Microsoft has trashed a good part of Windows , the Media Centre

I don't know what is wrong with Microsoft, but they have ditched an extremely useful piece of software, called Windows Media Centre in windows 10. Windows media centre is so good, that all you need is an old PC or Mac with a decent enoouph graphics (preferably a 2008-2009) model device, and se it as a smart TV. Use two screens then it becomes a hybrid PC/TV system. Where can you get a system like that ?
Nowhere.
I originally got an old mac, which runs Snow Leopard, it has FrontRow, which has all the features of Windows Media Centre (except viewing latest movie trailers). Frontrow, lacks the ability to get TV signal from a USB TV dongle, where the arial signal is converted through USB to be then read by some software.  I got myself a dongle, but it came with the Mac Fuugo software, which is not very good. The sound quality is bad, it senses less channels , and if the signal is port due to bad weather , it has an annoying pop-up with no signal buffering to compensate a poor signal, and when the signal is poor the sound gets load and scratchy.  Windows Media Centre has better sound, and sound settings , and uses sound enhancement plugins and codec packs such as K Lite for media player, making the media centre play almost any format like VLC. Apple ditched Front Row or Apple TV .. which itself i don't thank has the ability to plug in a USB TV dongle, making it replace your box set, or TV.

All the smart TVs and Android boxes , Apple TV boxes etc out there are a marketing gimmick , because they all feature a store. Windows Media Centre you can load your own stuff, and can run it if your internet is down.

What is nice is you can skin your Media Centre, and make your own colours and backgrounds , your own personalised TV. I used a downloaded them called "Home World" with a planet and moons, which does match up with my own art wallpapers on the second screen. No more boring TV guides 

If you not watching TV or your video and movie collection , with all the plugins, you can play your iTunes library through it (Songs need to be on NTFS drive else it work, you can create playlists in Windows Media Player, and open them in Media Centre). You can even play radio stations depending on your USB dongle, and also depending on the dongle, they may not be in the radio section of Media Centre, but in the TV section. DMCA's stuff which you bought in the Apple Store would have to be re-encoded , you can use Garageband/Logic etc to do that, so you can access them in all OS's on your partitions.

Because Microsoft killed the Media Centre, the streaming channels and plugins or getting discarded with page 404 errors, which is a bit unfortunate, where the focus is on separate apps... or you are forced to use the computer browser.

See how awesome and cool the channel info looks... compared to the boring mundane mainstream design on TV's and box sets ?

Media Centre also has the ability to take in cable or satellite and not only standard arial , if you have the right dongles. If your satellite provider's digibox's TV guide looks boring you can make it look better with Media Centre...

I recommend stay on windows 7 because of the Media Centre software... replacement software either lacks a feature or function, because most websites say, just install VLC media player... Kodi etc.. Kodi is like Front Row.. no TV dongle support., and VLC media player is not Media Centre software, its a Media Player like windows media player, does not suffice if you wish to use a computer as a TV/Music Player/Video Player to replace the TV, boxset etc.

Oh and here is my remote app on the iPad.