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MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

I got an e-mail last night from the folks at Proxure, Inc. about MCE Tunes, a new plug-in to let you play your purchased iTunes tracks through Media Center.  It can also be used to sync your iTunes library with Media Center.  Check out the free trial which only plays unprotected (m4a) songs.  The full version ($29.99) will enable playback of protected ones.  I’ll try and get a copy to play with and see how well it works next week for playback of protected content.

Proxure, Inc developed and sold MyTV ToGo to Roxio a while back for anyone wondering other projects the company has done with Media Center.

Published Sat, Oct 21 2006 17:09 by chrisl
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# » Two Cool Media Center Applications »  InsideMicrosoft - part of the Blog News Channel

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Sunday, October 22, 2006 6:32 AM by » Two Cool Media Center Applications »  InsideMicrosoft - part of the Blog News Channel

# re: MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

I'm guessing Apple didn't license FairPlay to this company (Proxure) so they either reverse engineered the FairPlay DRM protection scheme themselves or are a paying customer of DVD Jon's recent FairPlay crack (through his DoubleTwist Ventures)...the timing is peculiar on that one!

Monday, October 23, 2006 1:34 PM by Tim

# re: MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

Nope.  I believe it uses the QuickTime/iTunes SDK.  A process runs in the background to enable playback, it's 100% legal and it isn't breaking FairPlay to do.

Monday, October 23, 2006 1:42 PM by chrisl

# Zatz Not Funny. . .»Blog Archive » Interesting News Dave Hasn’t Covered

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006 6:46 AM by Zatz Not Funny. . .»Blog Archive » Interesting News Dave Hasn’t Covered

# CrunchGear » Blog Archive » Three Great Windows MCE Plugin

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006 11:34 AM by CrunchGear » Blog Archive » Three Great Windows MCE Plugin

# re: MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

yea, but does mce tunes stream to xbox 360?

Wednesday, October 25, 2006 12:10 AM by peyote

# re: MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

Currently, no.  But there website implies that they are working on the feature.

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Q: Does MCE Tunes work with extenders like the XBox 360?

A: Unfortunately the current version does not, but registered users will receive a free update to an extender-enabled version automatically.

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Wednesday, October 25, 2006 8:03 AM by chrisl

# re: MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

I have 35GB of music, because of the "bug" in MCE I had to convert my entire library over to WMA so I can browse my library through MCE and not have it take decades.  As I understand this "bug" the introduction of even a few MP3 formatted files to my library, will slow down MCE,  has anyone tried MCE tunes with a Large library,  does it work with mixed file formats?  does it eleminate the need for the MY MUSIC part of MCE?

Wednesday, November 01, 2006 2:45 PM by Dave

# re: MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

Using MCE Tunes, it just adds the data to your current WMP/MCE Library.  So, yes using My Music is still needed.

I can't answer the rest, I tested with a very small amount of purchased music from the iTMS.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006 2:54 PM by chrisl

# re: MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

Looks like a rip off "HP Tunes". Even the screenshots in the DOWNLOAD page has a menu item HP TUNES !!! HP Tunes is still available on hp.com http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=pv-36785-2&lc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=228&product=435776&dlc=en If you extract the files.....and edit the MSI under LAUNCH consitions table, you can install by running the MSI

Wednesday, November 08, 2006 12:09 PM by UK User

# re: MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

Although HP had the idea first, HP Tunes was really crap.  It used a separate executable to allow users to browse music through MCE, it didn't use the My Music UI.  If was limited to the only of songs you could import, and I didn't think it supported playback of protected songs from the iTMS.  No Extender support, and doesn't and never will do videos (the newer versions of MCE Tunes do).

MCE Tunes integrates with My Music, supports virtually an unlimited number of tracks, has Extender support said to be coming, now support playback of purchased videos/movies, and more.

HP Tunes is no where equal to MCE Tunes.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006 1:00 PM by chrisl

# re: MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

I've been using SoundTaxi for 3-4 months and trust it.

SoundTaxi supports WMP 11 fine and any iTunes updates too. It's also extremely easy to use and 12x fast!

Thursday, November 30, 2006 4:18 AM by Griffinplay