So Dolby are not expecting Microsoft to include Dolby audio technology in Windows 8. On todays Dolby earnings call CFO Murray Demo said
“We work with operating system providers, ISVs and OEMs to support DVD on the PC. In recent years, our mix of PC licensing revenue has increasingly shifted towards the operating system as our technologies are included in 4 editions of Windows 7. However, we have recently learned that our technologies are not currently included in the Windows 8 operating system under development. If our technologies are not included in the commercial version of Windows 8, we expect to support DVD playback functionality by increasingly licensing our technologies directly to OEMs and ISVs, and we will seek to extend our technologies to further support online content playback.
What does it mean for Windows Media Center users? Well back in the XP days to get DVD playback working you needed a 3rd party application like Cyberlink’s PowerDVD but in Windows Vista and Windows 7 the codec was included, however to watch Bluray movies in Windows 7 you still need a 3rd party codec.
So in Windows 8 your still going to need a 3rd party application to watch Blurays and DVD with digital audio so the situation has not changed that much and I imagine most OEMs will include a 3rd party app but it does give us an idea on how Microsoft prioritse media playback in Windows 8.
We are going to have to wait till the build conference later in the year to find out what Microsoft have in store for us but for Media Center enthustaits expecting a fantastic new version of the UI we know and love I wound’t hold your breath. Maybe Microsoft will surprise us but I think at best we will get the Windows 7 version of Media Center.
3 thoughts on “No Dolby in Windows 8, what does that mean for Windows Media Center”
The DVD “solution” for Windows Media Center’s ecosystem was really half-assed, so the loss of DVDs kind of hurts. What concerns me more is the ?removal of codecs to handle surround-sound audio in HD broadcasts/recordings? I know this wasn’t directly mentioned, but doesn’t WMC rely on Dolby technology to play 5.1 audio?
This all points to me in 2020 with my 2010 hardware…still! Well…at least until the CableCARDs are all abandoned.
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The DVD “solution” for Windows Media Center’s ecosystem was really half-assed, so the loss of DVDs kind of hurts. What concerns me more is the ?removal of codecs to handle surround-sound audio in HD broadcasts/recordings? I know this wasn’t directly mentioned, but doesn’t WMC rely on Dolby technology to play 5.1 audio?
This all points to me in 2020 with my 2010 hardware…still! Well…at least until the CableCARDs are all abandoned.
I might be missing something.
1. Does this mean without a third party tool you can’t play dvds in win8
2. Currently everything on my mediacenter everything is sent to the receiver which is where the decoding takes place.
This seems odd. Does this mean there will not be DVR functionality? Arent all digital broadcasts in some form of Dolby encoding?