) no longer feels like a freebie utility thrown in with the OS (think Notepad), but is an application you&#39;ll actually want to use.
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Efforts by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and the PC industry to expand into to the living room will get a boost next week as they show off technologies that try to balance Hollywood's piracy fears with the appeal of digital media.
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Microsoft makes a more concerted move into the living room with a freshened version of its entertainment-oriented operating system.
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Hard-drive based digital audio player will be available by the end of the year.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is increasing the range of video formats that PCs running its Windows software can pipe to televisions around the home, with support for a new range of Extenders for Windows Media Center devices from hardware manufacturers. It expects companies such as Cisco Systems, D-Link, and Niveus Media to reveal new set-top boxes next month that can play videos or music stored on a PC running the Home Premium or Ultimate editions of Windows Vista. Microsoft's software will stream video in previously unsupported formats such as DivX and Xvid, delivering it to devices around the home over wired or wireless networks. The new Extender devices could even be capable of streaming "protected" high-definition (HD) video over the latest 802.11n wireless networks, Microsoft said Thursday. Vendors or broadcasters of HD content can protect it from piracy by using DRM (digital rights management) software to restrict the devices on which it can be displayed or stored. Microsoft's reasoning in developing these capabilities is that customers want to access the content on their multimedia PCs when they're not in front of the PC. AppleÂ realized this in 2004, when it released the diminutive AirPort Express Wi-Fi router with an audio-out socket for streaming music over a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection from a Macintosh or PC running its iTunes jukebox software, but the following year Microsoft went one better with an add-on pack called Windows Media Center Extender allowing its Xbox game consoles to stream music and video from a Windows Media Center PC. Manufacturers and buyers have been slow to take an interest in Microsoft's Windows Media Center Extender platform. The best-known Extender is Microsoft's own Xbox 360 game console, of which market-watchers estimate Microsoft has sold around 10 million since its November 2005 launch. By comparison, D-Link said in June 2006 that it had sold just 100,000 of its MediaLounge wireless media players in the first 18 months they were on sale. But Microsoft is still pushing the idea, now rebranded Extenders for Windows Media Center, collaborating with Cisco, D-Link, and Niveus to link their set-top boxes to Vista PCs. In the future, the company plans to work with a broader range of vendors to incorporate the same capabilities directly into other devices such as DVD players and televisions. There's more to it than a change of name, though: in its Windows Media Center Extender FAQ, Microsoft warns that devices based on the old specification, developed to work with Windows XP, will no longer work with the new system for Windows Vista.
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Tune for tune Microsoft is to retail Zune, its first digital music player, at the same price as feature-equivalent iPods.â¦