Once upon a time if you wanted to (legally) download Hollywood movies or TV shows, you turned to sites like MovieLink and CinemaNow. With all the attention focused on Apple, Amazon, Joost, and Netflix these days, we kind of forgot that these companies still existed. And then we got a friendly email from CinemaNow letting us know that starting today you could access the service through Windows Media Center, which is actually kind of awesome.

You'll need to register for a CinemaNow account to use the service. And of course, you'll need Windows Media Center, which is built into Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate. You should be able to find the CinemaNow icon in the More TV section. If you don't see it, go into your Media Center settings and force your computer to download updates.

CinemaNow is actually kind of late to the game here. MovieLink and Vongo have had Windows MCE applications for ages. But with CinemaNow making its 3400 feature length films, 3000 TV episodes, and 2900 music videos available, we're going to say better late than never. Now if only Amazon, Apple, and Netflix would release Widnows MCE applications.

Update: As we've been reminded, this is not the first time you've been able to access CinemaNow from Windows Media Center. The company released a plugin for earlier versions of MCE which you could download and install in order to watch movies using the media center "10 foot interface." To our knowledge, this is the first time CinemaNow has been available to all Windows Vista MCE users without a separate download though.

Windows Media Center includes a decent music player for songs stored on your PC. And you can use plugins like RadioTime to listen to pretty much any streaming radio station you can find. But until recently there was no good way to listen to songs from music recommendation and streaming service Last.fm. Well, now there is.

MceFM is aplugin for Windows Vista Media Center that lets you stream music from Last.fm. All you have to do is type in the name of an artist or song and Last.fm will dig up music by that artist and then find similar songs you might like and start playing one song after another.

You'll need to sign up for a Last.fm account if you haven't already, because MceFM won't play a single note if you're not logged in. Once you're connected, all you have to do is enter an artist name and MceFM will connect to Last.fm, find your music and set up a playlist.

The plugin can also find music similar to songs and artists already on your computer. Just locate a track in your music library and then click the More button on your remote (or hit the Ctrl+D keys on your keyboard to bring up the context menu and select More), and you can search Last.fm for similar music.

[via Ian Dixon]

Sure, Vista Media Center's only been officially available for a few months. But onwards and upwards. Microsoft is already prepping the next version of Windows Media Center, which may or may not be codenamed Fiji. And the company is looking for beta testers.

Over the last few years, Microsoft has had a track record of releasing new versions of Windows Media Center every year or two. While Windows Vista includes Media Center functionality, the company is expected to release the next version of Media Center before the next full Windows release. Fiji could be available in 2007 or 2008, while the next major operating system upgrade is slated for 2009.

In order to apply as for a beta account, you'll have to fill out a series of questions and basically prove that you've got the right stuff to test out a new system and provide constructive feedback. Those selected as testers will be notified by May 31st.

Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) is great, and so is Apple's iTunes, but together they are so much better. Honestly now, what good is home entertainment if you can't get all your iTunes music to blare through those super-high-end speakers and surround-sound with the expensive DACs you got with last years tax return? It makes iTunes music somewhat pointless if you can't set off car alarms a couple blocks over. MCETunes is an app that aims to iTunes-ify your living room, your neighbors and anyone else you care to annoy or otherwise impress. It serves as the missing link between iTunes and your Windows MCE box. The free version will only play unprotected music that lives in iTunes. The paid edition ($29.99) will play any music bought from the iTunes store.

(Thanks Kevin Tofel)

File this under why-didn't-I-think-of-that: YouTubeMCE is an add-on that integrates YouTube with Windows Media Center Edition. It lets you browse, search, and view YouTube videos without leaving your couch. It lets you watch videos in full-screen mode, but as lousy as those videos look on your 19" monitor, don't expect them to look fantastic on your 52" one. YouTubeMCE is free. (As pointed out in the comments at Engadget, for those rocking XBMC there's a script that does the same thing, as well as one for Google Video. Find them at XMBCScripts.com)

If you have a Windows Media Center Edition PC, it may frustrate you to no end that you are unable to move your video from that PC onto another one. Unlike the very good MythTV for Linux (free), and SnapStream's Beyond TV 3 for Windows (not free) Microsoft does not use standard AVI format for its videos, intentionally making it harder to transport them. This is, of course, because Microsoft is so intent on getting in bed with the entertainment industry that they will do pretty much anything asked of them by these big corporations. But, I digress.

If you, like I, believe that you should have the freedom to view video that you have recorded on your PVR on any capable device, just as you can tape something on VHS and watch it in a different VHS player, give the free My Movies XP from VOXU a try. It's a simple download that you can run on another computer on your network, which will access the videos on your MCE machine. It has a very Media Center-like interface to allow you to browse and watch your shows.

[via The Red Ferret Journal]