One of the key components in any home theater PC is the ability to play Blu-ray discs. For years there have been two many options that people have used: Cyberlink PowerDVD and ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre. ArcSoft’s offering was the overwhelming favorite for the DMZ contributors, as seen in our recent post detailing our Media Center PCs.
Unfortunately, we’re now down to one option. With no warning ArcSoft has completely removed TotalMedia Theatre from their site. A reader first pointed out to us that the software was no long available on the site. Later, an ArcSoft employee stated the following in their support forums:
TotalMedia Theatre is currently unavailable for sale on our site. This is intentional.
Later, the same employee added this:
Official statement is it’s been “discontinued for strategic business reasons”.
We’ll keep a close eye on the situation to see if they reverse course. We’re also looking at what other options exist for users that might not be as well known. In the meantime, what are you using for Blu-ray playback on your home theater PC?
Thanks to Curt for the tip!
Sources: Twitter and ArcSoft Forum
Well, I was using TMT… First Microsoft dump WMC, then Arcsoft dump TMT (with no warning at all). It’s almost enough to drive me back to a hardware Blu-ray player…
[…] ArcSoft Drops TotalMedia Theatre […]
It was riddled with problems, anyway. Users of ATI video cards can, I’m sure, well remember searching for the magic ATI driver that would result in stutter-free blu-ray playback–when PowerDVD would play that same disc without so much as a hicup. Add-ons like YouTube which SOMETIMES worked, and when it DID work the performance was mediocre at best.
Don’t get me wrong: I started the HTPC blu-ray game with TMT2 way back in the day. Simple. Easy to use. Then along came TMT3, which offered the same simplicity with a prettier face. While PowerDVD just became more and more bloated, this was a welcome change.
But come family movie night, you want to watch a movie. Your FAMILY wants to watch a movie. What they DON’T want is to watch you play IT repairman while you wonder why the @**# that particular disc just would not play without stuttering. Or simply wouldn’t play at all. This experience never went away even as we marched into TMT6. And you can only take so much aspirin for so many headaches.
My feeling is that since TMT cost roughly the same as a decent blu-ray set top box, it’s little wonder why HTPC building and usage has never been more than a hobbyist endeavor. I thought it’d become commonplace when MSI launched their Diva line of motherboards (which included a 5.1 amplifier card or a 7.1 pre-amp card). But sadly enough… no. (Veterans will remember this board and how poorly implemented it was.) It’s hard to blame Arcsoft for not wanting to follow a niche market as shaky as that.
[…] ArcSoft Drops TotalMedia Theatre […]
Well Ive been living under a rock. I didn’t realize that it had been discontinued until I saw the notice on the MyMovies website today. I still have the executable install file and the activation code for TMT 5. Overall it’s worked fine, but now I think I’m going to plan on leaving the the WMC platform entirely in the near future. It’s been a really good long run for me. I’ve been using WMC since MCE 2005 when it was available as a OEM disc, and I have been rolling my own since then. It’s going to come down to two different boxes. A TiVo Roamio 6 tuner DVR and a Dune HD for DVD/Blu-Ray and music playback through MyMovies. TiVo can do music playback, but the interface is no where near as slick as the MyMovies interface. The TiVo can do pretty much what I do with WMC now which is DVR, Netflix, Amazon Prime. I like Revision3, but I’m not sure if all or some of it’s available for TiVo. It will be a sad day for me when the time comes to retire the WMC box.
[…] have been great and everything worked as expected for many years. A little over a year ago, Arcsoft pulled TMT from their site, and they stopped selling and supporting the product. For me it was a sign that I […]
Well, I have used Macgo Windows Blu-ray Player for 2.5 years. It has added many new functions in recent years.
Especially, its User Interface is more practical and easy to operate than before with more features like OSD and loading button.