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Media Center Magic is proud to announce version 4.0 of its flagship product, FrontView for Windows Media Center Edition.

FrontView is an LCD driver that attaches to Windows MCE in order to display up-to-date information on your LCD. If you are watching a DVD, FrontView can display how much time has elapsed as well as the title of the DVD and lots of other information. This improves the experience with your Home Theater PC by helping it look and act more like any other piece of home-theater equipment. FrontView even handles multiple sessions that are active simultaneously by implementing a user-configurable priority scheme to determine what information is displayed. For example: You can configure what gets displayed if you are watching TV and an incoming call with caller-id arrives, or if you are listening to music while watching a slide show.

FrontView is fully configurable so you can display what you want in each session that is available. Macros are available to show current information from any active session in Media Center. Third party plug-ins can even be used to add new session types as well as global macros that provide information that is useful in any session - such as case temperatures.

Some popular cases that are supported by FrontView include cases from Silverstone and Ahanix. FrontView supports LCD and VFD displays such as Crystalfontz, SoundGraph, and Matrix Orbital as well as LPT based Hitachi 44780 compatible controllers. FrontView even has the ability to use display plug-ins which will allow the use of virtually any display that has an available plug-in (several of which are already being developed by third parties). If you are interested in writing a plug-in for FrontView - please contact us.

If you want to download a copy of FrontView, you can get it here. You'll get thirty days to try out the Professional features with FrontView, after which it will revert to the Standard version unless it is registered.  We strongly urge you to register FrontView so we can continue to add new features to this useful product.  Please support our work!

For more information on FrontView 3, please consult the documentation, or read the FAQ. For information on special features or bug fixes, check out the FrontView revision history.

Major Features in FrontView:

Feature
Free
Basic
Advanced
Works with Windows Media Center 2005 and Vista
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Implements a priority scheme to determine what information is displayed when multiple sessions are active.
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Multiple sessions can be active at the same time
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All messages that are displayed on your LCD can be customized in the Configuration App.
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Supports data from RSS feeds
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Supports third party FrontView plugins as well as many LCD Smartie plugins
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Dozens of macros are available to display internal information such as DVD run time, the title of a CD, or the name of an incoming caller from caller-id.
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Supports two, four or more line displays (The standard version will only drive the first 2 lines)
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The FrontView display engine runs as a service so it is available to drive the display even when Media Center is not running.
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Can be configured to co-exist with other LCD software by shutting down when no sessions are active
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Supports third-party plug-ins which can run completely independent of Media Center
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Global macros can be used from any session and can also be provided by third-party plug-ins
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All available macros are accessible through the configuration app
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Sessions can be configured to be hidden if they are inactive for a specified amount of time
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Sessions can be configured to only be displayed if they are in specific states
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Improved the display configuration process with a new ‘Test’ feature that helps configure most display types
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Scroll settings can be configured to suit your personal preferences
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Support for serial and USB based Crystalfontz 631, 632, 633, 634 and 635 LCDs
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Supports Crystalfontz display input buttons with user-customizable actions
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Supports Matrix Orbital display input buttons with user-customizable actions
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Support for SoundGraph's iMon VFDs
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Support for Noritake LCDs
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Support for LPT based Hitachi 44780 compatible two and four line VFDs
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Support for serial and USB based Matrix Orbital VFDs
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Support for additional display plug-ins that can be written by third parties - see a list of available plug-ins in the downloads section
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Thanks for your interest!

The Media Center Magic team

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