Plugins
| Plugins | Metadata Managers | External Players | Utilities | Codecs | Media Tools |
Plugins
| Name & Description | Free | Compatibility | Category | Image | Added |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Life|ware Industry leader in home entertainment and automation. Requires proprietary hardware. | N | VMC,7MC | Automation | View | 10/1/09 |
| mControl Control your home automation system from within Media Center. Trial available. | N | All | Automation | View | 10/1/09 |
| mceNetCam Monitor IP-based webcams live from within Media Center. Supported camera required. | Y | All | Automation | View | 10/1/09 |
| Media Center Communicator Control your Media Center…by voice! Trial available. | N | MCE,VMC,? | Automation | View | 10/1/09 |
| Power Manager Tell any PC on your home network to wake up or enter standby/hibernation…right from Media Center (or Windows Mobile phone!)! Has Server, Desktop and Media Center versions. | Y | VMC,7MC | Automation | View | 10/1/09 |
| QuiiQ Automation Control your digital home’s lighting, appliances, security and more! | N | VMC,? | Automation | View | 10/1/09 |
| Task Scheduler Run, view or stop tasks from a specified user…within Media Center. Great for managing any background batch scripts from Media Center. | Y | VMC,7MC | Automation | View | 10/1/09 |
| Big Screen Contacts v2 Interact with your Windows contacts directory via Media Center. | N | VMC,7MC | Communication | View | 10/1/09 |
| Facebook/Twitter Status Update your Facebook and/or Twitter status from within Media Center. | Y | VMC,7MC | Communication | View | 10/1/09 |
| mceContacts Manage your contacts from Media Center that are stored in a convenient MS Access-compatible database. Trial available. | N | MCE,?,? | Communication | View | 10/1/09 |
| mcePhone for Skype Make calls via Skype using your Media Center! Trial available. | N | MCE,?,? | Communication | View | 10/1/09 |
| Media Center Mail Access POP3 email accounts from within Media Center. | Y | VMC,7MC | Communication | View | 10/1/09 |
| Media Center Outlook Access Microsoft Outlook to read emails, consult your calendar, view contacts, check tasks and read notes…all from within Media Center. | Y | VMC,7MC | Communication | View | 10/1/09 |
| Media Center Video Phone Make and answer video (SIP) calls using Media Center. | Y | VMC,7MC | Communication | View | 10/1/09 |
| Vista Media Center Twitter Follow and post status updates to your Twitter account with this plugin...right from Media Center! | Y | VMC,7MC | Communication | View | 11/25/09 |
| BeebMC BBC Radio Listen to BBC radio within Media Center. Supports “Listen Again” functionality. | Y | VMC,? | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| Big Screen Photos v2 Instant access to Yahoo! flickr and more…right from Media Center. Trial available. | N | VMC,7MC | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| CasaTunes Proprietary hardware-dependent plugin that brings multi-zone audio to your Media Center. | N | MCE,VMC,? | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| Magic Slideshow Play music and get a slideshow that matches the date of the song! An alternative to the built-in slideshow functionality of Media Center. | Y | VMC,7MC | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| MCEfm Listen to Last.fm (and many others) in Media Center. According to their site development is suspended and current version may not work. | Y | VMC,? | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| mcShoutCast Internet radio at its best…right to your Media Center. | Y | VMC,? | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| Music Browser Plugin for folder-based navigation of music files. Supports ID3 tagging and album art extraction with list and thumbnail views. Based on Video Browser source code. | Y | VMC,7MC | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| Photato Connect to your Facebook account so that you can view your photos within Media Center. | Y | VMC,7MC | Music & Photo | View | 11/18/09 |
| PowerPlaylist Adds a new tile to Media Center that automatically launches an audio, slideshow or audio/slideshow combination that you have created using the included configuration utility. | Y | VMC,7MC | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| RadioTime Get unlimited FREE access to thousands of DJs and on-air personalities from your zip code and around the world! Listen to Internet radio or local FM stations using your FM-capable tuner! | Y | All | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| Song Lyrics Add-in Retrieve and view song lyrics for your music collection. | Y | VMC,? | Music & Photo | View | 10/1/09 |
| Songler Songler (formerly SpotifyMCE) is a fantastic add-in for Windows Media Center for playing music content from multiple legal streaming music providers - currently Spotify, Last.fm and YouTube. It is the first Add-In for Windows Media Center to play Spotify content, and the most up to date Last.fm Add-In. It allows both free and premium Spotify subscribers you to play any of Spotify's 6 million tracks instantly, directly from your Media Center, all controlled with your remote. It also allows you to scrobble the tracks that you are playing in Songler to last.fm to build up your music profile, and last.fm subscribers can stream all of their radio stations too. | Y (last.fm subscription required to listen within Media Center) | VMC,7MC | Music & Photo | View | 4/21/10 |
| Big Screen Headlines v2 Access the latest RSS news feeds, watch VOD, read blogs, listen to podcasts, view photocasts and more…without leaving your couch! | N | VMC,7MC | News & Weather | View | 10/1/09 |
| Big Screen Weather v2 The latest weather, forecasts and imagery right to your living room! | N | VMC,7MC | News & Weather | View | 10/1/09 |
| Heatwave Groovy live weather plugin. 7MC compatibility is now here also! | Y | VMC,7MC | News & Weather | View | 11/2/09 |
| MCEWeather Full-featured weather plugin. | Y | MCE,VMC,? | News & Weather | View | 10/1/09 |
| Media Center RSS Reader Subscribe to and view to the latest news feeds from Media Center. Also supports podcasts and vodcasts! | Y | VMC,7MC | News & Weather | View | 10/1/09 |
| The Digital Lifestyle Reader If you keep up with Ian Dixon's The Digital Lifestyle site, then you will want this plugin. It's a plugin that has complete access to all of TDL's material...right from Media Center! | Y | VMC,7MC | News & Weather | View | 11/18/09 |
| Vista4Cast Specify your location and then view detailed weather information about your area. Weather information is obtained from Weather.com. Very customizable. | Y | VMC,7MC | News & Weather | View | 10/1/09 |
| Vista Media Center Stocks Got stocks? Follow them within Media Center with this nice plugin. Features include historic prices and graphical statistics. | Y | VMC,7MC | News & Weather | View | 11/25/09 |
| Weatherstation Two applications = weatherstation server, which downloads your weather forecasts, and weatherstation for Media Center, which is used to view them in Media Center. | Y | VMC,7MC | News & Weather | View | 10/7/09 |
| BBC iPlayer Watch the available wmv streams from BBC iPlayer with this plugin. | Y | 7MC | Streaming Media | View | 12/1/09 |
| Boxee Download and install this streaming TV, movie, music and photo aggregator and launch it from Media Center with this add-on! Also plays local media! Boxee works with XP, Vista and Win7, but the launcher is only good for VMC/7MC. Could also be added using MC Menu Mender/MC Studio. | Y | VMC,7MC | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| Hulu Desktop Can be used in conjunction with HuluDesktopWMC to create an entry point that opens Hulu Desktop from within Media Center. Or, create your own using MC Menu Mender/Media Center Studio. This is not a native Media Center application. | Y | All | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| MacroTube View YouTube, Dailymotion, MSN Soapbox and more from within Media Center! | Y | VMC,7MC | Streaming Media | View | 3/11/10 |
| MCEWebView View web pages inside MCE. Use MCE remote to move cursor, click links and scroll web page. Use back button to close app and restore MCE. Disables screensaver while running. Good for running websites like ABC’s iView. Config file can be edited for use with any streaming media website. | Y | VMC,7MC | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| MiraWorldTV Consolidate and watch your Internet TV streams with this plugin. You must use ORCA to edit the installer for it to install on 7MC, or download a copy I have already edited here. | Y | VMC,7MC | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| MyBlockbuster Manage your Blockbuster Total Access account from Media Center. There is trailer streaming capability. | Y | MCE,VMC,? | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| MyNetflix View and manage your Netflix queue, browse movies and stream using the WatchNow! feature. Not sure if this one works anymore…development ceased a long time ago. | Y | VMC,? | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| NetflixMC Netflix account manager/WatchNow! viewer for Media Center. Development discontinued and no known download available. | Y | VMC,? | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| Trailer Library See the latest trailers, streamed straight to your Media Center! Trailers provided by FilmTrailer.com | Y | VMC,7MC | Streaming Media | View | 5/3/10 |
| SecondRun.tv Watch RSS-based TV and movie content hosted by hulu.com within a native Media Center interface. | Y | VMC,? | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| TubeCore Another web streaming plugin for Media Center. Supports hulu, Netflix, PlayOn, TVersity and more! Trial available. Beta 6 has sporadic reports of success in 7MC. I assume beta 7 is better. | N | VMC,7MC | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| TunerFree MCE TunerFreeMCE is a free plugin that allows you to use Media Center to stream live and recorded TV from a number of sources like BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, Hulu. It also allows other sources to be added with it's own plugins. | Y | VMC,7MC | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| VMCNetflix Manage your Netflix account or search and watch videos from the WatchNow! library from within Media Center! Support for this may have given way to the PlayOn plugin. | Y | VMC,? | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| VMCPlayIt Use your PlayOn Server (not free) to stream all of its content directly to your Media Center. Use VMCPlayIt to browse and watch it! Tons of content available! | Y | VMC,7MC | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| Yougle Vista Browse and view from many different streaming media sites (like YouTube) from Media Center. Basic functionality is free…additional features come with for a price. 7MC compatibility appears to be for x86 only. | Y | VMC,7MC | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| Zinc Another nice external web media aggregator/viewer than can also play local media. Use MC Menu Mender/Media Center Studio to create an entry point for VMC/7MC. I have a post here that explains how I did it in VMC using MC Menu Mender. | Y | All | Streaming Media | View | 10/1/09 |
| Media Browser Open source successor to Video Browser. Browse DVD rips, BluRay rips, TV and more with automated metadata and image downloads. Highly recommended! Currently free (pay version is TBD). | Y | VMC,7MC | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| Media Center Movie Info http://vistamcmovieinfo.oabsoftware.nl/ | Y | VMC,7MC | Video Managers | View | 4/12/10 |
| More TV for Vista TV series collection viewer. Displays collected metadata and artwork for recorded/ripped TV series. No longer developed or supported. | Y | VMC,? | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| Movie Browser Flash-based movie browser. No news on this in over a year, so I suspect it to be vaporware. | Y | VMC,? | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| Movie Collector MCE Organize your DVD collection using an enormous online database. Then, use the included plugin to view your collection in complete detail. Trial available. | N | VMC,7MC | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| MyMovies Movie collection management and playback plugin. Organize your movie collection from a user-driven online webservice. MyMovies basic is free. Additional features are unlocked via donation or webservice contribution. MCML release due in October ‘09. | Y | All | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| MyMovies Browser MCML-based frontend for MyMovies that also adds Apple trailers, TV metadata and artwork retrieval. | Y | VMC,? | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| myTV Automatically archives TV along with metadata and artwork to a database. Trial available | N | VMC,7MC | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| Open Media Library (OML) Open source media organizer and viewer with automated metadata and artwork retrieval. Also supports importing from many popular other movie organizers. | Y | VMC,7MC | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| Play All/Shuffle All Automatically play all videos in a folder in order or randomly with this plugin. | Y | VMC,7MC | Video Managers | View | 10/14/09 |
| Plugin Filme Another video plugin developed by Maschmo. The site is in German, so I can’t tell you much about it. | Y | VMC,? | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| QuiiQ Movies Archive, manage and watch your entire movie collection with direct links to titles, actors and more! Trial available. | N | VMC,? | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| Video Library TV and movie library with fully automated metadata and artwork retrieval. Organize, search and sort your collection to your won tastes! | Y | VMC,7MC | Video Managers | View | 10/1/09 |
| ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 3 Brings BluRay and HD-DVD playback to Media Center. | N | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| Auto Rip n Compress Automate much of the DVD ripping and compressing right from Media Center! Requires DVDFab HD Decrypter and Handbrake. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 11/25/09 |
| BookMarkIt Create video ‘bookmarks’ that will allow you to return to any point of any show for later viewing. XP version also exists, but link is for Vista version. I do not know if this works on 7MC. Screenshot is XP version. | Y | MCE,VMC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| clipShow Create “video slideshows” of your personal videos. Also creates custom playlists and organizes according to tags stored in metadata. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| CoreTempMC CoreTempMC lets you monitor your processor's temperature, load and frequency from the Media Center UI without the need to minimize it and using other utilities. Requires CoreTemp installation. | Y | ?,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 7/1/10 |
| Cyberlink PowerDVD Launch BluRay and HD-DVD natively from Media Center. | N | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| EMUCenter Manage, emulate and play your SNES, Windows, Arcade, Atari, etc. games from within VMC. Free to use, but donation unlock additional features. | Y | MCE,VMC,? | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| GameEx GameEx is a graphical DirectX based front-end for MAME (screenshot), Zinc, Daphne, PC Games, and all command line based emulators, along with being a complete Home Theatre PC solution, especially when gaming is a priority or important. It also makes a good CarPC frontend. The original goal was for it to be used on Windows XP Media Center and also Arcade Cabinets . It will run on Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7. You don't need Windows Media Center to run GameEx. Standard (nag) and Registered (pay) versions available. | Y/N | All | Miscellaneous | View | 7/26/10 |
| Google Calendar Viewer If you keep a Google Calendar, you can access it within Media Center with this plugin. | Y | VMC,? | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| LubeatMediaCenterHidden Change many hidden Media Center settings and also add some radio streaming. | Y | 7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 6/5/10 |
| LCDWriter Output Media Center operations to your compatible VFD. | Y | MCE,VMC,? | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| Made for Media Center Upcoming project that will allow you to browse and install participating plugins right from your Media Center! | Y | N/A | Miscellaneous | View | 11/18/09 |
| MC MultiMon Dynamically send your Media Center window to any monitor with the click of a mouse! | Y | All | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| MCE Skipper Adds seek bar functionality to Media Center. | Y | MCE,VMC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| MCE Virtual Remote Control your Media Center from any other PC! | Y | All | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| MCEAuction Browse, bid, buy and receive notifications on eBay from Media Center with this plugin. | Y | MCE,VMC,? | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| MCETAPIRex Display caller-ID information for incoming calls and view call history from Media Center. Requires TAPIRex (not free) and compatible modem for operation. | Y | MCE,VMC,? | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| MCEZone Too many plugins to list individually, so I decided to make one link to them all. They have both free and commercial plugins for movies, trailers and other things you never would think of! | Y/N | All | Miscellaneous | See Site | 10/1/09 |
| MCE Remote Plus Toggle subtitles, audio streams and enable FF/REW using your Media Center remote. Small utility runs in your tray and requires ffdshow and DirectVobSub to operate. | Y | MCE,VMC,? | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| Media Center Transcoder With Media Center Transcoder you can convert recorded TV programs to a number of different video formats. All on your Media Center TV. The only pre-requisite is that you have ATI Avivo installed on your Media Center PC. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 4/12/10 |
| Media Control Take control of your media experience with Media Control. Enjoy TRUE fastforward/rewind for all video formats, resume videos, switch between audio/subtitle streams, adjust picture quality and more! Requires ffdshow for operation. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| MountImage Mount your ISO images for playback in Movie Library and Video Library! Requires VirtualCloneDrive (free). | Y | 7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| My Channel Logos Spice up your 7MC guide listings with official network logos of all your channels! | Y | 7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| My Media Center My Media Center is a Windows 7 Media Center interface specially designed for kids. It has a simple easy to use interface, and it allows a you to set up filters on what can be watched so that your youngsters don't accidentally start watching age inappropriate programs. | Y (Beta expires July 1st) | 7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 4/21/10 |
| My Drinks As if Media Center wasn’t already the life of your party, it can now supply you with hundreds of drink recipes. Complete with tons of search options from ingredients to drink names. Over 6,000 drinks! | Y | All | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| NControl NControl is a free iPhone/iPod Touch application that allows you to use your iPhone/iPod Touch as a remote control for your Media Center. It enables users to browse through pictures, video, recorded shows, tv channels, as well as navigate the Media Center interface. It also has a set of standard buttons found on traditional remotes such as play, pause fast forward, rewind, stop, mute and volume. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 2/1/10 |
| Position Changer Add-In Allows you to skip to specific times while playing back video files. Hit ‘right’ directional pad and then key in the time in minutes+seconds. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| Recorded TV Manager Add-in Integrates Windows Home Server and the Recorded TV Manager found down the list to provide complete access to your entire recorded TV collection. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| Refresh Changer Change your refresh rate from Media Center. | Y | 7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/2/09 |
| MC7 Sleep Timer Keep passing out before getting a chance to send your HTPC to sleep? Install this little utility to take care of it for you. 30min, 60min and custom options for turning putting Media Center into standby (and can turn your monitor off too). | Y | ?,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| Squirrel Stash Password protect your media files in an encrypted ’stash’ and view them once a correct password is entered. Free edition limited to 1GB. | N | VMC,? | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| tvitty Moderately featured bittorrent client that can access RSS content, Yahoo! feeds, xsl and Python feeds and custom tvitty.com content…all from Media Center using a remote! | Y | VMC,? | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| Vista Caller-ID Full featured caller-ID plugin, call manager and server (Home Server plugin also available). Requires compatible modem. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| Vista YAC Add-in Display caller-ID information in Media Center. Requires a YAC server with compatible modem for operation. I needed the Vista YAC Client with the Listener disabled for it to work on one of my systems. YMMV. MCE2K5 version available. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| VMCBrowser The world on your TV! A web browser for your Windows Media Center. x86 and x64 versions are available. Does not work with Media Center remotes, but remote functionality has been added to the ‘to-do’ list. | Y | All | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
| WOLPacket A small Media Center application that will send a Magic Packet to wake up a file server every time you start Media Center. You can call the application at anytime using the tile in the program library. | Y | VMC,7MC | Miscellaneous | View | 10/1/09 |
[...] You can always visit The HTPC.net where you’ll find a great list of Media Center plugins. [...]