Developing for Media Center in Windows Vista

CES 2006 is the coming out party of sorts for a lot of interesting details about what Media Center will look like in Windows Vista. One of the areas I'm most excited about is the improved developer platform lwe are going to have for Media Center in Windows Vista. In addition to the previous development models that have been supported (add-ins and hosted HTML), we are adding support for Avalon web applications (known as WinFX XAML Browser Applications or XBAP). Also, we are introducing the Media Center Presentation Layer and a markup language to support it. Add-ins written using Media Center Markup Language (MCML) will be using the same underlying technologies that we use on the Media Center team to create the UI for Media Center itself. For those of you familiar with add-in development for Media Center 2005, you will recognize that MCML represents a significant step forward in terms of the types of applications that can be created with Media Center APIs and the quality and seamless integration possible with these applications.

I encourage you to check out this article on the Media Center Sandbox for additional introductory information about the next generation of Media Center development. Also, stay tuned for more details in the near future....