The day after the geek dinner Scott Hanselman and I sat down to chat about developing for Windows Media Center for Hanselminutes 82. The result is a pretty nice introduction to what you need for development, the tools included in the SDK, some of the samples which are included in the SDK and some basic beginner concepts. Here is a detailed list of links which corresponds to the various topics we covered during the podcast.

Enjoy...!

2:15 Software Development Kit http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=a43ea0b7-b85f-4612-aa08-3bf128c5873e&displaylang=en
2:29 Visual C# 2005 Express Edition http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/aa975050.aspx
2:38 Media Center Markup Language http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb189823.aspx
3:40 MCML Preview Tool http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb189325.aspx
6:30 Z Sample Application http://blog.mediacentersandbox.com/IntroducingTheZSampleApplication.aspx
11:46 Remoting of the User Interface http://blog.mediacentersandbox.com/AQuickPeekUnderTheHoodPartOneOfFour.aspx and http://blog.mediacentersandbox.com/AQuickPeekUnderTheHoodPartTwoOfFour.aspx (we never got around to parts 3 and 4 -- they would have been much deeper than we really needed to go).
12:15 Remote Control and Input Handlers http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb189195.aspx
18:08 Managed Code Object Model http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms816271.aspx
19:00 Application Types Which Leverage MCML: Local and Web http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms816272.aspx
21:00 Installation and Registration of Applications http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms815407.aspx
23:10 Q Sample Application (Screenshot) http://play.mediacentersandbox.com/sample/5/q/screencap.png
24:14 MCML Sampler (Screenshot) http://play.mediacentersandbox.com/sample/5/mcmlsampler/screencap.png
25:01 Databinding in MCML http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb188939.aspx
26:28 Defining a <UI> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb189704.aspx
27:37 <UI> Properties http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb189635.aspx
28:04 Media Center Sandbox http://blog.mediacentersandbox.com
28:30 Visual Studio 2008 'Orcas' Templates from Aaron Stebner http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2007/09/11/4873223.aspx
28:45 Using the Visual Studio Templates http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb189732.aspx

I'm pleased to announce the addition of Steven Harding to our Community Dev Expert team joining Niall and Andrew.

Steven is the author of Yougle, MoreWithMyMusic and EMUCenter for Windows Media Center in Windows Vista and several other experiences built for prior versions of Windows Media Center. He also has created a poker game timer which tells you the current blinds, the current ante and how long until they next go up -- all with text-to-speech announcements of blind increases and warnings when they are getting near.

In addition, he is a contributor to the The Digital Lifestyle Developer Blog (part of the excellent group of resources made available by Ian Dixon over at http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/).

Steven has contributed over 400 posts to our developer forums over at http://discuss.mediacentersandbox.com making him one of the most prolific and helpful individuals in the community. His passion for Windows Media Center and the platform shine through in his postings and advocacy on behalf of other developers.

You can identify Steven in the forums by his rather esoteric alias of IgnoranceIsBliss in the forums (perhaps he'll comment here on how he decided on that moniker) as well as a new banner in his postings that looks like this:

Congratulations, Steven -- certainly well deserved.

This sample demonstrates how to use the PlaySound Element with the Timer Class to create a playback loop which does not use the PlayMedia Method and therefore is not reflected in the Windows Media Center user experience.

<Mcml xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2006/mcml">

 <UI Name="Default">

  <Locals>
   <Timer Name="MyTimer" Interval="10000" Enabled="true" AutoRepeat="true"/>
  </Locals>

  <Rules>
   <Rule>
    <Conditions>
     <Modified Source="[MyTimer.Tick]" InitialEvaluate="true"/>
    </Conditions>
    <Actions>
     <!-- MyContent.wav is of a known length which     -->
     <!--is slightly shorter than the interval defined -->
     <!--in the timer.                                 -->
     <PlaySound Sound="file://MyContent.wav"/>
    </Actions>
   </Rule>
  </Rules>

  <Content>
   <Text Content="PlaySound + Timer" Color="White"/>
  </Content>

 </UI>

</Mcml>