Many people who are using Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition have purchased cases with an LCD or VFD in order to have the media center case look and act more like a piece of home theater equipment.  Unfortunately, after they built my MCE system, they realize that there haven't got a program that is able to display the session information from their Media Center on the spiffy new LCD they have!  In other words; if a song was playing in Media Center, there was no way to show the song info on the LCD.

That is why David Matheny and Reinhard Brongers teamed up to write FrontView for Windows XP Media Center Edition.

FrontView for Windows XP Media Center Edition is a free program that can be used to pass session information from your Media Center to the VFD or LCD that is built into your case.

Version 1 will work with parallel port VFDs based on the Hitachi 44780 controller.

Version 2, which is currently in beta, supports parallel port VFDs as well as LCDs and VFDs from CrystalFontz and MatrixOrbital operating in USB or Serial mode.  Version 2.0 also includes support for full customization of strings and program settings from a new configuration application.

Visit the developers website for more information.

Download: FrontView 1.05 or FrontView 2.03 (beta)

Price: Freeware, donations appreciated (PayPal),  please visit the developers site

Created by: David Matheny and Reinhard Brongers

Plugin type: application.

Compatibility: Media Center Edition 2005.

Supported languages: