so many choices . . .
The My Music feature of the Media Center application allows you to store, organize, sort, and listen to digital songs and create personal playlists. When you select My Music from the Media Center Start menu, you see a list of recently played music, as shown in Figure 2-1.
Media Center also plays the following types of files: CD audio (.cda), Windows Media audio (.asx, .wm, .wma, .wmp, and .wmx), Windows audio (.wav), and MP3 (.mp3 and .m3u).
Add Songs to the Media Library
The media library is where your music is stored on your Media Center PC. When you set up the Media Center application for the first time, the software searches your hard disk for music files, and then adds them to the media library. There are several ways to add more songs to the media library.
Place songs in your My Music folder: Songs in your media library are stored in the My Music folder for your user profile within the Documents and Settings folder. Each user account has its own My Music folder. You can move or copy digital music files to the My Music folder to add them to your media library.
Warning - If you try to play a music file that is copyright protected, you might be required to obtain a license before you can play it. Licenses are downloaded from the content provider when you buy music online.
Buy music online: You can use the My Music interface to open your Web browser and take you to the Windows Media Web site. On the Web site, you can listen to sample songs or you can buy music to download to your computer.
Copy audio CDs
The Media Center application can be used to copy your Audio CDs to the hard disk for storage in your media library. When you insert a CD into the CD/DVD drive, it starts to play. All you have to do is select Copy CD and Media Center copies the entire CD to the library.
Browse the Media Library
You can browse the music stored in your media library in any of the following ways:
- By album
- By artist
- By playlist
- By song
- By genre
You can also search for a particular song by title or keyword, by clicking Search in the My Music menu, and then typing the search text in using either the wireless keyboard or the remote control keypad.
Play Music
Media Center plays music from a CD or from the media library. You can play an entire album, a single song, or listen to playlists of your favorite songs.
Play Audio CDs
To use Media Center as a CD player, just insert an audio CD in its CD/DVD drive and press the green button on the remote control. The CD begins playing automatically.
If you want the Media Center to function as the default CD player, even when you don't have Media Center open, you can set Media Center to do this simply by inserting a CD in the drive when Media Center is closed. A dialog box appears, and you can select an option to Play using Media Center and to Always do the selected action. Now Media Center is your default CD player.
Play Music from the Media Library
To play music from the media library, you simply select it in the displayed list of recent music or search for it and select it from the search results as discussed previously.
When you play music from the media library, you can also perform the following actions:
Fast forward within a song, at one of three speeds, by pressing the FWD button on the remote one, two, or three times.
Pause within a song by pressing the PAUSE button on the remote.
Skip a track by pressing the SKIP button on the remote.
Replay the currently playing track by pressing the REPLAY button on the remote.
You can use the fast forward (FWD) feature only with songs from the media library; it does not work when playing a CD.
Use Playlists
You can create playlists of selected songs to play in any order you want. To create your playlists, you need to use the WMP (Windows Media Player). The WMP application comes installed on the Media Center PC.
After you've created your playlists, you can play them in Media Center by selecting Playlists from the My Music menu. If you have multiple playlists, you can scroll through the list with the arrow buttons on the remote control. Press the PLAY button on the remote to play the songs in the playlist.
TIP - Auto Playlists are automatically created by WMP and can be selected and played in the same way as your custom playlists.
Use the Remote Control to Enter Text in the Search Field
The Media Center PC remote control's numeric keypad can be used to enter text in the Search field. It works similarly to the way you enter text with a mobile phone's keypad. That is, pressing the number 1 once enters an A, pressing the number 1 twice enters a B, and pressing the number 1 three times enters a C. Pressing the number 2 once enters a D, and so forth.
When you enter a text character in the Search field, Media Center immediately returns results for the character(s) entered. That is, if you enter an A, all music items that start with or contain the letter A are displayed. As you enter additional characters, the search results narrow. If you next enter an N, Media Center returns a list of items in which the character sequence AN appears, and so forth.
Jargon Buster
Genre refers to a category into which an artistic work is placed based on style, subject matter, or form. Music genres include classical, rock, jazz, country and western, and so forth.
A playlist is a list of media files (typically songs) taken from different sources and arranged in the order in which the playlist creator (you) wants to listen to them.
A user profile is a folder within the Documents and Settings folder on a Windows XP computer that has the same name as the user account to which it pertains. It also contains information relating to that particular user's application data, desktop, favorites, local settings, and documents.Orb Networks Media Software Orb provides spontaneous access to your photos, music, recorded and live TV from any Internet-connected device such as a cell phone, PDA, or laptop - from anywhere in the world! Sign up for a free two-month trial today!
The My Pictures feature of the Media Center application allows you to store, organize, sort, and display your digital photographs. You can also print your pictures or create digital slideshows that incorporate music or other audio files.
When you select My Pictures from the Media Center Start menu, you see displayed thumbnails of the pictures stored in your My Pictures folder on the Media Center PC. If the pictures are stored in subfolders, the thumbnails are displayed within the subfolders.
Manage and Share Your Pictures
Folders that are stored in your My Pictures folder under your profile name in the Documents and Settings folder are automatically displayed in My Pictures.
You can organize your pictures by creating subfolders within the My Pictures folder, using Microsoft Windows Explorer.
Import Pictures
To add pictures to Media Center, copy them to the My Pictures folder from another location on the network, using Windows Explorer, or from removable media. You can view pictures stored on flash memory cards by selecting Other media in the My Pictures menu.
Sort Pictures
You can sort your pictures by title or by the date the file was created. In the My Pictures menu, select Sort by name or Sort by date. When you select to sort by name, pictures are arranged in alphabetical order. When you select to sort by date, they are arranged in ascending chronological order.
You can also select to show pictures in random order, by selecting Settings in the My Pictures menu, and then selecting Show pictures in random order. The Settings options also allow you to decide whether to show pictures that are in subfolders, and whether to display the picture captions.
Share Pictures
The pictures in your My Pictures folder do not show up in Media Center when another user is logged onto the computer. However, you can share your pictures with other users of the computer by moving or copying the pictures to the Shared Pictures folder within your My Pictures folder. Then other users can view them by selecting Shared Pictures from the My Pictures menu in Media Center.
View Pictures
To view a picture, select My Pictures, and then navigate to the picture or folder where the picture is stored. Click the picture you want to view and it's displayed on the full screen. To view a picture that another user has shared, select Shared Pictures in the My Pictures menu, and then perform the same steps.
TIP - To view pictures that are stored in folders other than My Pictures or Shared Pictures, you can create shortcuts to their location(s) inside the My Pictures or Shared Pictures folders.
Use the BACK button on the remote control or at the top of the screen to return to the subfolder, My Pictures folder, or Shared Pictures folder.
View Picture Details
You can see information about a picture, such as the file name, the picture size (in pixels), and the date the file was created, by selecting the picture and pressing the MORE INFO button on the remote control.
Rotate Pictures
You can rotate a picture by selecting it, pressing the MORE INFO button on the remote control, and then pressing the arrow buttons on the remote control to rotate the picture.
Warning - Some picture formats cannot be rotated. Also, the picture cannot be rotated if it's a read-only file.
Create Slide Shows
You can create a slide show of all the pictures in your My Pictures folder, or just the pictures within a subfolder. Select My Pictures, Shared Pictures, or a subfolder and select Play slide show from the My Pictures menu.
From the Settings menu, you can select a transition time (the amount of time each picture will stay on the screen) in seconds, and a background color for the slide show (black, white, or a percentage of gray).
Add Audio to Slide Shows
You can play an audio file in conjunction with a slide show. To do so, first select My Music, select the audio file you want to play, and press the PLAY button on the remote control. Then select My Pictures (with the audio file playing) and start the slide show. The music or other audio continues to play during the slide show.
TIP - You can also use audio from a Recorded TV program to play during a slide show, by selecting My TV, starting to play a recorded program, and then starting your slide show.
