Windows Media Center is an optional program that comes with the Home Premium and Ultimate Editions of Windows Vista. It brings all your media (pictures, music, video) together in one easy-to-use center. If you connect your computer to a TV, you can use Media Center to enjoy them on a TV screen. If the graphics card that lets you connect to a TV screen came with a Windows Media Center remote control, you can control Media Center with that. No need to use a mouse and keyboard. A second advantage of Media Center is that it allows you to watch and record live TV. But this requires special hardware in the form of a TV Tuner card or PVR (Personal Video Recorder) card. In this article, I’ll first focus on those aspects of Media Center that work with any computer. That way, if you have Media Center, you can try out the things that will work for you. I’ll hold off on things that require special equipment until later in the article.

Media Center isn’t a separate product anymore. Instead it’s built right into the Premium and Ultimate Editions of Vista. Starting Media Center

If you have an edition of Windows Vista that includes Media Center, use any of the following methods to start it: - Click the Start button and choose All Programs  ->  Media Center. - Tap the Windows key, type med, and click Windows Media Center. - If you happen to have a Media Center remote control, click the button that shows the Windows Media Center logo.

If this is the first time you’ve used the program, it will take you through some questions and show you some examples of its use. If you’re not a technical person, the trickiest part will be answering questions about your main monitor. If you don’t know the answer to a question and guess wrong, your screen will go completely black. But don’t panic, it will come back to life in 15 or 20 seconds. Try again (but not with the same incorrect answer).

If you missed the initial setup options or need to make a change, choose Tasks on the home page and then click Settings  ->  General  ->  Windows Media Center Setup.

Windows Media Center is the kind of program you can learn by discovery without messing anything up, unless you go in and start changing settings just to see what happens. But most options don’t let you change any significant settings. So you’re safe there. The interface on Media Center is much different from the desktop. That’s because it’s designed to work on a TV screen and through a remote control. But like I said, you don’t have to hook up to a TV to use Media Center. You can use it on your computer with your mouse and keyboard.

Working Media Center with a mouse

Working Media Center with a mouse is relatively easy, although not intuitively obvious. Point above or below the names down the center of the screen or to the left or right of a horizontal row of names to see a white arrow. Then point to that to scroll through items. If your mouse has a wheel, you can use that to scroll up and down. Click any item to select it. Click the Back button in the upper-right corner to back out of a selected area. Click the Media Center logo near the Back button to get to Media Center’s home page. As on your desktop, you can often find extra options by right-clicking on the page. Often you’ll find an option to change settings that apply to a page or to burn a CD/DVD from the content you’re viewing.

Working Media Center with a keyboard

On a keyboard use the ↑, ↓, →, and ← keys to move around. If you use keys on the numeric keypad, make sure that the Num Lock key is turned off. When the item you want is highlighted, press Enter to select it. Press the Backspace key to back out of a selected area. Press Escape (Esc) to return to the home page.

Using a Media Center remote control

If you’re using a Media Center remote control, use the arrow keys around the OK button to get around. Press the OK button to select the currently highlighted option. Use the Back button to back out of any area. Press the button that shows the Media Center logo to return to Media Center’s home page. The More button on a remote works like right-clicking. Often you’ll find options to change settings, burn a CD or DVD from the current item, and more. Plenty of other buttons on your remote control can be used for getting around in Media Center. Because there are different brands of remotes, I can’t say exactly what’s in yours. But you can usually tell what a button does just by looking at its label. Or, check the manual that came with your remote control for more information.

Things You Can Do without TV In Windows Vista

You can do many things in Media Center that don’t require a TV Tuner card or TV. You can do these things with Media Center showing full screen or in a smaller window on the desktop. Playing music in Media Center

The Music portion of Media Center gets albums and songs from Windows Media Player. You can also listen to online radio stations from Media Center. Choose Music from the home page. Options that appear across the horizontal row are summarized here:

- Music Library: Lets you choose songs from Windows Media Player categories and playlists to play. You can create a queue of songs to play and more.

If there is no music in your media library yet, you’ll be prompted to add some. You can choose Yes if you have put songs in your media library.

- Play all music: Plays all songs in your Media Player media library. Choose a visualization or play a slide show with your music. Click Buy Music to connect to an online music store to purchase and download music.

- Play all: Plays all the songs in your media library, or just selected songs.

- Radio: Lets you locate and play music from online radio stations. The first time you use this option, click Stations and then click the Music & Radio link.

- Search: Helps you find songs in your media library.

- More music: Takes you to online services for purchasing and downloading music online. Use them to view or change the queue (playlist), watch a music visualization, play a photo slide show with the music, and so forth. Use the playback controls to control volume, pause, stop, skip songs, and so forth. If you navigate away from the page shown in the figure, go to Media Center’s home page and choose Now Playing to return.

Viewing pictures and videos in Media Center

You can use Media Center to view and play pictures and videos in your Windows Photo Gallery and Pictures folder. Click Pictures + Videos on the home page to see pictures and videos from your Windows Media Player library. Click Picture Library to view your still pictures, or Video Library to view your video library. Use Play All to play picture slide shows and videos.

Playing movies in Media Center

The TV+Movies option on the home page is about commercial movies, TV shows, playing DVD movies, and TV. You can also use it to rent movies online and watch movies you’ve purchased. As always, your best bet is to simply explore your options. When the movie is playing, use the playback controls as you would on a VCR to pause, resume, fast forward, rewind, and so forth.

Watching and Recording TV In Windows Vista

If your computer has a TV Tuner or Personal Video Recorder card, you can use Media Center to watch and record TV. If your computer doesn’t already have one, you can purchase and install one or have one professionally installed. Ideally, you want a card that’s specifically designed to work with Media Center. One that comes with a Media Center remote control is ideal if you think there’s a chance you might want to connect your computer to a TV. The TV Tuner card you purchase will provide a connection for cable TV or an antenna. You’ll need to connect that to get TV reception. You don’t need to connect to a TV screen, though. You can watch and record TV from any standard computer monitor. If you’re using a remote control, you can scroll through times and channels using the navigation buttons. To watch or record a show that’s currently airing, highlight its title and click the OK button. If you’re using a mouse, move the mouse pointer onto the guide. You’ll see some arrows just below the guide. Click those to scroll through times and channels. To watch or record a show that’s currently airing, click its title.

Click Categories at the left side of the guide to see shows organized into categories like Most View, Movies, Sports, Kids, and so forth.

When a TV show is playing, you can use the playback controls for just about anything except fast forwarding “into the future.” For example, you can pause playback and then resume later. Or you can rewind. But you can’t fast forward live TV beyond what’s been aired so far. You don’t want to pause live TV for too long, though. Pausing for a few minutes is fine. Pausing for hours won’t work because there’s a limit to how much live TV your hard drive will store during a pause. The exact limit depends on the storage capacity and free space on the drive. But it’s always a matter of minutes, not hours.

Recording TV In Windows Vista

There are two ways to record TV. One is to just hit the Record button in the playback controls while you’re watching the show. Then Media Center will record from that point to the end of the show. As an alternative to manual recording, choose shows to record on a regular basis. The easiest method is to open the guide and navigate to the show you want to record. Double-click it (with the mouse) or press the OK button on the remote control.

Click the Record button if you want to record only the selected show when it airs. Click Record Series to record all future airings. Or click Advanced Record to choose exactly what you want to record and how you want to record it.

To stop a recording in progress, right-click the red Record button in the play control of the Windows Notification area and choose Stop Recording. Or press the Stop button on your remote control. It’s important to keep in mind that recorded TV shows take up a lot of disk space. The higher the quality of settings chosen, the more disk space a recorded TV show requires. The numbers here are approximate: - Best quality: 3 GB per hour

- Better quality: 2.5 GB per hour

- Good quality: 2 GB per hour

- Fair quality: 1 GB per hour

To decide on a quality, you need to think in terms of available disk space and how long you intend to keep each show on the disk. Open your Computer folder to see available disk space on your hard drive. If the available space on a drive doesn’t show in a meter, choose the Details view or right-click the drive’s icon and choose Properties. You can choose recording settings on a case-by-case basis. The Advanced Record option that appears when you choose a show to record is one way. Or you can choose TV on the home page, open Recorded TV, and then choose View Scheduled to see scheduled recording. Then click Record Settings. But the easiest thing would probably be to choose default settings that apply to all recordings. I’ll talk about how that works under “Personalizing Media Center” later in this article. You don’t really have to keep a TV show on your hard disk forever. If you have a DVD burner, and the show isn’t copy-protected, you can burn the show to a DVD and then delete the original from your hard disk. I’ll talk about CD and DVD burning from Media Center a little later in this article.

Watching recorded TV

To watch a recorded TV show, starting from Media Center’s home page, choose TV, and then Recorded TV. Scroll through the shows and choose any one by clicking or by pressing OK on the remote control. I assume the buttons are self-explanatory. They let you play or delete the show. Set a time limit on how long you’ll keep it on your hard drive. You can also choose to record the series or view other times.