MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

I got an e-mail last night from the folks at Proxure, Inc.
about MCE Tunes, a new plug-in to let
you play your purchased iTunes tracks
through Media Center. 
It can also be used to sync your iTunes library with Media Center.  Check out the free trial which only plays
unprotected (m4a) songs.  The full
version ($29.99)
will enable playback of protected ones.  I’ll try and get a copy to play with and see
how well it works next week for playback of protected content.

Proxure, Inc developed
and sold MyTV ToGo to Roxio
a while back for anyone wondering other projects the company has done with Media Center.

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9 thoughts on “MCE Tunes Supports iTunes DRM Playback

  1. I’m guessing Apple didn’t license FairPlay to this company (Proxure) so they either reverse engineered the FairPlay DRM protection scheme themselves or are a paying customer of DVD Jon’s recent FairPlay crack (through his DoubleTwist Ventures)…the timing is peculiar on that one!

  2. Nope. I believe it uses the QuickTime/iTunes SDK. A process runs in the background to enable playback, it’s 100% legal and it isn’t breaking FairPlay to do.

  3. Currently, no. But there website implies that they are working on the feature.


    Q: Does MCE Tunes work with extenders like the XBox 360?
    A: Unfortunately the current version does not, but registered users will receive a free update to an extender-enabled version automatically.

  4. I have 35GB of music, because of the “bug” in MCE I had to convert my entire library over to WMA so I can browse my library through MCE and not have it take decades. As I understand this “bug” the introduction of even a few MP3 formatted files to my library, will slow down MCE, has anyone tried MCE tunes with a Large library, does it work with mixed file formats? does it eleminate the need for the MY MUSIC part of MCE?

  5. Using MCE Tunes, it just adds the data to your current WMP/MCE Library. So, yes using My Music is still needed.

    I can’t answer the rest, I tested with a very small amount of purchased music from the iTMS.

  6. Although HP had the idea first, HP Tunes was really crap. It used a separate executable to allow users to browse music through MCE, it didn’t use the My Music UI. If was limited to the only of songs you could import, and I didn’t think it supported playback of protected songs from the iTMS. No Extender support, and doesn’t and never will do videos (the newer versions of MCE Tunes do).

    MCE Tunes integrates with My Music, supports virtually an unlimited number of tracks, has Extender support said to be coming, now support playback of purchased videos/movies, and more.

    HP Tunes is no where equal to MCE Tunes.

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