A report by Tom Warren in Neowin says Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Due In August. Details, which appear (based on their geek-speak quotient) to have been snipped from a developer’s checklist, include:
- Native digital cable
- Content Protection
- Improve burning (DRM, network, Hi-def, DVD-RAM)
- MCX on WinCE clients (Babylon, TV2 as stretch goal)
- Playback reliability
- Running 3rd party apps out of proc
- Address top usability issues
- Platform Security
- Additional languages and locales
According to the unverified reports, the update will be released to manufacturing in August for English, French, German, Korean and Japanese versions. Dutch, Italian and Simplified Chinese versions are expected to follow 2 weeks later. That should have this update on new PCs for the holiday season.
Native digital cable support? I’ll have a follow-up post exploring what that might mean later today.
Update: It took a little longer than I thought, but you can read the follow-up post here: When will HDTV over cable come to Media Center? The short answer is, maybe a lot sooner than you think.
Ed Bott 
Emerald I think is the name, and this is suppose to be version 2006. But I also read on Paul Thurrotts Winsupersite, there is suppose to be another update to MCE code named “Diamond” before the Longhorn version of MCE arrives, which I think will utilize the functionality of Diamond. Kinda confusing.
Yawn.