This is a copy of a post I left on Windows Experts Community for Windows Media Center. It is posted here because of the email response I’ve gotten over the weekend. Thank you everyone for your gracious support. It really means a lot.
————–
I have resisted posting or saying anything in public for a long time now in the hope that MediaMall, makers of PlayOn, would reconsider their ill directed war on tubeCore and WMC. They haven’t reconsidered, but have doubled down on their mischief, even going so far as to blame tubeCore for the problems that users are seeing.
Full disclosure: I am biased and a bit pissed because, frankly, I hate bullies.
A few months ago I received an email from the owner of MediaMall with a demand: remove Watch Later (video caching) from tubeCore because that feature will compete with a future release of PlayOn. I tried to agree on a compromise: the user could disable Watch Later, or we could even detect PlayOn and remove it automatically.
That wasn’t good enough. The owner of MediaMall wanted the feature gone or else.
The “or else” was the kicker. I refuse to hold the users of tubeCore, or my company, hostage to the whims of another company.
After that exchange MediaMall began to block Windows Media Center add-ins from PlayOn, and first blaming Windows Media Center, and then tubeCore, calling it “somewhat unstable”, as if after months of running on thousands of Windows Media Center PC’s and extenders, tubeCore would suddenly stop working.
So you know, there is nothing wrong with tubeCore. It works with other DLNA Media Servers such as Twonky, Tversity, J River, and PS3 Media Server. The whole reason PlayOn doesn’t work with tubeCore is that the owner of PlayOn wants to dictate features to Media Players. And if you ask me, he’s just picking on little guys.