PortoMedia is setting up kiosks that will let consumers download movies to a flash memory key or portable hard drive.

The kiosks will be packed with hard drives that can hold 350 to 5,000 titles. Users then plug in a memory device from the company, enter a PIN code, and buy or rent a movie. When consumers get home, they simply slide the memory device into a dock connected to a TV.

Evidently they have come up with a proprietary USB interface that can load a high-definition movie onto the memory card in less than 45 seconds. There are some big advantages to this model:

• Reduced cost as packaging and shipping associated with DVDs is no longer required
• More selection - you aren’t limited by shelf space with a kiosk like Blockbuster is
• It can happen sooner than Internet delivery (because most of us still have fairly crappy connections)

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, the company plans to use DRM from Microsoft to protect the movies.

PortoMedia did a trial run last year, and plans to go live with the service in four U.S. cities sometime in Q2 2008.

Read: CNET News.com

We put the template support in for Visual Studio 2008 towards the very end of the 5.3 development cycle as a ‘bonus’ to fulfill community requests — you’ll notice we don’t even mention it in the What’s New section of the SDK documentation at all since we didn’t know the street date for Visual Studio 2008.

He notes that if you only have one of the Visual Studio 2008 SKUs installed, then a template will be missing after installing the Windows Media Center SDK 5.3. To solve the issue, make sure you have a Visual Studio 2005 SKU installed alongside 2008 (they can happily live side-by-side). If you install VS2005 after VS2008, you’ll need to a repair on the Media Center SDK.

And as a best practice, install the Media Center SDK after you have installed the IDEs.

For more information on version 5.3 of the Windows Media Center SDK, see this post.

“The country vote is done, and it passed,” Bill Crow said. “That means the International JPEG committee has decided to go ahead and create the standard. Now it’s just a process of doing that work,” a process that will begin later this month in a meeting in Kobe, Japan.

Support for HD Photo isn’t as broad as it could be, but becoming a standard will likely change that. Still, with support built into every copy of Windows Vista and a firm vote of confidence from Adobe, the future for JPEG XR looks very bright indeed.

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.

The episode is just over thirty minutes in length. Here is a great list of links to topics covered during the podcast, and here is the MP3 download.

Some of you may have already heard, but tomorrow we’re dropping the suggested retail price for Zune to $199. It’s part of the normal product lifecycle, something we’ve had on the books for months. We just got some research back and customer satisfaction with the 30GB device is really high (around 94%) and we expect even more consumers will now want to discover the Zune experience at the new lower price.

Engadget says, there’s “a whole heaping helping of irony that the Zune is getting a price slash on the very day Apple is ostensibly outing brand new iPods.” Regardless, we’ll take the price cut, thanks!

Does the price cut mean that new Zunes are just around the corner? Hope so!

• Squirrel Stash for Windows Media Center helps you keep media content private.
• Version 5.2 of the Windows Media Center SDK was released this week.
• Microsoft officially added HDMI to the Xbox 360 Premium this week. Hooray for proper HD output!
• Apparently Glide Mobile has figured out how to add Windows Media support to the iPhone.

Hopefully I’ll get back to some more regular posting soon.

The ballot deadline for this new project is early October 2007. Finalizing and publishing the completed standard is expected to take up to one year after that. Throughout, Microsoft will be working closely with JPEG to ensure that this new proposed standard serves the needs of the next generation of consumer and professional photographers and delivers the next experience in image display. If approved, Microsoft will offer a royalty-free grant for its patents that are required to implement the standard.

Congratulations to the HD Photo team! Bill Crow explains that his team has been working on HD Photo for a long time:

Our group at Microsoft’s Core Media Processing Team has been working on HD Photo for over five years. The underlying compression technology is based on work from Microsoft Research that goes back even farther than that.

We’re excited to be contributing to the next great standard for digital photography, enabling a whole new level of feature and technology innovation, improving photo quality and creating exciting new applications and services.

Awesome to see things work out so positively. I guess this means we’ll see an explosion of support for HD Photo sooner rather than later!

• Microsoft has released new “preview” versions of Expression Blend and the Expression Media Encoder that work with Silverlight 1.0 RC.
• Vishal Sood has a nice post up about Server Side Playlists with Windows Media Services.
• Engadget has heard that FairUse4WM is capable of stripping the DRM from files acquired via the BBC’s new iPlayer.
• For developers: David Mullet explains how to automate Windows Media Player using Ruby.
• Long Zheng has dug up additional information on Vista SP1. Among other things, it should include an update to DirectX 10.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Features – we’ll move towards parity with iPod building in support for video, podcasting, etc and at the same time build on key differentiators such as the wireless feature, the FM tuner, etc.

The other two areas of focus for expanding the Zune are device family (sizes, styles, etc.) and geographic markets.

Here’s what Cesar at Zune Insider had to say about the story:

We have not confirmed any new devices or features. We have, for several months, been saying that we intend to develop the Zune business along three axes - expanding our device offering, adding new features and scenarios and considering new international markets when the time is right.

Somewhat vague, but essentially a confirmation.

Will a new Zune with podcasting support be in stores by Christmas? There’s a good chance the answer to that question is yes. Stay tuned!

So for anyone with the Windows Media Player module installed on their space and set to “invisible” before the update, that site is now “unavailable”, but there’s a pretty easy workaround…

0. Sign in passport

1. Go to “http://youralias.spaces.live.com/?_c=WMP ” (no quotes, insert your spaces name)

2. Change “Display mode” as full — DO NOT Set “Display mode” as Invisible

3. Save

Not too hard to fix, but kind of annoying. Evidently the bug should be fixed soon. Good luck!

Nathan Weinberg points to another post that shows some of Microsoft’s recent domain name purchases. Some of them on our radar would be MediaCenterExtender.net, MediaCenterExtenderSandbox.com, MCExtender.net, and ConnectsToMediaCenter.com.

Okay, so all we’ve got are domain names, but still - that’s better than nothing right?

Come on Microsoft, give us some new extenders!

The idea is simply – why not use the powerful Media Center platform in the kitchen? Watch news, your favourite episodes or let the Media Center play some music while you’re cooking.

What would be the most interesting application for a kitchen? Correct - a cookbook.

Sounds like a pretty cool application - an interactive cookbook that helps you with recipes, everything from preparation to a step-by-step walkthrough.

Even more amazing are the mirror displays that adnotam makes (they approached MCEDev about the app). They make the kitchen look like a normal kitchen when the Media Center is turned off.

Awesome! What other rooms would be good for Media Center customizations? Maybe the garage?

Today on the earnings call Microsoft announced that Zune has achieved our goal of one million units sold in, as well as Microsoft earning over $50 billion in annual revenue. We actually went above and beyond our goal: we sold 1.2 million units.

That’s good news for the Zune team! In the comments on that post, Brian points out that Zune’s sales are probably lower than iPod’s in the first year, though it is difficult to compare (given the differences in the size of the market).

Time for a new goal Zune team!

I had fun writing the two posts, and I’d love to know what you think!

Abdul sez, “A new version of FairUse4WM v1.3 Fix2 from Doom9 is available that claims to remove the DRM license protection from songs and music downloaded from Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace allowing you to play them on any portable media player.”

You can read the doom9 posting here. Users are reporting mixed results, but for the most part, it seems legit.

Also today, a press release from Microsoft announcing that Zune will “have a significant presence at 28 Live Nation concert venues” in the US this summer.

Zune will have a strong on-site presence with its Zune Spots, inviting consumers to try the devices and see the latest summer colors. The innovative Zune Spots are actually converted freight containers that have been redesigned to bring the brand to life for concertgoers.

For more information, check out Zune.net and LiveNation.com. Also, here’s the Wikipedia entry for Live Nation.