TVSquad

Waveexpress is releasing an updated version of TVTonic for Windows Vista. The big news is that the upgrade adds support for native QuickTime video playback using Windows Vista's Media Center interface.

TVTonic is an application that works in conjunction with Windows Media Center to download and stream internet video using a 10-foot interface. In other words, you can watch video podcasts like RocketBoom in your living room.

You can download and watch pretty much anything that has an RSS feed, but TVTonic also has an index of 358 video channels. And almost all of them use the QuickTime format, which means if you're using Windows Vista Media Center, up until now you could access only a limited number of channels. Not only does the new version of the software support QuickTime playback using the TVTonic application, but you'll be able to watch QuickTime movies stored in your "My Videos" directories.

One of the first things I noticed when I set up my home theater PC running Vista Media Center is that there are some pretty cool online features. You can watch a huge library of music video's MTV's Overdrive interface for MCE, or watch The Daily Show on Comedy Central's Motherload page.

There are also a ton of obvious online features missing. For example, no built in weather forecast application? What's up with that? Luckily there are plugins for pretty much anything you could ever need (including weather forecasts).

But what about podcasts and video blogs? Surely there must be an easy way to download and enjoy online media from Media Center's 10-foot interface. Well, there kind of is. You can subscribe to feeds and automatically download enclosures with Internet Explorer 7 or the podcatcher of your choice. Then you can tell Windows Media Center to monitor your download folder and your files will show up in your My Videos and My Music folders. This is hardly an elegant solution, so here's a few better options for you: