It looks like we are going to lose another popular Windows Media Center community site with the imminent closure of the Australian Media Center site PCMediaCenter.com.au. The site which was founded back in 2004 has served the Australian community with advice on tuners, EPG issues and getting the best out of Windows Media Center.
The site owner says that their traffic was falling away and he can no longer justify the costs of running and maintaining it for such as small audience. Microsoft closed its own Windows Media Center community site TheGreenButton.com and we don’t know really know if Window Media Center will be included in Windows 10. Microsoft class Media Center as a legacy product and while the fan base is still strong the numbers are dropping away, it’s partly why I renamed our podcast from The Media Center Show to The Digital Lifestyle Show a few years ago.
It’s sad to see a great community site go way and but totally understandable. There are still plenty of places for enthusiast to still keep in touch, we have community here and there are places like TheGreenButton.tv, the site will close at the end of October.
Details from the Mike:
It became clear a couple of years ago that our growth had stalled and our traffic was falling away, so I guess the writing has been on the wall for a while now.
Today the site lives on a server I can no longer justify the cost of running, plus there’s the ongoing software costs, constant maintenance and updates for what has become a tiny audience these days, an audience which will only become smaller as the home entertainment space continues to mature – hell my Samsung TV not only handles all my EPG recordings – it can play every video format including MKVs from my server, and even though the interface isn’t as nice as XMBC – it works.
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