Supported Media Types for Windows Media Center
The following media types are natively supported on all Windows Media Center platforms, which include all Windows Media Center Extender devices. Additional media types may be supported on the PC only by installing a third-party codec. File formats not listed below may not work on Windows Media Center Extenders and thus when designing for Windows Media Center, we highly recommend using only the following media formats:
Media Types Supported by all Windows Media Center Platforms
Video
- Windows Media Video (WMV) 9
- Maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080 (1080p) at 30 frames per second
- Windows Media digital rights management (DRM) support up to level 2000
- MPEG-1
- MPEG-1 layer I and II audio
- MPEG-2
- Maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080 (1080i)
- MPEG-1 layer I and II or AC-3 audio
Audio
- Windows Media Audio (WMA) 7, 8, and 9, WMA Professional
- Windows Media DRM support up to Level 2000
- WMA Lossless
- MP3
- WAV-PCM
Additional Media Types Supported by certain Windows Media Center Extenders
Additionally, some Windows Media Center Extender devices such as the Xbox 360 may also support the following media:
Video
- WMV 7 & 8
- WMV Image 1 & 2
- Maximum resolution of 800 x 600
Audio
- WMA Lossless with DRM support
- Windows Media DRM support up to Level 2000
Playlists
- Limited ASX playlist support. Extender devices support Windows Media Player playlists (ASX playlists) only for basic playing of files.
Of the elements available for Windows Media metafiles, only ASX, ENTRY, and REF are supported. Elements that specify additional ASX functionality, such as DURATION, EVENT, ENDMARKER, or PARAM, are ignored in the Extender session. If you create your playlists to include ignored elements, the files specified in your REF elements should still play in order, but you might lose some functionality. If you try to nest a metafile using the ENTRYREF element, this may result in a video or audio error on the Extender device.
If your application provides content that is not listed above, it may not be playable on a Windows Media Center Extender device and the application should inform the user that the content can be played only on the host computer. The application can inform the user by displaying a message when the user starts a downloading or streaming operation from a Windows Media Center Extender session, or by providing UI tags for each content file. To detect whether the user is in a Windows Media Center Extender session or on the host computer, see Detecting a Windows Media Center Extender Session.
See Also