Music Media Center’s Music experience is accessed via the Music item in the Start screen. From here, you can access the Music Library (that is, the songs and albums you’ve purchased online or ripped from CD to your hard drive) or Radio, which enables you to access Internet-based radio stations. The Media Center’s Music Library organizes the digital music you’re storing on your PC in an attractive, horizontally organized way, using album art information to identify each item. By default, Music Library is organized by album, 13-19. But unlike other Media Center experiences, you can choose to view your music in a wide variety of ways, including by artist, genre, song, playlist, composer, year, or album/artist. What’s interesting here is that some of these views - like Artist, 13-20 - are displayed in a textual, not graphical, format.

As with other parts of the Media Center interface, you can navigate around, dive right in, and play any music at any time. But because of the concept of the Now Playing list, you can also add music, on the fly, to a temporary playlist called Now Playing. To do so, rightclick an item and choose Add to Queue. In this way, you can construct a playlist for an event, like a party, or to later synchronize with a portable device.

After you’ve collected a selection of music you like, you might want to save it as a permanent playlist. To do so, select the album art in the lower-left corner of the display, or go to the Start screen and navigate to the newly added Now Playing + Queue item. On the Now Playing screen, choose View Queue and then Save As Playlist. You can also change various playback options from this screen, including shuffle and repeat.

One of the coolest features of Media Center is the ability to play photo slide shows that are accompanied by music. To do this, play some music. Then, navigate into your photo library and choose the photos you’d like to view. This is a fantastic way to enjoy pictures from a recent vacation, birthday party, or other family event. As seen in article 13-21, you’ll see nice overlays describing the current song as it begins and ends. Underneath that: You’re photo animated slide show.

Accessing Media Center Away from the PC Beginning with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 in late 2004, Microsoft and a handful of its hardware partners began shipping devices (or, in the case of Microsoft’s solution, a software add-on for the original Xbox) called Media Center Extenders. These Extenders were set-top boxes, much like DVD players or cable boxes, which you would place on or near a TV somewhere in your house. They could then connect wirelessly, if you had a wireless network, or via Ethernet cabling to your home network and thus to your Media Center PC. The idea is that Extenders can literally extend the reach of your Media Center, its stored multimedia content, and even live TV to other TVs around your home. It was a good idea in theory. The problem is that first-generation Media Center Extenders weren’t very good in practice. They were expensive, for starters, and lacked key features

like built-in DVD players (as DVD content couldn’t be extended from the PC to an Extender for copyright reasons). And because they were based on low-end, Windows CE–based chipsets, the Extenders were not capable of some of Media Center’s nicer graphical effects. We don’t think many Extender users missed some of the user interface–based animations per se, but Extenders were incapable of animating photos and transitions during photo slide shows. That was rather inelegant. With the version of Windows Media Center in Windows Vista, Microsoft has cut off the first-generation Media Center Extenders. So if you have a hardware Extender or an Xbox with Microsoft’s Media Center Extender software, they won’t work with Windows Vista. Instead, you will need to get an Xbox 360 - which includes second-generation Extender software - or a second-generation Extender device. These devices are all powerful enough to render the graphical effects that first-generation Extenders could not, and unlike first-generation Extenders, the devices themselves are better all-around solutions. Instead of empty boxes with Extender chipsets built in, it’s now possible to get Extender functionality in certain DVD players, TV sets, and other devices. Because the Xbox 360 video game console is so much more prevalent than these devices in the market place at this time, we’ll focus on the Xbox here. But using a device-based Extender is almost identical, although, of course, only the Xbox 360 can play blockbuster video games as well. But using an Extender isn’t the only way to get content from your Media Center out into the world. In this section, we’ll also examine how you can use Media Center to interact with portable devices and to burn your own audio CDs and movie DVDs.

Using an Xbox 360 or Media Center Extender The Xbox 360 is an interesting synthesis of video gaming, online services and communities, person-to-person interaction, and multimedia. It is, in other words, everything the first Xbox was plus a whole lot more. While it doesn’t make sense to cover the Xbox 360 in depth here, suffice to say that Microsoft’s next generation video game console is actually a multifunction device with impressive non-gaming capabilities. If you do have an Xbox 360 (or have just purchased a Media Center Extender–capable device of any kind), connecting it to your Media Center PC is relatively straightforward. You’ll want a 100 Mbps wired home network for best performance, especially if you intend to stream live or recorded TV. But a 54 Mbps wireless network (802.11g or 802.11a) should suffice as well, assuming you’re not doing a lot of other high-bandwidth networking activity while using the Extender. An 11 Mbps 802.11b network is completely inadequate for this functionality. Your Xbox 360 includes instructions on connecting the device to your home network. Assuming you’re up and running - you should be able to log on to the free Xbox Live service, for example - you’re ready to link the Xbox 360 to your Media Center. To do, simply turn on the Xbox 360, being sure to eject whatever game DVD happens to be in the tray. Then, turn on Media Center on your PC if you haven’t yet done so. If the two machines are connected to the same network, you will see a Windows Media Center Extender dialog box appear in Media Center, 13-22. Click Yes to begin the setup process.

At this point, a wizard will walk you through the process of configuring the Xbox 360 (or other Extender) to work with your Media Center PC. Note that the Xbox can be configured to work with only one Media Center PC at a time. (However, each Media Center PC can be linked to up to five different Extenders.) The only tricky part of this process is that you will need to enter an 8-digit Setup Key in the Media Center Setup Wizard to link the two machines. When Media Center prompts you for this key, walk over to the Xbox 360 with a pen and piece of paper so you can write down the number generated on the Xbox.

Most of the rest of the wizard involves a lot of waiting around while Media Center does its thing. It will need to change a few firewall rules in Windows Vista to allow the two devices to communicate, configure power settings so that Xbox 360 can turn on the Media Center PC if needed when someone wants to access Media Center functionality from another TV, and get your permission to access the media folders you currently use for local Media Center content. After that, the wizard configures settings on both the PC and Extender and connects to the Extender. On the Extender side, any necessary software updates will be downloaded as well. The whole process usually takes a few minutes. Once the wizard completes, the Media Center Extender software will load on the Xbox 360. From that point, using Media Center Extender via the Xbox 360 should be virtually indistinguishable from using it on the PC, albeit with possible lag time due to network slowness. You can use the Xbox 360’s hand controller as a remote control, or you can even purchase an Xbox 360 Media Remote; there are several available. You can even use a Media Center PC remote with the Xbox 360, and we’ve found this to be the best approach, since these remotes tend to be more full-featured than the ones offered specifically for the Xbox 360. To use a Media Center PC remote with Xbox 360, you’ll need to configure the machine first: Navigate to the System blade and choose Console Settings and then Remote Control. From this user interface, choose All Channels (which enables you to use both Media Center PC remotes and Xbox media remotes). After configuring an Xbox 360 or other Extender for use with Media Center, you can visit Settings and then Extenders to add other Extenders, configure a single Extender-related option (whether notifications are displayed when an Extender is connected), and view information about the Extenders that are already connected. From here, you can tune the network for best performance - which we recommend - and reconfigure, disable, or uninstall an Extender. Note that the Xbox 360 will also appear twice in Network in the Windows Vista shell after you’ve configured it as a Media Center Extender, once simply as Xbox 360 and again as Xbox 360 Media Center Extender. If you double-click the Xbox 360 icon, you’ll see the Windows Media Player Media Sharing window displayed. But if you double-click the Xbox 360 Media Center Extender icon, Media Center will load with the Xbox 360 Setup screen displayed. When you configure any Media Center Extender device, Windows will silently create a new user account, with a name like Mcx1, that is used by the Extender to access your PC’s media resources. Mcx1 will appear in the User Account control panel, but you shouldn’t try to change it in any way, because doing so will break the connection between the Extender and Media Center.

Synchronizing with Portable Devices If you’re using a portable MP3 player or other portable multimedia device, you may want to synchronize it with your digital media content using Windows Media Player 11, as we discuss in Article 10. This is the recommended approach if the system you’re using is a typical PC, where you interact with the machine using the mouse and keyboard while sitting at a desk. If, however, you utilize Windows Media Center via a remote control in your living room, bedroom, or other non-home office location, you might want to use Media Center to synchronize with a portable device. And as you might expect, Microsoft supports this scenario fully. To synchronize content between Media Center and a portable device, plug in the device and ensure that it’s fully supported by Windows Vista. That is, if Windows Vista doesn’t automatically recognize the device and install drivers, you might have to consult with the device’s documentation and install the drivers manually, perhaps with a setup CD. When that’s done, launch Media Center and navigate to Settings and then Sync from the Start screen.

When you click the Yes button, the Manage List screen will appear, 13-25. From this screen, you can determine which content from your Media Center PC will be synchronized with the device. By default, the Manage List screen will display a list of the built-in playlists, such as Music Rated At 5 Stars, Music Added In The Last Month, and so on. For many people, those options will not be exactly what they’re looking for. The alternative is to quit out of this screen and create custom playlists that will hold the content you’d like copied to the device. Or, you can click the Add More option on the left side of the Manage List screen and navigate through a list of content, checking the types you’d like synchronized.

Depending on your needs, you might want to simply remove all of the playlists shown in the Manage List screen (by pressing the small delete button, shaped like an x that’s to the right of each item). Then, you can use Add More to add only the content you want, or create your own custom playlists. It’s up to you. When you’ve determined which content to synchronize, press the Start Sync option. A Sync Progress dialog box will appear while the content is synchronized between the PC and device. You can do other things in Media Center while this happens: Just click the OK button to move along. When the sync process is completed, a Sync to Device notification will appear, alerting you. What if you have more than one portable device? When you select Sync from the Settings menu, you’ll be presented with a screen that enables you to choose which device to access. When you synchronize a device with Media Center, that device is added to the Windows Vista Sync Center as well, and you’ll see a new icon in the system tray that enables you to open Sync Center, shown in article 13-26, or perform various synchronization- related activities right from the Windows shell. When you unplug the device, the Sync Center icon disappears (unless there are other syncrhonizable devices attached).

Burning a DVD Movie or Music CD The version of Windows Media Center in Windows Vista now includes native CD and DVD burning capabilities. This means that you can create your own audio CDs, data CDs (containing pictures, photos, TV shows, or whatever), DVD movies (typically of TV shows), or DVD data disks.

Creating an Audio CD To create an audio CD:

1. Select the artist, album, playlist, genre, or whatever song list from within Media Center’s music library, right-click it (or press the More Info button on the remote) and choose Burn.

2. If you haven’t already inserted compatible writeable optical media, Media Center will prompt you to do so. Choose Audio CD in the next screen and then provide a name for the CD (Media Center will default to the name of the media you previously selected).

Although it’s possible you’re going to want to recreate a CD you already ripped to the hard drive, it’s more likely that will you want to create what’s called a mix CD, a CD of various content that you’ve hand-picked. For this reason, it’s much easier to create a playlist first, add the songs you want to that playlist, and then start the audio CD creation process when you’re done. Be mindful of the limits of a typical CD, which can store about 80 minutes worth of music.

3. In the next screen, Review & Edit List, click Add More and repeat the preceding steps until you’ve filled the CD or added everything you want.

4. Click Burn CD. Media Center will make sure you want to proceed and then burn the CD. The resulting CD should work fine in any CD player, including in-car, home, and portable CD players.

Creating a Data CD or DVD To create a data CD or DVD - that is, a disc that contains the underlying media files, one that will not play back in a normal CD or DVD player:

1. Select an item in the appropriate Media Center experience, right-click (or press the More Info button on the remote), and choose Burn (for pictures, videos, and music) or Burn CD/DVD (for recorded TV).

2. If you haven’t already inserted compatible writeable optical media, Media Center will prompt you to do so. In this example, let’s assume you insert a blank CD-R.

3. In the next screen, choose Data CD (and not Audio CD) and then click Next.

4. Pick a name for the disc; Media Center will auto-select the name of the media you initially selected as the default.

5. In the next screen, Review & Edit List, click Add More and repeat the preceding steps until you’ve filled the CD or added everything you want.

6. Click Burn CD. Media Center will make sure you want to proceed and then burn the CD. Since CDs are relatively small, from a storage perspective, burning a CD does not take a lot of time. The resulting CD will work only in a computer, for the most part. However, many car and home CD players are now compatible with MP3 and WMA formats. If this is the case, you can use this functionality to create a data disc of music files, and it should play just fine in such a player.

Creating a DVD Movie To copy a recorded TV show to a DVD movie:

1. Open Recorded TV (in TV + Movies, Recorded TV) and select the movie you’d like to copy to DVD.

2. Right-click (or press the More Info button on the remote) and choose Burn CD/DVD.

3. If you haven’t already inserted compatible writeable optical media, Media Center will prompt you to do so.

4. In the next screen, select Video DVD and click Next.

5. Pick a name for the DVD movie; Media Center will auto-select the name of the TV show as the default, 13-27.

6. In the next screen, Review & Edit List, you can perform a number of actions. If the TV show you selected is the only one you want on the DVD, simply click Burn DVD to commit the movie to disc. Otherwise, click Add More and repeat the preceding steps. Note that you can only add Videos and Recorded TV to DVD movies from Media Center in this fashion. If you want to add a photo slide show, you’ll need to use Windows DVD Maker, which is covered in Article 12. Photos can be added only to data DVDs from within Media Center. Some recorded TV shows cannot be burned to DVD. For example, shows on pay stations like HBO and Cinemax are referred to as protected content in Media Center. That means that Microsoft is respecting the so-called broadcast flag technologies these channels are using to protect the content. The end result is that HBO (which owns Cinemax too) and other channels have made the decision that they don’t want users copying their content. This means that you can’t copy a Media Center–recorded version of an HBO show to a portable device or other PC as well, incidentally. It just won’t work.

If you select too much content, Media Center will warn you that the TV shows (or videos) must be burned at a lower-quality level in order to fit everything on the disc. You can choose to remove a TV show or video or accept the lower quality.

7. When you do finally set about actually burning the DVD, be prepared for a wait. DVD burning takes a long time, especially for video content. A. Really. Long. Time. You can do other things in Media Center when a DVD is burning, but the burning process will take even longer in such a case. You’ve been warned. When the DVD is completed, it should work just fine in any DVD player, including the set-top box you probably use on your TV, portable DVD players, in-car DVD players, and laptops.

Summary Windows Media Center is a wonderful environment for enjoying digital photos, music, videos, TV shows, and other digital media content. If you’re lucky enough to be using this system via a Media Center PC or any Xbox 360’s Media Center Extender functionality, that’s even better - the best features of Media Center come to life when accessed via an HDTV set and remote control. But Media Center isn’t just for TVs. Even on a lowly portable computer, Media Center provides a highly visual way of enjoying digital media content. For many users, this program will be reason enough to upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate.