Amazon Instant Video for Windows Media Center Updated

Many have said that Windows Media Center is dead, but we at The DMZ feel that as long as it continues to be the best available DVR and home media option (and as long as that guide data keeps getting updated) that it’s still alive. Apparently Marc Davis feels the same way. He’s a Windows Media Center enthusiast who went looking for a plug-in that would allow him to watch Amazon Instant Video. When he found one he was disappointed to discover that it no longer work, and the developer didn’t have the time to maintain it. Fortunately for us, Davis is a developer by day, and he offered to pick up development of Amazon Instant Video for Windows Media Center.

Very quickly Davis was able to fix the bugs that were preventing it from working at all, and he released it for the rest of the world to enjoy. He could have stopped there, but he didn’t. Since resuming development of the add-in Marc Davis has gone on to add even more features. His latest releases include adding remote control support for play, pause, fast forward and rewind, and HD playback of TV shows, and that’s only a couple of the features he’s added. Did we mention he’s been working on this for less than two weeks? The progress he’s made is pretty remarkable, but there’s one thing he’s done that we appreciate even more than adding features and fixing bugs: he’s been listening to user feedback! Many of the feature ideas that he’s already implemented came straight from suggestions of users of the plug-in.

Amazon Instant Video for Windows Media Center Updated currently supports playback of Amazon Prime video, including movies and television shows. It also has Watchlist support to make it easy to find the content you’ve queued up on the website. As is the case with most of these streaming content plug-ins, it won’t work on Windows Media Center Extenders. It also doesn’t allow you to purchase or rent content yet, but that’s a feature he’s hoping to add soon. The plugin is available for free, but if you like what he’s doing please go to his site and give him a donation. You’ll also want to check out Entertainment 2.0 episode 257 where Josh sits down with Marc Davis to discuss how he got involved with the add-in, what he’s added so far, and what features are yet to come.