I'm working on a "current conditions" app that will give current weather conditions using data from the NOAA.

I'm also working on a simple MCE UI for controlling the lighting in my house (as well as the thermostat) using the MCE remote.

Nothing groundbreaking, but it's two things I find myself needing quite often.

Apps are starting to come along - the community is fledgling, but we're starting to see some good things - My Movies and MCE Weather are 2 ones I use. My biggest beef is from the MCE SDK:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/MedctrSDK/htm/userinterfaceconsiderationsforaddins.asp
"Except for Media Center dialog boxes, a Media Center add-in does not have any user interface elements."
Now, I probably won't be programming my own Media Center addin anytime soon, but it bugs me that anyone who creates an addin (even things from Microsoft like MSN Music) has to re-implement (usually very poorly) the MCE UI. Could we not expose a simple button control so software authors don't have to make their own cheesy ones? And fix the shared viewport corner issue so it doesn't look ugly when it shows up in a 3rd party addin!

I want an MCE/MCX client for Rhapsody music service! (I'd settle for Napster or MSN Music to have as good a selection as Rhapsody.) How about just a generic way to stream audio from an MCE to a Media Center Extender?

i am currently working on a caller-id notification with client/server-capabilities. support for extenders will also be available!
take a look http://www.cbuenger.de/english/tapirex/images/incoming_call_mce.jpg

later, this is planned to be a full answering machine.

greets
Christoph

I am working on a RSS reader so I can get all my RSS feeds via the remote.
I am also working on a podcast listener
Hotmail intergration would be good. I know there are a couple around but I think hotmail are turning off the HTTP webdav service.
In fact why not a my.msn.com via Online spotlite

I also want a Mobile media center based on a tablet pc for watching TV anywhere in the house. Basicly a portable externder (See my blog)

I found the SDK is tricky to use but I managed to use the samples and work from there

Brad: So what's the "shared viewport corner" issue?

MCE should own the home.

1. Obviously a great start has been made but more can be done by way of home automation. Security, exterior and interior cameras, thermostadt, locks, shades, lights
2. Full voicemail and message center functionality.
3. More RSS Readers (bloglines)
4. "My Radio" full guide and PVR functionality with easy "podcast" synchs between mp3 players and wireless car mp3 file transfer functionality(probably less of a plug in and more a feature to be implemented into the app by Microsoft)
5. "My Car" interface with a company like Network Car to track your vehicles (wife, kids, but not me, etc.)
6. Perhaps not a plug in but more advancment with "get info" for both "my music" and a new "my movies" tab. Direct connections via AMG for music and IMDB for movies to get additional information.
7. Microcontent Delivery plug in to sort and pull media (initially from the Internet Archive but eventually from places all over the internet, corresponding reviews, rankings and guides)
8. "Mylifebits" plug in that graphically compiles, organizes and charts your life data by time, subject matter, etc. Talk to Jim Gemmell and Gordon Bell at MS Research.
9. Auto commercial skip plug in (yeah someone else would have to release this and you guys would have to pay lip service to trying to stop it).
10. "My TV Music" An app that strips audio tracks from recorded televised musical performaces and turns them into mp3s and adds them to your mp3 library
11. MCE Poker (not for me but it is all the rage these days) probably have to have some party make the money on it due to potential legal issues with gambling and all.

For starters.

More things like the NetFlix plugin. that is really, really cool. I hope to see something like that for zip.ca (hmmm..weekend is comming up....)

Fedex/UPS package tracking. integration with amazon/tiger direct and other e-tailers would be nice to know when I can expect my next MCE gadget :)

highway traffic congestion information integration would also be cool. wake up. click on MCE have it give you feeds from various traffic cams (you can get this for the 401 in toronto, i can imagine other cities must have this) and accident reports so you know whats happening on the highway before you hit the road.

integrating with movie tickets.com - being able to review show times and purchase tickets from the remote would be slick

more RSS goodness. an RSS helper for the SDK if not already would help a lot of people I am sure to build some smart info push into MCE

Errr Im still waiting for MCE to be able to reimport DVR-MS files from a non-local drive while keeping the metadata in-tact. Windows Media Player 10 is capable of doing this (a la ALL TV) but MCE is not. Still waiting for the ADD FOLDERS option in RECORDED TV so that the recorded history sticks and I dont end up with 5 recordings of the same TV episode. You an import DVR-MS into MY VIDEO, but this is useless for a recorded TV series, because the info is the DVR-MS filename OR the date of the recording. Ive tried adding shortcuts to the RECORDED TV folder to no avail and editing the registry under WATCHED RECORDED TV folder by adding the path to no avail as well. Also, tried TWEAK MCE which in essence does the same as manually editing the registry, again to no avail. Ive also posted at TGB and XPMCE and have yet to find an answer to this.... It should logically follow that anything added to WMP10's library should also be available to MCE. This is the case only for music it seems as ALL MUSIC is synonymous with MY MUSIC. You'd assume that ALL TV should be also synonymous with RECORDED TV.

Anyone know how to do this??

-- Dondi

Real support for AAC files would be great. Not just codec support, but tag support for iTunes-ripped songs. Not DRMed stuff, just my stuff. I'm using MP3 format now to make due, but is seems like a waste of space on my HDD and my iPod. I know HP Tunes is sort of a solution, but the 100 artist limit makes it almost impossible to use from all accounts I've read.

A PLUGIN FOR APPLE iTUNES ALREADY! (APPLE IS NOT GOING AWAY MICROSOFT HEADS)- PURCHASE SONGS, PREVIEW SONGS, PLAY SONGS, CREATE PLAYLISTS ALL WITHIN THE MEDIA CENTER EXPERIENCE W/OUT HAVING TO LEAVE MEDIA CENTER (LIKE YOU DO NOW).

AN iTUNES SDK IS AVAILABLE AND OUT THERE PROGRAMMERS (DON'T SLEEP).


UPS AND USPS TRACKING INFORMATION WOULD BE VERY NICE AS WELL.

ALSO AN eBAY TRACKER FOR AUCTION PLUGIN

Suggestions (to use the TiVo terminology.) When a TV tuner resource is idle, it should be recording (into discardable space) programming that might interest me.

(How "might interest me" is determined has all kinds of interesting complexity, but that what makes it... interesting.)

FWIW, sample of one, but the absence of something like this is the single remaining reason I'm unwilling to switch from TiVo to MCE for TV.

For the love of God and all I hold holy, all I want is a way to organize my video files into subfolders. That way, if I rip my DVDs of TV shows to the HD and want to organize them I can have a list of shows, a sub folder in each show folder for each season, and then see a list of individual files (episodes).

Seems like a simple request by the majority of media center software doesn't won't do this. You can only organize video into one big list. I'm baffled.

Wow- thanks everyone for the comments. I'll be compiling and sharing with the dev team (if they haven't read already). It may be the weekend before I can really dig up but wanted to say THANK YOU. This is the kind of discussion/brainstorm that gets me fired up about blogging. We could never have done this in Newsgroups- I know... I've tried... :)

More Later,
Sean

This is sort of a general feature request, as opposed to a plugin. The #1 thing I would most love to see in MCE is the ability to seek within all (or at least more) media files. Even a "hacked" seek that was just a bunch of 5sec skips chained together would be a big improvement. For instance, I rip DVDs to Divx to save space on my server, but not being able to seek through them really hurts the WAF.

I remember that you had a post that mentioned an email address for sending suggestions for WMP and MCE, but I can't seem to find it now. I have a few more suggestions that I think would help make your already good media products even better, so it would be nice if you could post that address again or point me towards the original post.

Cross-posted (with some extra commentary) here:
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000436.html

1. An alternate interface for home automation. But not the only one, please. I don’t want to have to turn on the entire home media system to turn off the lights. The home automation functions should be directly related to activities that I might want to control when using my Media Center: dimming lights so I can watch a movie and controlling the whole-house sound system, for instance.
2. Integration with voice mail and Caller ID. Again, this should be an alternate interface, not the primary one. I don’t necessarily want to play back every incoming message in booming 5.1 digital stereo sound. Give me the option to see what messages are available, but assume that I’ll play back most of them through the telephone handset.
3. A “build your own headline news” module. Make this a live, constantly updated list of available news segments from CNN, ABC, MSNBC, BBC, whoever. Make the list customizable so I can choose not to have Fox News on the list. When I’m ready to watch, I can use the remote to select the items I want to see and then MCE will build the “show” for me.
4. Podcasting subscriptions. This one should be obvious. Queue up available podcasts for me and let me play them back through my home audio system or PC speakers. It would be really nice if clips could be indexed so I could skip to individual segments.
5. A “home message” module. I’d like to type a note (better yet, be able to pick from ready-made templates and custom templates I create) and have it appear on the screen for other people in my household. “Went to the grocery store. Back by dinner time.” “Joanie called. Wants to go to the movies Wednesday.” That sort of thing. A screen saver could let me or my wife know there’s a message waiting.
6. Photo Story for the Media Center. This one should be a slam-dunk.
7. My Netflix. Ryan Hurst has written a superb extension for this now. It could be even better.
8. Support for CD/DVD changers. I have a 300–CD Pioneer changer; unfortunately the only way to manage disks in this device is to input information manually. Ugh. I’d love to have that process automated and bypass the awful character limits on the Pioneer front panel.

I would love a plugin to be able to post Blog Entries from within MCE. Ideally it would support all the popular APIs (MetaWeblog, MovableType and Blogger at least).

If I don't find one soon, I might have to write one myself!

Control of other AV components. I want to push the button and have my TV turn on, my receiver turn on and select the MCE input, etc. When I select music, I want the receiver sound processing changed to the music setting; when I switch back to watching a movie, it should switch to my preferred surround setting. When I push "off", it sends shutdown codes to the components.

This is a tangent case to the home-control, incidentally, and could be tightly coupled (see Ed's comment about turning the lights down when he starts a movie.)

This isn't on my "why I can't switch from TiVo yet" list, because TiVo can't do it either, but it's a GAPING... opportunity. (To be fair, it would be a Hard Problem to configure this feature using TiVo's UI.)

1) A way to "import" DVD info into MCE similar(but much more limited) than Cd's.
I would like a way to "search" through my 200+ DVD collection, by actor/director/genre/character, etc. I do not want to have to type in the info or "rip" the DVD's, but would like the app to pull important info to create the database.

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, and it's a bit off the previous suggestions, but I'd very much like to be able to use a fully installed MCE client as an extender. Perhaps it's possible already, but seeing as I have quite a number of comptuer laying around (as I'm sure some do) I've played around with other PVR apps, simply for hte ability to use any machine as a front end. Perhaps a bootable disc for a normal PC rather than having to limit yourself to purchasing extenders or X-Box's or even better just getting another copy of XP (perhaps MCE if necesary) to connect to a 'central' home MCE box. Would save on tuners as well as centralize resources so those of us with computers that can support MCE don't have to be entirely separate setups with extra tuners, etc.

I also posted this on Matt Goyer's blog. Sorry for the duplication if thats a problem.

First off - great job. I know you guys aren't a cult yet but I'm talking to more and more people who are looking at MCE instead of Tivo/CableDVRs because its far and away the best looking interface out there. So, you asked for a wishlist. Here's mine (sorry if its a bit long)

1. Cable/Sat HDTV (huge. bigger than huge.)
2. Extenders (non Xbox) with DVD Players built in. I don't want to buy an Extender for the Bedroom and not be able to play Netflix movies in there.
3. Software (ie. PC-based) Extenders. I want to put a "MCE client" on my laptop or an old PIII 500Mhz that can play the media files. I know you can already do play these files with WMP and network the drives - I just want the MCE Interface
4. Remote Programming (a la MCE Webguide) - I know its in the works at MSFT according to rumors
5. Remote Streaming with adjustable resolution (a la Orb - that is unbelievable what they did. Too bad their GUI/Site kinda stinks).
7. More functional MCE remotes with learning capabilities. So I can control other things such as A/V Receiver volume.
8. Ability to stream music to different (or multiple) zones a la Sonos (or at least like Apple's Airport Express - 1 zone at a time)
9. Incorporate music streaming sites such as Rhapsody
10. Remote recording of Internet Radio (like Replay-Radio). Not just NPR. Anything I want.
11. Wireless control from my PocketPC. Screw the remote - I should be able to control it from a WiFi PPC
12. Gotta get better indexing/searching for Music files (like iTunes). Should be an easy layup for you guys...

Thanks for letting me post what you've probably already have on the drawing board since '03 :-)

Extenders need to be able to change remote codes like the full MCE's so they can be used on the same whole house IR system and then can all be installed in one equipment closet (rack) and function as separate zones or sources on a multi-zone multi-source setup.

I really would like to be able to connect my DirecTV receiver and my cable connection at the same time, and have all the programming in the guide. I would think many, many people would want this, and for some, it's a deal breaker.

I'd also love to be able to connect my VCR and camcorder, so I can hit record, and turn precious home videos into digital media in MCE.

1) DivX support in the Extenders. Without this my $300 was wasted.
2) Web browsing and USB keyboard support in the Extenders. If I can web browse from my cell phone then I should obviously also be able to do so from a $300 device plugged in to a $1500 46 inch screen.

Add some SnapStream-like background compression abilities to cut the disk space in 1/2. Having Snapstream 'chapter' markers (skip commercials) is also a needed thing.

MCE is good for somethings and Snapstream is much better on others... this is just two of the things needed...

Just thought of another one. Remote scheduling that doesn't require Passport. (Come on, guys -- Passport's over except for the eulogy.)

Thes are really a basic feature request, but I can't find another place to submit this (is there a place to submit MCE feature requests directly without going through the hardware vendor's support?).

MCE2004 used to support sort by category for recorded TV. I used that all the time -- say to decide with my wife on what category of movie to watch (e.g. comedy, romance, sci-fi) and then to pick one from a category. With MCE 2005, sort by category disappeared, and I can only sort by date or name. Please bring sort by category back.

Disk space estimation for digital recordings could be significantly improved over what MCE2005 is currently doing. Even if the EPG doesn't provide any data (that would be the best solution -- to know the resolution of the broadcast from the guide and estimate the space accordingly), heurstics can do a lot better than the current worst case assumption. For instance, once a program in a series has been recorded from a given channel and time, it's a good assumption that all future recordings of the same series on the same channel will use the same amount of space. Likewise, even if the program hasn't been recorded before, a channel typically will broadcast HD during a fixed period of time each day (or at least for a given day of the week). Remembering the average bit rate for a given channel and a given time (e.g. prime time, late night, day time) would again provide a better estimate than the current apparent worst-case assumption (which may cause some programs to be missed, and significantly reduces the accuracy of the "will not record" out of space indicators in the TV schedule.

Thanks,
John

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PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE fix the TV station listing. In several markets the MCE supplied listing is dead wrong. I don't care who's fault it is, but make some means available to fix this, other than the end user having to go in and edit the table by hand. In the SLC, UT area (market of 1.1M people) the listings for Comcast are wrong. This has been pointed out in numerous forums and nobody from Micro$oft has been able to do a single thing about it. Get with it, this is crappy customer service--I get better service from Linux usegoups.

VCD support for switching audio channels, for use with VCDs with different languages in left/right channels.
The Microsoft provided "Karaoke" plugin is difficult to use, complicated, clumsy, and is inaccessible without a significant number of key presses.