USING WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER

Windows Media Center is a multimedia utility that provides a single point of entry for viewing photos, recording TV shows (if you have a TV tuner card in your PC), watching DVD movies, and more. It has some features in common with Windows Media Player; however, it is in some ways more full-featured. For example, it also supports photo viewing, which Media Player does not.

To start Windows Media Center, select Start > All Programs > Windows Media Center. The first time you run it, a Welcome screen walks you through a guided setup. After you've been through that process once, the main Windows Media Center screen appears, similar to Figure 4-3.

Figure 4-3: Windows Media Center provides a user-friendly interface for several types of content.
Figure 4-3: Windows Media Center provides a user-friendly interface for several types of content.

The Windows Media Center interface is different from that of most Windows programs, and you might need some extra time to get used to it. After you select an action, the screen changes and includes some common elements, regardless of whether you chose to play a CD or DVD, record a TV program, and so on. As you look at the interface, the left-pointing arrow button takes you back to the previous screen, and the green Start button in the upper-left corner returns you to the main window, from which you select a type of content to work with. To exit Windows Media Center, click the Close (X) button in the upper-right corner.

If you have a TV tuner card, you can set up Windows Media Center to work as a digital video recorder, much like a TiVo. Windows Media Center can record programs that you can then watch later on your PC monitor. Or, if your TV tuner card has a TV Out port on it, you can connect an actual television to it and watch the recorded programs there.

Windows Media Center also accesses the same music library as with Windows Media Player, and you can browse and play your music collection from there.

You can also browse your photo collections (stored in the Pictures folder and elsewhere) via the Windows Media Center. As shown in Figure 4-4, you can browse the photos by thumbnail, or you can click play slide show to see all the photos in a certain location one by one.

Figure 4-4: Browsing and displaying photos.
Figure 4-4: Browsing and displaying photos.

To modify or print a picture, right-click a picture and then select Picture Details from the shortcut menu. The picture details screen appears, as shown in Figure 4-5. Here you can rotate the picture, apply a touch-up modification to it (like increasing the contrast), or print it.

Figure 4-5: You can work with individual photos on the picture details screen.
Figure 4-5: You can work with individual photos on the picture details screen.

There's much more you can do with Windows Media Center. Take some time to explore the menus and options to learn all about this exciting entertainment command center. Next, learn how to organize and manage your photos and video clips.