Most people think of Windows Media Center Edition as a media-centric version of Windows—useful for time-shifting TV viewing, storing digital photos, and serving up digital music to the rest of the house. While those features are often the primary ones used, Microsoft really would like you to use the OS to access content and applications over the Internet. That's one of the reasons a broadband connection is required—it's not just for downloading the electronic program guide.

So we decided to spend a little time with the online showcase item. What we found is a mixed bag of applications—some good, some not so good. But the whole affair left us feeling like we'd entered some sort of balkanized, schizoid online world where nothing behaves the same from one app to the next. As broadband providers increasingly scale up the downstream speeds available to end users, this type of content and application access will become highly desirable. But the current environment seems to be a mixed bag of confusing business models, inconsistent user interfaces, and apps that don't play well with Media Center.

Conceptually, some of these apps are really pretty cool. Picture yourself kicking back on your couch with your remote in hand and checking out the sports scores on Fox Sports online while streaming music and looking over photos from your last vacation. But the problem we ran into was that most apps wanted to be the center of attention. Want to scroll through the sports scores on Fox while listening to NPR? Nope, sorry, you're out of luck.

What follows is more of a diary of my experience with a number of the Windows Media Center Edition Online Spotlight applications and content providers. So it's by no means exhaustive, but should give you a flavor for what you'd encounter if you want to experiment. Continued... One of the promises of Windows Media Center Edition is a 10-foot user interface that offers a unified experience when you're using a PC in the living room. Most of the Microsoft-provided applications for Media Center work well in the WMCE environment. We've also used third-party plug-ins, such as the MCE plug-in for Creative Labs sound cards, which allows you to configure your Sound Blaster, Audigy2, or X-Fi cards within the WMCE user environment. We would expect that application and content providers would also strive to adhere to the UI standards imposed by Media Center Edition.

I began my journey with Akimbo. If you recall, Akimbo is one of the first providers of what's now called "IP-TV"—video delivered over the Internet, rather than via cable, satellite, or over-the-air broadcasts. Akimbo was initially available only as the Akimbo Player, a dedicated hardware receiver that connected to your broadband link.

The Akimbo Player already used Windows Media Video (WMV) format, and worked within the confines of WMV content protection. So porting it to Windows Media Center was a fairly straightforward process. According to Akimbo, they spent a lot of work tweaking the user interface to work seamlessly with Windows Media Center Edition. I did encounter a minor glitch when setting up the Akimbo account—the error text was almost invisible on the 50-inch DLP rear projection TV. The text of the error is sort of amber, and runs into the explanatory text.

After working through the setup process, which involved entering my name, address, and credit card information, the player software ran fine. One of the nifty features of Akimbo is all the international video you can download and view. Video quality was mixed. We downloaded a couple of live concert videos, which were presented in wide-screen format, but seemed to be in standard definition. Image quality was definitely on the softer side. We didn't really get a chance to play with movies much. Continued... I can't quite make up my mind about this app. It's either really, really cool or really frivolous. Or both.

Gallery Player is an app that plays back images of fine art, professional photography, and other still image content. You typically pay $9.95 for a collection of images; the collection sizes vary slightly, but you always get at least 10 or more. You can also buy individual images. These include 22 different fine art collections, a variety of photographic images from National Geographic, Life Magazine, and others. All of the images start out huge and are scaled to the native resolution of your display. You can use them in screen saver mode or interactively. Why would you pay 10 bucks for these? Many of these aren't available free, at least not in the higher resolutions. They are wrapped in some serious DRM, so you can't just copy them off and distribute them. In fact, you can't even take screen shots, at least not through the normal use of the PrintScreen key. The cost of the collections is low enough, though, that paying for them isn't that big a deal.

Gallery Player is available as a standalone app in Windows XP, or integrated into Windows XP Media Center Edition. The user interface doesn't behave the same as native WMCE apps, but it's consistent and keeps you within the WMCE framework, except when you initially sign up. Then, you may get some intrusive pop-ups from Windows, asking you if you really want to connect with a secure site. It's odd that Windows itself doesn't seem to adhere to WMCE standards for these types of errors. Continued... I spent some time fooling around with these online delivery vehicles. None of them installed custom applications—they simply worked over the web. MSNTV delivers the same content as that of the MSNTV hardware player. The user interface is straightforward, and we encountered no odd behavior. I did find out that walking across the Brooklyn Bridge during the New York transit strike is no fun, and got to see a video of an exploding whale, though. What more could you want? Fox Sports seemed to deliver mostly photos and text, including scores of ongoing sporting events—provided you're only interested in American football, basketball, or baseball. I did find out that Anna Kournikova is now considered an "ex" tennis player. Alas, you can't have a slide show of the photos, however. NPR delivered up its content through a clean, easy interface. It was incredibly easy to find what you wanted, and just click and listen. Would that all the other Internet delivery vehicles were this simple. Continued... Now let's turn to the ugly. I tried fooling around with the MTV Overdrive content delivery mechanism. After waiting for long load times, we got the following useful piece of information. I spent maybe twenty minutes trying to fix the problem—probably a good fifteen minutes longer than an average user might.

Then I tried fooling around with ABC Enhanced TV. When I did that, I got a Windows XP-style warning, telling me I needed Java for this app, and did I want to install it? I worked through that and was taken to a more WMCE-like page that tried to install Java. I say "tried," because after an hour, the progress wheel was still turning, and Java had not installed. So much for ETV.

At this point, I needed some lightweight entertainment. That's when I discovered Game Xtream. I thought I'd download a demo (if one was available), and try out the brave new world of broadband game delivery. Hey, I've used Valve's Steam, so I figured I was ready for anything.

Registering is a pain, and getting downloads equally annoying. Game Xtream puts up a 10-foot UI screen, but it seems to exist outside the WMCE environment. Navigating between the screens is incredibly tedious. Some dialogs seemed to require you to enter text using the remote control in a sort of SMS-style number-and-letter keypad overload, while the very next text entry box understood a normal keyboard. Further, installing the Game Xtream client is a typical Windows install process. That's to say, you get pop-up dialog boxes that require you to use a mouse and keyboard. Suffice it to say that someone trying to live within the WMCE environment would give up long before they actually downloaded anything. I know I did. Continued... The Windows Media Center team needs to take some hints from the Xbox Live experience, and enforce some user interface and system integration standards. While some applications and content delivery schemes worked just fine, others were tedious to install and more difficult to use than they needed to be. Some didn't work at all.

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It's clear that some of these Online Spotlight providers, like Akimbo, Gallery Player, and MSNTV spent a lot of time thinking about what users do within the WMCE framework. Other applications seem hastily bolted in. Of course, we only spent a couple of days with most of these apps, so we really only scratched the surface. But here's hoping that the Windows Vista versions of Media Center Edition offer content in a more consistent and easy-to-use manner.