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From Mediacenterhouse

Media Center Extenders are devices that can access and display content from a Windows Media Center PC over a network. A single PC can therefore drive multiple screens around a building.

An extender, once paired with the PC, can display the Media Centre User Interface on a remote screen and be controlled with a standard Microsoft Media Center controller. Live television can be viewed using the host PC's tuners, and the extender can control all Media Center functions in exactly the same way as if they were using the main PC.

Extenders use a variation of Microsoft Remote Desktop protocol to 'login' to the PC as a user (Windows' normal limits on multiple remote users do not apply) so all of the processing takes place on the PC with the output then streamed to the extender. Extenders are solid state and have no local storage. The PC can be run in a 'headless' logged-off state if needed.

A user can start watching a TV show on one screen, pause the show, and move to a different extender to resume watching the same show from the paused point.

There are a few limitations

- The Media Center UI appears in a slightly simplified version, with fewer animations/transition effects - Some video formats are not supported - Extenders cannot access some of the 'Settings' options in Media Center (triggering TV channel re-scan, for example) - Some Media Center plugins will not work properly (The Millisoft iPlayer plugin, for example, requires Flash which extenders don't support)

Very few Media Center Extenders were manufactured, and they did not sell particularly well.

HP MediaSmart Connect - x280n Microsoft Xbox 360 Linksys DMA2100 Linksys DMA2200 (same as DMA2100 but with Integrated DVD Player) D-Link DSM-750 Niveus Media Extender - EDGE HP MediaSmart HDTV Samsung MediaLive Digital Media Extender MR-00EA1

The only extender still in production is the XBOX 360. None of the other players are now actively supported, so they may well not work with future versions of Media Center (in Windows 8, for example).