Under the TV + Movies menu in Windows Media Center, you may have noticed a new tile: MSNBC News Beta. The MSNBC News Beta tile will begin appearing in Windows Media Center for users in the United States and Canada running Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. Users don’t need to download anything to enable MSNBC News Beta in Windows Media Center. MSNBC News Beta gives users quick access to the latest election news, top stories and weather all from one screen.
Directly within Windows Media Center, users can browse Editor Picks and Most Popular videos (which are selected by viewers). I discovered that when I click on a specific video, a “+” icon appears. When this “+” icon is clicked, it gets added to a custom news video playlist. There are quite a few videos to choose from which is nice.
I was able to quickly browser through a bunch of MSNBC’s Decision ’08 videos and add them to a custom news video playlist to watch all at once.
I was also able to browse other categories such as Business, Sports, and Entertainment which all have videos I can either watch as I go or add to a custom news video playlist. MSNBC News Beta also sports some pretty neat search functionality that lets me search for stories with specific keywords.
And the 5-day weather forecast (available for any ZIP code in the United States) is impressive too!
As a heavy Windows Media Center user myself, I for one will be using MSNBC News Beta to stay on top of not only the upcoming U.S. Election but all the latest news.
For more on MSNBC News Beta and Windows Media Center – click here!