AV Rant #350: Fusion Powered Podcast
If you follow us on Facebook, you’ll already know this but don’t download the Windows 8.1 update if you value your Media Center plugins. It pretty much breaks all of them. This special announcement brought to you by Rob H. Welcome to the first all-North America podcast. What does this mean? No more concerns about time. So grab a coffee, kick up your feet, and let’s talk AV. We introduce a new segment this week – AV In Depth. We start with speaker settings for your mains. Large or Small and why. Do you have a suggestion? Let us know below or on our facebook page. Lots of news this week but not a lot of it is AV related. A few VR items – the Virtuix Omni is a platform for you to use when trying to immerse yourself in a game and the Avegant’s Virtual Retina Display will beam the picture directly onto your retinas. In bendy news, LG has a bendy battery and a phone and the new Samsung Galaxy Round is more curved than ball-shaped. We say thank you for those that have offered feedback and especially to those that donated. Rob recommends the new SVS SoundPath Isolation System, Liz recommends a video she didn’t give me the link for, and Tom wants you to buy Pacific Rim so you can break your sub. And get a bigger on. Thanks for listening. Now, don't forget to:
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- Visit Tom's website for download links as well as links for the two full-length follow-ups - Bob Moore: Desperate Times and Bob Moore: Hostile Territory.
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There’s hope, Windows Media Center users!
After installing the Windows 8.1 update from the Windows Store, and then applying all available updates from Windows Update, it appears as though MOST WMC plug-ins are functioning. WinSuperSite reported (http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/ga-rollup-provides-updates-windows-81-rtm) that just prior to the public release, Microsoft updated the developer pre-release version with “Rollup A”, which seems to have been included with the full public release, and addressed most of the previous problems in WMC.
So the sky did not fall! But it’s still not 100% perfect. Some people are reporting having lost all of their WMC settings in the update. Some people are reporting that older plug-in versions are still broken. Some people are reporting that they’ve had to uninstall and reinstall programs, including all of Windows Media Center itself.
So it might still be a little bumpy, but at first glance, it appears as though all WMC plug-ins and add-ons are NOT broken, as they were during the “RTM” developer pre-release, which is fantastic news (as long as you consider taking something away and then giving it back only slightly broken instead of totally broken “fantastic”)!
So, feel free to update to Windows 8.1, but do so with a bit of caution, and be prepared for there to potentially still be some headaches (aren’t there always?). If you only have one WMC HTPC, though, and no “guinea pig” systems to try out the 8.1 update first? I’d still suggest waiting a few days until there is more confirmation, and we can give a proper “All Clear”.
Thanks!