it can do a lot m0ore than you realise . . .
Watch TV and Watch and Record DVDs
You can use your Media Center PC to watch DVD movies or live TV programs, either on a computer monitor or, if you've connected your Media Center PC to a TV and/or home theater system (as described in Lesson 1), on your TV screen. Depending on your physical hookup, you can hear the movie's or TV program's sound through the computer speakers, through your TV's speakers, or through your home theater or home audio system's speakers.
Most Media Center PCs come with a combination CD/DVD drive; often one that doubles as a CD/DVD burner. You can watch DVD movies using this drive using the Media Center application. In addition, most Media Center PC vendors install separate programs, such as InterVideo's WinDVD, for playing DVDs and programs, such as Nero, to record CDs and DVDs. Media Center PCs also include the Sonic PrimeTime application for transferring your recorded TV programs to DVD.
Watch DVD Movies
To watch a DVD movie on your Media Center PC, just put a DVD in the drive and Media Center displays a dialog box asking if you want to play the DVD. To do so, press the OK/ENTER button on the remote control.
If the DVD is already in the drive, you can play it by selecting Play DVD from the Media Center Start menu.
Warning - The Play DVD option doesn't appear on the Media Center Start menu unless there's a DVD in the drive.
The movie starts playing, as shown in Figure 3-2. You can play the movie in a window or full screen. If you move the mouse during playback, the control bar appears at the bottom of the window or screen, and you can pause, stop, play, rewind, or fast forward the DVD with it. You can also control the DVD using the PAUSE, STOP, PLAY, REW, and FWD buttons on the remote control.
Getting Information about a DVD
You can press the MORE INFO button on the remote to view information about a DVD while it's playing. The information displayed includes:
DVD Title
Chapter title that is currently playing
Running time of the DVD
Current time
Genre
Rating (if applicable)
Setting DVD Options
You can change settings for DVD playback by pressing the DVD MENU button on the remote control. This allows you to select the language, scene selections, and other special settings that may be specific to the DVD.
You can also change the default DVD audio track and subtitles settings by selecting Settings from the Media Center Start menu, and then selecting DVD. Depending on the sound card installed in your Media Center PC, you may be able to make changes to your audio settings here. If you can't configure the audio settings, you may not have the correct DVD decoder installed.
TIP - To change the default audio track when the DVD is currently playing, press Ctrl + Alt + A on the Media Center PC keyboard.
Use Your Media Center PC as a PVR
Two of the most exciting uses of the Media Center PC are pausing live TV and recording TV programs for later viewing, turning your PC into a PVR/DVR. PVRs and DVRs have become very popular and are beginning to replace the VCR (video cassette recorder) as a way to record programs when you're away or it's just not convenient for you to watch your favorite programs.
A PVR/DVR stores recorded programs on a hard disk. This is more flexible than a tape system, because you don't have to wait until a program is completely recorded before you can start watching it. Another advantage is that, with your Media Center PC acting as your PVR, you can easily back up your programs to another external disk or to another computer on the network. Keeping programs organized is also easier with a PVR/DVR. Instead of shuffling through many separate video tapes, you can use search and sort tools to quickly find the show you want to see, wherever it's stored on the disk.
Watch and Pause Live TV
With the My TV feature of the Media Center application, you can watch live TV programs in a window on your desktop or in full-screen mode, and you can pause, rewind, and fast forward through the program.
Watch Live TV
To watch live TV, press the LIVE TV button on the Media Center remote control or select My TV from the Media Center Start menu, and then select Live TV
You can press the MORE INFO button on the remote control to find out details about a TV program while you're watching it. This displays the information bar, which includes the current time, channel on which the show is playing, title of the program, category, and a brief description of the program (if available).
TIP - When watching live TV, you can control your set-top box with the Media Center remote control by pressing the Channel Up (+) and Down (-) buttons on the remote control to change channels or by entering the channel number from the remote's numeric keypad.
Pause, Fast Forward, and Rewind Live TV
If you press the PAUSE button on the remote control, the Media Center starts recording the program to a buffer at that point. This means you can come back and resume watching where you left off.
You can use the FWD and SKIP buttons on the remote control to advance the program quickly through the buffered (recorded) portion of the program and resume watching the program as it's currently being broadcast. You can also use the RWD and REPLAY buttons to go back within the recorded portion.
The REPLAY button allows you to jump back 7 seconds with each press of the button.
You can watch the TV program in slow motion by pressing PAUSE, and then pressing the FWD button once (to play at 22 percent of normal speed) or twice (to play at 44 percent of normal speed).
You can even watch the program one frame at a time, by pressing PAUSE, and then pressing the SKIP button (to go forward frame by frame) or the REPLAY button (to go backward frame by frame).
Record TV Programs for Later Viewing
Many people buy their Media Center PCs primarily for the purpose of recording TV programs for later viewing. There are several ways you can record a program:
- Manually record a program that's currently on.
- Schedule a recording with the Guide. (Australian readers - PLEASE NOTE***)
- Record a program from the Search interface.
- You can schedule recordings of individual programs or entire series, and you can tell the Media Center application how to resolve programming conflicts.
Warning - The current version of MCE only supports one tuner card. This means you cannot record two programs on different channels at the same time, nor can you watch a program on one channel via live TV and record a program on a different channel at the same time.
Manually Record the Program You're Watching
To record the program you're currently watching via live TV, press the RECORD button (usually marked with a red circle) on the remote control. A record icon appears in the system tray to indicate that the program is being recorded.
If you want to stop the recording before the program ends, press the STOP button on the remote control.
Schedule a Recording with the Guide
The Guide contains a program listing for your area and service provider (cable or satellite company) that's downloaded over the Internet regularly. It displays information about current and future program scheduling.
From the Guide interface, you can select programs to record by clicking them. You can decide whether to record the program once (single episode) or to record the series. If you select the latter, you can define whether to record only first-run episodes or also to include reruns, set limits on the number of times per day the program should be recorded, and otherwise control how the series is recorded, as shown in Figure 3-5.
To help you find programs more easily in the Guide, you can filter its information by category.
Your computer must be left turned on if you want to record a future program. However, it can be put in Hibernate or Standby mode and will automatically wake up and begin recording when scheduled. You can quickly put the computer in Standby mode by pressing the STANDBY button on the remote control.
Record a Program from the Search Interface
You can select Search from the My TV menu and search for programs by title, keyword, or category. When you find the program(s) you want, you can select the Record option to schedule a recording. You can record either the single episode or the entire series.
You can also use the Custom Recording feature to record all programs that include a specific actor or director, or to record a particular program or movie that hasn't yet been listed in the Guide, by entering the name. You can also decide to record only live shows.
Schedule a Manual Recording
If you don't have Guide information (for example, your Internet connection is down for a period of time and you can't download the Guide updates), you can still use the Media Center PC to record programs in the same way as a VCR: by time and channel. Use the Custom Recording feature to set start and stop times and the channel on which the Media Center PC should record.
Network to Other Computers
If you have other computers in your home, you can network them and your Media Center PC in a LAN, using Ethernet cabling or wireless networking technology. This allows you to transfer files between the Media Center PC and other computers on your LAN.
Using Remote Desktop to Access Your Media Center PC
As with a Windows XP Professional computer, you can access the desktop of the Media Center PC from another computer using the Remote Desktop feature. You first must enable Remote Desktop on the Remote tab of the System applet in Control Panel
When Remote Desktop is enabled, you can use the RDC (Remote Desktop Connection) client built into all Windows XP computers, or the terminal services client installed on Windows 9x, NT, and 2000 computers, to access the Media Center PC's desktop.
Although you can access the Media Center PC's desktop via RDC, some of its functions don't work over RDC. For example, you can listen to Internet and FM radio, play music files, play DVDs, and configure the Guide, but you can't watch live or recorded TV over the Remote Desktop connection.
Watch Recorded TV on a Remote Computer with WMP
Although you can't watch recorded TV programs on a Remote Desktop connection, there's another way to watch them on a computer other than your Media Center PC, and that's with WMP version 9 on another Windows XP computer.
You might need to install Windows XP Service Pack 1 and a supplemental update, or Windows XP Service Pack 2, before WMP 9 will play your recorded TV files. You also must have a DVD codec installed on the computer with which you want to watch the programs.
After all that's done, you can just transfer the recorded TV files across the network to the Windows XP computer that has WMP 9. These files are stored on the Media Center PC's hard disk, by default, in a folder named Recorded TV within the Shared Documents folder within the All Users profile in Documents and Settings. Each program is recorded to a separate file with the .dvr-ms extension. The file name includes the name of the program, station name, and date it was recorded
TIP - To watch a program on the remote (non-Media Center PC) Windows XP computer, double click it and the WMP 9 application opens and starts playing the file.
Extend the Capabilities of Your Media Center PC with Remote Components
Your Media Center PC's functionality can be expanded even further with products designed to work with Media Center and/or handle the files it creates. Several hardware vendors are set to offer Media Center Extenders, and some vendors already make DVD players that can connect to your home network and play Media Center's MP3 and .dvr-ms files on a remote television set.
Media Center Extender
Microsoft has partnered with several hardware vendors to produce a device called the Media Center Extender, which connects to a TV in a different part of the house from your Media Center TV. The extender communicates with your Media Center PC over a wired or wireless network and allows you to use the same Media Center application interface to watch TV and videos, listen to music, and view digital photos on the remote TV.
A special Media Center Extender product works with Microsoft's Xbox game console. It is a software product that runs on the Xbox hardware like an Xbox game, and allows you to play your Media Center files on the TV connected to the Xbox.
With Media Center Extenders, one person can use the Media Center PC (for example, to watch a recorded TV program) while another listens to Media Center music files in another room. There can be up to five instances of Media Center running at the same time (the Media Center PC and four extenders).
Portable Media Centers
Portable Media Centers are small, handheld devices (about the size of a portable DVD player) that you can take with you to play all your Media Center files when you're on the road. The media files are transferred from the Media Center PC or any Windows XP computer to the device using a USB 2.0 connection.
Portable Media Centers usually have hard disks with a capacity of 20 to 40 GB. This can hold thousands of songs or digital photos, or several hours of recorded TV programs. Portable Media Centers can also be connected to a TV or audio system to play video or music through the larger display or higher quality sound system.
Connected DVD Players
Vendors, such as Gateway, make DVD player and recorders that have built-in wireless networking and/or Ethernet ports to connect to a home network, and are capable of playing all Media Center file formats, including recorded TV files (.dvr-ms).
TIP - Streaming video requires high bandwidth, so connected DVD devices generally use 802.11g wireless technology rather than the slower (but more common) 802.11b.
***As at the beginning of December 2004 - Microsoft has been unable to negotiate access to Australian TV guides due to local copyright issues. As a result, the TV Guide feature of XP Media Center will not be available until this is resolved
