Friday, February 17, 2006
HD Beat: Pioneer's BDP-HD1 Blu-Ray player works with Windows Media Connect
Posted by Jason Dunn in "NEWS" @ 07:00 PM
"No, we haven't seen the expected BDP-HD1 Blu Ray player from Pioneer since CES, but might have overlooked an interesting feature. Aside from full 1080p output, the BDP-HD1 will also work natively with Windows Media Connect, which opens the door to additional content in the flavors of MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, WMV, MP3 and more. According to Pioneer, the BPD-HD1 will also support the PlaysForSure platform from Microsoft. As happy as we are with this additional info, we have to ask: what's with all this Microsoft stuff working on a Blu-Ray machine? Didn't they "back" the HD-DVD crowd?"
Wait a bloody minute - since when does Windows Media Connect (WMC) support video? The Windows XP client only supports audio and photos, meaning that if you want to get video off your PC and onto your Xbox 360 for instance, you need to put the whole Windows Media Center 2005 OS on there. This must mean one of two things: either the WMC embedded client is more feature-rich than the one we get on Windows XP, or the Windows XP client is purposefully feature-neutered to encourage the sale of MCE 2005. Either way, something smells funny here....
Wait a bloody minute - since when does Windows Media Connect (WMC) support video? The Windows XP client only supports audio and photos, meaning that if you want to get video off your PC and onto your Xbox 360 for instance, you need to put the whole Windows Media Center 2005 OS on there. This must mean one of two things: either the WMC embedded client is more feature-rich than the one we get on Windows XP, or the Windows XP client is purposefully feature-neutered to encourage the sale of MCE 2005. Either way, something smells funny here....
