So I was all prepared to give Niveus Media’s new Sirius XM Windows Media Center plugin a try. (As I found out during a meeting with Microsoft while at CES, Windows 7 comes with Windows Media Center built in. I 100 percent didn’t know that till the Microsoft guys told me. Amazing. What else does Windows 7 do that I didn’t know?) Right, so I was all prepared, installed it, then tried to run the configuration. Oh, sorry! It’s Sirius-only! I’m an XM man, grandfathered into this whole Sirius XM debacle, so I can’t use the plugin. Great.
But let’s say you’re a Sirius subscriber, and one who also pays the extra $3 per month to get online streaming—you can use the plugin! And to be fair to Niveus 1) it has no control over Sirius XM’s incompetence (why are there still two distinct logins/subscriptions if it’s all one big company now? and 2) the plugin actually looks pretty cool. It looks like it belongs in Windows Media Center, which very much is a complement.
So what does it do? Not too hard to figure out: it adds a Sirius section to your Windows Media Center. Then you listen to your Sirius channels from inside WMC. That’s it.
The plugin is free, but you have to be a Sirius subscriber. And just to reiterate: you need to be a Sirius subscriber, not an old XM guy like me who had “Sirius XM” thrust upon him.
I’m annoyed, yes.