I am starting to dabble in Media Center Again (I haven't done it for many years) and I LOVE the new multi computer functionality that is starting to form with WHS and Media Center.  I have built a media center machine for my living room, I have purchased a MediaSmart WHS and I already have a PC in my sons room.  Down the road I may build another media center machine for my bedroom. 

I am planning on buying a Ceton 4 channel tuner when they come out for the main media machine.  I realize I can use an extender to share the tuners and the recordings from the Ceton but I do not want to have to buy additional equipment (I have TONS of unused PC parts) and I don't want to have two machines in my sons room for him to watch TV and play his games.

 Is there any reason why Media Center doesn't have the functionality to act like an extender?  I am surprised this functionality is missing.

Frank Owen:

I am starting to dabble in Media Center Again (I haven't done it for many years) and I LOVE the new multi computer functionality that is starting to form with WHS and Media Center.  I have built a media center machine for my living room, I have purchased a MediaSmart WHS and I already have a PC in my sons room.  Down the road I may build another media center machine for my bedroom. 

I am planning on buying a Ceton 4 channel tuner when they come out for the main media machine.  I realize I can use an extender to share the tuners and the recordings from the Ceton but I do not want to have to buy additional equipment (I have TONS of unused PC parts) and I don't want to have two machines in my sons room for him to watch TV and play his games.

 Is there any reason why Media Center doesn't have the functionality to act like an extender?  I am surprised this functionality is missing.

Yes.  M$ wants you to buy an xbox.

The software exists it is codenamed Softsled By microsoft but they refuse to release it.

 Yea but you can't move from room to room like a laptop if they released Softsled.

kendrome:

There are some good deals for XBOX's on Ebay for under $100 that were recently banned from XBOX Live. The XBOX 360 works great as an extender.

DO NOT BUY ONE OF THESE!

Quote from Dailytech:

"The ban also limits the console's functionality, via blocking HD installation and the use of a media extender"

This ban basically bricks your Xbox.  People selling them on Ebay just want to get rid of them before people figure out just how bad this ban is.

I don't want to have to put something in his room JUST so we can stream TV to him.  I am trying to simplify things, and I don't want to have to put a XBOX 360 to stream TV and then a PC for him to play his games on.

If the reason is Microsoft wants you to buy a Extender (IE: XBOX 360) then I don't see how that makes business sense.  How many people are going to go out and buy a XBOX 360 just to be used as an extender?  I don't see many.  I would rather buy a single tuner card ($30.00) and throw it into his PC then buy a $200.00 piece of equipment and complicate his room more then it already is.

Frank Owen:

 Is there any reason why Media Center doesn't have the functionality to act like an extender? 

Hahaha. This question has been asked on every version of Media Center, at least 50 times. We (many 1000's of us) have been begging for it for many years now. People have claimed it's real but, just not released but, there never has been a shed of proof on it. I'm very sure it's more than possable but, why is a great question.

Even if they sold it as a addon package, say $29.99 to 39.99 download only, it would sell like hotcakes(at least on this site and a few others). So, it can't be the $$ they make off extenders and that's just a licence that I can't see them making more than that on each one that is sold. Maybe it's content protection but, a secure RDC connection could solve that. Maybe it's protecting extender makers, figuring if someone could build an extender, they would not be able to sell them but, there will always be a space for a small extender and it would not replace it.

I do know one thing, all the big guys who make high end custom Media Center systems do not have it (and they have some other special tools), so it's not out there.

It boggles the mind....it really does. I dream of the day when I can have a Cablecard setup (like I do) with 4+ CC tuners, share them over other computers, like my office and kitchen computers. Just to have a simple setup where I can get all my content everywhere in the house with out all the nightmares of DRM/Content protection. Of course, I would have small extenders in the bedrooms...

I guess I just keep dreaming....with many others

Agreed.  I think softsled is one of the biggest sources of collective sighs and "WTF's" from the media center community.  Its by far the most commonly asked for feature since the beginning...  Even more strange (to me) is I don't think there's ever been an offical Microsoft response as to why they haven't added it...  whether it be legal reasons, technical hurdles, or them just not wanting to do it from a business perspective...  They've tried to implement some library sharing with the homegroup stuff in Win 7, but it doesn't allow guide sharing, protected content streaming, or liveTV watching (like on extenders)...  So really its more like a glorified network share.  I do like the concept of homegroup, but it falls very very short from what the MC community wants in what we call "softsled".

 Extremely fustrating to say the least. 

One thing I've been wondering for a while is whether someone (or some company) could make their own "Softsled".  Presumably, Linksys and D-Link and other companies that made extenders paid MS some kind of licensing fee, and in return they were given details on how an extender is supposed to work.  They took that information and made their products.  Why couldn't some company contact MS and ask to buy a license for extender technology to be used in a software extender?  Has anyone ever tried this? 

I'm assuming the answer is in the fact that we don't have one...  So either companies have tried (and it was too expensive, not profitable, or some other barrier was in the way)...    or Microsoft just says "No."

Maybe this is a start towards building something like softsled.

http://softsled.codeplex.com/Thread/List.aspx

There are some info on some people who have been working on something (but nothing in a while)

and I saw this post the other day...

glugglug:

Seeing as this is the Green Button, I'm AMAZED this hasn't been suggested yet: The Media Center Extender protocol is RDP!, at least for the interface (the video streams are sent separately in RTP). It just uses port 3390 instead of the normal 3389. The extender accounts are set to start up media center when they log in. But as long as you are an admin, you can log in with your account as well. type mstsc /v:your.address.here:3390 and it will give you a desktop session through the media center extender service.

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/p/79994/404973.aspx#404973

Now we know that the Extender service is run under RDC, so maybe with a little work, someone could enable RDC to connect to a media center system with full access to all the media....

Anyone want to move forward with this ?

I think this question has been asked at least 50 times PER Media Center setup (at least in the minds of us setting up Media Center PCs) - not just 50 times...

Personally I have always been completely baffled as to why Microsoft has not enabled full extender functionality on every Media Center PC.  Financially Microsoft should make far more money per high priced end user OS seat compared to the profit per XBox sold.  Many PCs used as extenders would be older hardware with an older OS and the end user would have to purchase a brand new license of the latest Home Premium OS to enable the networking capabilities.

Personally I am convinced this is one of the biggest reasons Media Center has failed to take off.  I'm convinced there are 3 fundamental features necessary to make Media Center a true success and Microsoft could easily make it happen if they wanted to.  Media Center requires:  1.  Ability to share ALL content, including Live TV and DRM'd content, between locally networked Media Center PCs.  2.  Ability to play ALL content, including VOBs and Bluray discs, on locally networked Media Center Extenders (it needs an architecture that efficiently leverages installed codecs on the serving PC).  3.  Access to HD content and this needs to include the ability to support the analog HD capture model and network tuners without resorting to virtual driver hacks and hacking the guide.  The reality is Microsoft has failed to provide all 3 of these and in my opinion in doing so has guaranteed that Media Center will never take off.

If Microsoft was to allow Media Center PCs to properly access content from other locally networked Media Center PCs this would also open the doors today to smaller manufacturers selling Extenders with Bluray drives.  It would be easy for a small Media Center PC manufacturer to build a small, very low power PC with a Bluray drive, packaged in a small, home theater friendly case and sell it with a reasonable profit margin as an extender.

Having said that, it is possible today to "hack" almost all of the above for enthusiasts - at least with only a bit more custom software it is.

Companies such as DVBLogic have already figured out how to create "virtual tuners" for Media Center PCs.  These tuners are virtual in the sense that they don't directly talk to hardware and they fake a DVB-S tuner (or similar).  All that is required is for these virtual tuners to go the next logical step and operate with a physical tuner located in another PC or remotely over the network.  This solution works today the HDHomerun where each Media Center PC has a virtual tuner driver installed that accesses the physical tuner over the network.  By sharing the Recorded TV folders each PC can watch anything recorded on any PC.  It is a problem scheduling recordings (which PC does the recording) but for an enthusiast (not a regular Joe consumer) this can be done manually.  My understanding is DVBLogic is planning to incorporate a networking capability into their next Hauppauge HD-PVR virtual driver so we will be able to have a complete HD tuner source that can be networked to any Media Center PC on the network.

There are also solutions available to enable extenders to play non-supported content such as on-line DVDs.

The major problem with all of this is without native support for these essential features it is only enthusiasts who will ever really get on Media Center.  Microsoft needs to natively support these 3 core features so the regular Joe consumer will go out and buy Media Center PCs and extenders for their networked home entertainment solution.  They also need to market Media Center PCs not as PCs but as Media Centers.  People want to go to their high tech store, purchase a "black box" Media Center, take it home, plug it in and it should just work.  These turn key solutions are available from specialty Media Center distributors but to really take off Microsoft needs to get these turn key Media Centers into stores such as Best Buy.

Every time I write up a post like this one I can't help but wonder why?  Why doesn't Microsoft want Media Center to take off?  Is there some hidden financial gain from ensuring Media Center fails to take off?  There has got to be some logical and financial reason that Microsoft is deliberately missing the 3 critical features and the advertising necessary to make the product sell.

There is at least one post every 2 weeks about this very subject. Everyone wants it and everyone is baffled why it isn't available. It can't be a technical limitation, there must be a business decision behind it but I've no idea what! I would pay for this functionality, get rid of my DMA2100s and build NVidia ION extenders.