Microsoft (finally) speaks out on 'Fiji'

It only took two-plus years, but Microsoft finally issued on August 8 its official comment about Fiji, a k a "Windows Media Center TV Pack."

Although Microsoft isn't going to make Fiji commercially available until September 3, when certain OEM partners start shipping the new Vista Media Center update preloaded on new systems, the Fiji team finally decided to talk to "clear up some of the speculation and rumors" about it.

(For my part, I don't see a whole lot of speculation, but I do see a lot of angry Fiji beta testers. I've been writing about Fiji since I first heard the code name a couple of years ago and couldn't get any official information from Microsoft about Fiji until today.)

For what it's worth, here's Microsoft statement from Ben Reed, Product Marketing Manager, Windows Media Center:

"On July 16th, 2008, Microsoft released an update to the version of Windows Media Center included with Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate to our OEM partners - this update is referred to as the “Windows Media Center TV Pack”. In order to ensure that users get the best experience possible, this update will only be available from OEMs, as they are best positioned to provide the testing and hardware configurations for a great customer experience. This is due to the fact that in some geographies there are specific technical and hardware requirements for the Windows Media Center TV Pack that are best handled by the OEMs. We are working closely with our OEM partners as they finalize their decisions on Windows Media Center TV Pack products.

"The Windows Media Center TV Pack is primarily targeted at adding support for additional international broadcast standards including:

• "Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting – Terrestrial (ISDB-T) Digital television standard for Japan
• "Digital Video Broadcasting – Satellite (DVB-S) free-to-air satellite standards  in  Europe
• "Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial (DVB-T) digital television with  improved user experience in Europe
• "ClearQAM (Unencrypted Digital Cable)in the United States
• "Interactive television with integrated Broadcast Markup language (BML) in Japan and Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group (MHEG) (MHEG5) in Europe

"This version does not include native support for subscription-based satellite tuners or the H.264 video standard. We test many features in beta releases, and optimize our feature set in the final code for the best user experience.

"We do want the Windows Media Center community to know that Microsoft will continue to improve upon the Windows Media Center experience for our customers worldwide, by adding content partnerships and enhanced features.  We will share these developments as they become available."

Based on feedback I've gotten from testers, I think Microsoft Media Center Most Valuable Professional Chris Lanier's comments that "Fiji will go down in history as one of the worst coordinated projects to come out of Microsoft in a long time," ring true.

Update: Yet more feedback on why Fiji testers are not a happy lot, courtesy of Robert McLaws.

Update 2: And even more tester comments on their unhappiness with the Fiji process and product over on The Green Button Web site.