HD DVD in Vista Media Center

I was very excited when Cyberlink released PowerDVD Ultra late last year.  That was until I purchased it and installed it on my Vista Media Center only to find out that it didn’t integrate into Media Center at all.  Just inserting a HD DVD disk while the Media Center shell was up gave this error. 

After the initial disappointment wore off I did some searching and found an Article by Peter Dampier on the Media Center Sandbox blog.  This article was meant for companies like Cyberlink to show them how to register HD DVD (and blue ray) disks with Vista Media Center.  I was still disappointed that there was no way to play back HD DVD movies directly in the Media Center shell but at least this blog posting showed how I could at least register HD DVD with Vista Media Center.

To accomplish this create an XML file with the code below in it.

<application title=”PowerDVD” id=”{00807177-139D-4796-9730-8F114D23C253}” companyname=”Cyberlink” companylogourl=”http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/ps/cllogo.gif” description=”HD DVD App”>

    <entrypoint id=”{00807177-139D-4796-9730-8F114D23C253}” RUN=”C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDVD\PowerDVD.exe” title=”PowerDVD Ultra” description=”HD DVD Player”>

        <category category=”AutoPlay\HD DVD”/>

    </entrypoint>

</application>

If you installed PowerDVD to another location edit the path to match your system.  Next from a command prompt (if you have user account control enabled make sure it’s an elevated command prompt) and run C:\Windows\ehome\RegisterMCEApp.exe /allusers <xml file>, replace <xml file> with the path and name to the xml file you created earlier.

Now when you insert a HD DVD disk with Vista Media Center in full screen mode, it will minimize and launch PowerDVD Ultra and begin playback of the disk.

Now, say you have a disk already inserted and you don’t want to get up to re-insert it.  Create a file named PowerDVD.mcl with the code below in it.

<application
 Title = “PowerDVD Ultra”
 Run = “C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDVD\PowerDVD.exe”
 BGColor = “RGB(63,24,172)”
 Name = “PowerDVD Ultra”
 CompanyName = “Cyberlink”
 StartImage = “C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDVD\AVSettings\StartImage.png”
 ThumbnailImage = “C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDVD\AVSettings\Thumbnail.png”

>
    <capabilitiesRequired
        directX=”True”
        audio=”False”
        video=”False”
        intensiveRendering=”True”
        console=”False”
    />
</application>

Again if you installed to a different location edit the file to point to your install. Move the file to C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Media Center Programs.  If Media Center was running close it and re-open it and now in the more programs sections is a link to fire up PowerDVD Ultra.