D-Link, Linksys, Niveus to Make Media Center Extenders

As we reported yesterday, Microsoft confirmed that at least two manufacturers were building Media Center Extenders (Pika technology) into their products.

Microsoft named those manufacturers (three actually): D-Link, Linksys (no surprise there) and Niveus Media, manufacturer of high-end Media Center PCs.

Microsoft does not plan to reveal any details about the Extenders until Sept. 27. CE Pro magazine will have a Webinar to break the news from the DigitalLife show.

The Extender press release says little, except that the Extenders will support Wireless N.

I spoke earlier with Scott Evans, Microsoft program manager for eHome devices. He says that 802.11n offers "much better connectivity," than its 802.11 a/b/g counterparts. "We are proponents of dual band … putting data on one and A/V on another," he adds.

New Vista-certified routers will have to support both types of wireless technologies.

More from the Extender press release:

Extenders for Windows Media Center are also, for the first time, enhanced to allow support for popular video codecs such as DivX and Xvid, along with continued support for Windows Media Video HD files. These extenders will also lead the industry in supporting the ability to send protected HD content to additional rooms, including recorded TV from over-the-air Advanced Television Systems Committee or Cable Card tuners and movies and music available from providers such as CinemaNow, MovieLink LLC and Napster LLC. Extenders also support Media Center features such as Reuters news feeds, National Public Radio broadcasts, up-to-date sports reports from the FOX Sports Lounge, and subscription music from XM Radio. At the same time, these devices support Parental Controls built into Windows Media Center, allowing parents to choose the content their children are allowed to view.

The secrecy is still all very baffling. Presumably the specs of the new products are still being worked out. Here's some more info from yesterday's article on the new extender:

The newer version operates at about 200 MHz and is “a really economical platform,” Evans says. Although the Xbox version of Extender is “ridiculously powerful,” he explains, “you can barely tell the difference” in performance between Xbox and the Pika products when used as Extenders.

One difference you can tell is that the new Extenders are a heck of a lot quieter than the Xbox.

Evans says that the rollout of Pika will be gradual. “At first, we’ll have a limited number of partners,” he says. “In the future there will be more choice.”

One of the new Extenders is being utilized in a multiroom demo at the Exceptional Innovation booth, but no one will say whose product it is .