Shoutcast Streaming in Windows Media Center

There is now a plugin for Windows Media Center to listen to Shoutcast streams. I can confirm that the cryptically named YAWP works in Windows Vista Ultimate (x64). Most assuredly, this also works in Windows XP versions of MCE. In full disclosure mode, my friend Soma Amos wrote this. I know he’s been wanting to write an MCE plugin for Shoutcast for a year or two and it’s nice to see that he finally got it done.

I had to do a hack to make it work on x64 Vista. After install and on initial run, it complained that there were files missing and as such the plug-in was unable to run. Either in the plugin or its supporting SDK, there is a hard coded path to c:program filesmce… However, being a 32 bit app on 64 bit Vista, the install was actually placed into the path c:program files (x86)mce… SO the simple hack is to take everything in the c:program files (x86)mce directory and copy it to c:program files.

 Anyway, once that was straightened out, the plug in works surprisingly well. From the maine MCE screen in Vista you go down to the Online Media section then over to the Program Library section. From there you should see a yellow icon for YAWP. Select the icon and from there you can then browse a list of genres (including the, wink wink, super awesome “Smarter” genre the one you should select when first trying the plug in).