TGB’s Pete Brown has a great roundup of the Windows Media Center news from CES on the Windows Team Blog.  Windows Media Center development is being pushed by the Windows Embedded Team and they had a room with a whole range of Windows Embedded powered Windows Media Center boxes. Next week on the podcast you will be able to hear Microsoft’s Mark Pendergrast talking about what they were showing and you can see the room in this video.

Pete has an interesting summary of Microsoft’s announcements and well worth reading.

With Windows Media Center as a key feature of Windows Embedded, manufacturers can now design set-top boxes and other fit-for-purpose devices that provide the Windows Media Center experience directly out of the box. A product like that has the potential to bring all sorts of content together into one crisp, living room friendly experience. For consumers this means that with one box, you can access Internet-based content, social media, broadcast TV, as well your own pictures, music and movies, but without the set-up, planning and system building that has marked Windows Media Center adoption to date.

Sure enough, last week at CES we saw the first wave of such products from the likes of Haier, Reycom, Prime Time, Acer Gateway and Evolve, all of whom are using WES7 to do innovative things with connected media devices and set-top boxes, creating a centralized hub for your entertainment experiences.

via Windows Team Blog