Windows 8 - a Rich, Extensible Media Platform

Windows 8 will arrive with improved connectivity capabilities, better social networking, and support for new, appealing applications, as well as with various media features, Microsoft says.

For a platform designed to power a new range of mobile computers, it was only natural for it to deliver great entertainment capabilities too, regardless of the PC architecture it was loaded on (both x86 and ARM devices should deliver the same features). Whether it comes to watching a movie, listening to music, video chatting or more, engaging with rich media should provide a great experience to all users, Microsoft says. Thus, Windows 8 was designed to enable users to engage in a rich variety of multimedia activities, while also offering developers the possibility to engage with these capabilities through an extensible media platform. Of course, Microsoft did choose to remove some of its proprietary entertainment software from various flavors of Windows 8, but that does not mean that users won’t enjoy a media capable OS.

In fact, the company worked on designing the Windows 8 media platform by focusing on specific aspects of the process:

Maximize performance. We wanted media playback to be fast and responsive, enabling the full power of the hardware while maximizing battery life on each PC.

Simplify development and extensibility. We wanted to provide a platform that could be easily extended and tailored for a given application, setting the stage for innovative custom media apps on Windows.

Enable a breadth of scenarios. A high performance, high efficiency, extensible platform can then enable a wide range of music, video, communications, and other multimedia apps.

The result should impress all users. The platform can deliver real time video decoding and playback, instantaneous voice communication, long battery life, and the like. In a recent post on the Building Windows 8 Blog, Scott Manchester, group program manager for Microsoft’s Media Platform and Technologies team, explains in detail what makes Windows 8 a rich media platform. He offers info on resource usage, codecs support, video orientation, streaming capabilities, audio transitions, stereo 3D video, support for displaying content on multiple screens, platform’s capabilities to adapt, and the like.

“The Windows 8 media platform is designed to deliver a fluid and responsive media experience with great battery life,” Scott Manchester notes in the end. “We’ve engineered Windows to give you a great user experience across a broad set of scenarios, including voice communication, audio and video playback, and streaming content. As media applications continue to evolve, the media platform in Windows will enable these experiences to shine across all Windows 8 PCs.”

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