Stay on top of the Election with MSNBC News Beta in Windows Media Center

Posted by:
Brandon LeBlanc
06:13 AM Wednesday
Oct 01, 2008
14 Comments

Under the TV + Movies menu in Windows Media Center, you may have noticed a new tile: MSNBC News Beta. The MSNBC News Beta tile will begin appearing in Windows Media Center for users in the United States and Canada running Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. Users don’t need to download anything to enable MSNBC News Beta in Windows Media Center. MSNBC News Beta gives users quick access to the latest election news, top stories and weather all from one screen.

Directly within Windows Media Center, users can browse Editor Picks and Most Popular videos (which are selected by viewers). I discovered that when I click on a specific video, a “+” icon appears. When this “+” icon is clicked, it gets added to a custom news video playlist. There are quite a few videos to choose from which is nice.

I was able to quickly browser through a bunch of MSNBC’s Decision ’08 videos and add them to a custom news video playlist to watch all at once.

I was also able to browse other categories such as Business, Sports, and Entertainment which all have videos I can either watch as I go or add to a custom news video playlist. MSNBC News Beta also sports some pretty neat search functionality that lets me search for stories with specific keywords.

And the 5-day weather forecast (available for any ZIP code in the United States) is impressive too!

As a heavy Windows Media Center user myself, I for one will be using MSNBC News Beta to stay on top of not only the upcoming U.S. Election but all the latest news.

For more on MSNBC News Beta and Windows Media Center – click here!

Comments

refbaptdude

Posted on: October 01, 2008 at 10:47AM
You got to be kidding! MSNBC is the most liberal media outlet in the world. You cannot trust them to report anything balanced - only to the far left.
Quikboy

Posted on: October 02, 2008 at 12:29AM
@refbaptdude : So is CNN. All news outlets have bias somewhere.
mrmckeb

Posted on: October 05, 2008 at 10:28AM
Does Microsoft know that countries exist outsife of North America?
newscientist2000

Posted on: October 06, 2008 at 2:42AM
The Daily Show + Colbert Report is the best place to go for unbiased political views.

Its sad that a Comedy Network is the best place to go to keep ahead of current political news, but thats the reality.
dijitalmekan

Posted on: October 10, 2008 at 4:15PM
thanksss very good
refbaptdude

Posted on: October 13, 2008 at 9:50AM
Why would microsoft want to team up with the most liberal media outlet?
n25philly

Posted on: October 24, 2008 at 1:32PM
is this compatible with x64 systems? I have Vista Ultimate on my laptop and I am in the US, but I can't get this or the internet tv to download. I've tried in on this and another x64 computer and it won't work with either. It works great on my x86 desktop at home though...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Philip

n25philly@verizon.net

Trackbacks

Posted by: Ian Dixon's Blog on October 01, 2008 at 7:34AM
There is a new MSNBC addin for Windows Media Center user in US and Canada, I haven’t been able to try
Posted by: Chris Lanier's Blog on October 01, 2008 at 4:45PM
Today Microsoft officially launched their MSNBC News beta in Media Center to the world (err, I mean US
Posted by: Chris Lanier's Blog on October 01, 2008 at 4:45PM
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