Two years in development, the Windows Media Center TV Pack (frequently referred to by its code name Fiji) was quietly released to OEMs on Wednesday, July 16th.

Microsoft hasn't publicly stated anything about the features included in the pack; in fact, the company hasn't said boo since acknowledging the existence of the open beta a year and a half ago. That said, two knowlegebase articles were released last week (955485 and 955486) that confirm the TV Pack's existence.

So what's inside? Countless leaks from the ostensibly closed beta revealed some big ideas kicking around within Microsoft, including support for DirecTV (at last!), QAM tuning, H.264 decoding, and more. However, it appears that these ambitious features failed to make the Feature Pack, which concentrates on adding support for worldwide television and the widely anticipated QAM format, not to mention fixing a number of longstanding bugs.

Microsoft is remaining mum on the topic for the time being, of course, and don't get excited about downloading it any time soon. Mary Jo Foley is reporting that MS won't release the TV Pack to consumers until September 3 at the CEDIA conference in Denver. Still, these new features should make an already exciting product even better.

Source : here