Windows 8 Missing Media Centre?

A colleague recently told me that Window 8 will no longer have Media Centre in it based on the Beta version he was testing. This didn't really surprise me.

I've been questioning in my own mind whether Windows Media Centre was still a valid technology and whether I should just convert my Media PC to another household computer.

This came about because I can access and stream content both locally from other media devices in my home and from the Internet given the capabilities of my Smart TV, Smart Blu-ray player and Smart Home-Theatre-In-A-Box (HTIB)system. Also, do we really need Media Centre if we have to use a set-top box or Personal Video Recorder (PVR)to change channels from our cable and satellite provider? One of the reasons for a Media PC is to eliminate all those extra boxes.

This is also a consideration in Canada given that Media Centre doesn't support Over-The-Air (OTA) High Definition broadcasts. I have to use Hauppauge's WinTV Tuner software to watch OTA HD. Bell and Rogers don't support cable card technology so I can't buy one of the cable card tuners such as Hauppauge's WinTV-DCR-2650 or SiliconDust's HDHomeRun Prime either.

However the rumour was just that, a rumour, and Media Centre has or will show up in a later beta version of Windows 8 according to Microsoft’s Windows chief, Steven Sinofsky in a number of articles posted on the Internet such as WinRumours and ZDNet.