Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows Vista, Media Center

Get your ticket to ride the CES 2008 Media Center Express

Nick White — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:42:00 GMT

This year at CES we're partnering with PodTech to provide ground transportation specifically for bloggers attending CES via the Windows Vista Media Center Express. This is an executive-class coach with a distinctive, custom exterior design, so you'll know it when you see it. We dreamed up the Media Center Express as a way to help bloggers get between the CES BlogHaus at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino and CES 2008 at the Las Vegas Conference Center, while also providing them an entertaining, hands-on experience with cool technology -- and of course refreshments -- en route. (If you've ever been to CES, then you know how difficult it can be to negotiate the Las Vegas streets while competing with the 150K other people in attendance.) We've equipped the bus with PCs and hardware showcasing some of the best aspects of Windows Vista, namely, Windows Media Center and Certified for Windows Vista devices.

If you're coming to CES, register for the BlogHaus so you can take advantage of the Media Center Express. Meanwhile, check out the set-up of hardware on board:

Dell XPS 420 with an Intel Core 2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB) processor, 3GB (Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz) memory, 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT and 750GB storage (7200RPM SATA 3.0GB/s, 16MB Cache). The Dell XPS 420 also comes with a built-in Windows SideShow device in the front of the case
Gateway ONE with an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5250 (1.50GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 667MHz FSB) processor, 2GB (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM0 memory, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600XT Graphics Media Accelerator with 256MB of Discrete Video Memory, and 400GB (7200RPM Serial ATA II hard drive w/ 8MB cache) storage

Xbox 360 with Halo 3 and serving as a Media Center Extender

Two Canon mini320 Compact Photo Printers so you can print your photos from the show floor

While on the Media Center Express, you can play Halo 3, check out two top-notch PCs running Windows Vista Ultimate, view your photos and video within Windows Media Center, print photos and documents, compare notes with your fellow bloggers, and generally relax and recharge on the way between the BlogHaus and the Las Vegas Convention Center. To ride the bus, all you need to do is show that you're a registered attendee of the BlogHaus.

But first, we have to get the Media Center Express to Las Vegas. Leaving tomorrow (Saturday) from the Microsoft Silicon Valley campus, it'll pack in a few bloggers from the San Francisco area (including Robert Scoble of PodTech) for the ride there. Among them will be Windows Featured Community members Jason Dunn of Digital Home Thoughts and Robert McLaws of Windows-Now. Like all Windows Featured Community members, both Jason and Robert are Windows veterans and experts in Microsoft technology. They'll have with them a few Certified for Windows Vista devices such as the Canon HV20, as well as Windows Vista in their pockets -- courtesy of the Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC. Both Jason and Robert will be covering their CES experiences on their sites, so be sure to keep track of their impressions as the week progresses.

As for Brandon and me, we're off to Las Vegas tomorrow to meet the Media Center Express when it arrives. Stay tuned for more Windows Vista news from CES 2008, as we'll be blogging live from Las Vegas starting Sunday...

Try Windows Media Center - you may already have it!

Ben Reed — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:31:00 GMT

If your PC is running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate, you have a great feature set you may not even know about: Windows Media Center.

Windows Media Center can turn your PC from a "plain vanilla" computer into something pretty powerful and impressive: the hub of your entertainment system. Surprised? Well (if you ask nicely), I'll tell you more.

Use Windows Media Center to browse your music collection by cover art or year, organize photos and create albums and jazz up custom slide shows with music. If you're a sports fan, you'll definitely want to check out your favorite team's scores and stats on SportsLounge (U.S. and Canada only).

And if you like movies and TV, you'll enjoy Internet TV Beta. This new feature allows you to play free streaming video content on demand, choosing from more than 100 hours of TV entertainment, music concerts, movie trailers, news, and sports content from MSN Video.

Are you a film buff? If so, you're in luck. Windows Media Center, you can watch movies on DVD and stream or download movies from a growing list of content providers through Online Media-an innovative portal that helps you find movies over the Internet. If you want a quick glimpse of all the movies you've recorded or the movies coming up on TV, check out the Movies Guide. You can see movie jackets, search for films by actor, director, genre, or title, and read descriptions and reviews of the films.

TV features are some of the most exciting in Windows Media Center. You can watch, pause, and rewind live TV shows in standard and high definition (HDTV available only in the U.S.)1. Schedule recordings with the Electronic Programming Guide and find shows in the Windows Media Center Recorded TV library using picture thumbnails from the actual programs. You can also view live TV through Picture-in-Picture or as a background while performing other activities in Windows Media Center.

Want to save what you've recorded? No problem. Go ahead and burn your favorite shows to DVD. Windows Media Center will even create a simple DVD menu, which you can navigate using your DVD remote.

Right about now, you're probably thinking "Hey, this sounds pretty good - but I'll bet set-up is complicated." Not so! A TV tuner is all you need to start enjoying live TV on your Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate PC.2 Just plug your TV antenna, cable, or the video output from your satellite set-top box into your TV tuner, open Windows Media Center, and follow the appropriate set-up instructions. To find out what else you need to perform specific functions in Windows Media Center, take a look at the handy chart here.

Some Windows Media Center users like to stream their digital media throughout the house. If that appeals to you, Extenders for Windows Media Center are just the ticket. And here's a tip: If you have an Xbox 360, you already have a first-rate extender available.

1 Enjoying live and recorded HD content may require additional equipment, including but not limited to an HD compatible receiver, tuner, set-top box, and TV or other display.

2 Windows Media Center supports as many as two NTSC Standard tuners and two ATSC HD TV tuners, for a maximum of four TV tuners in a Windows Media Center PC but not limited to an HD compatible receiver, tuner, set-top box, and TV or other display.

Windows Media Center and extender: Media all over

Nick White — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 17:31:00 GMT

Over the past year, I've really grown attached to Windows Media Center: its DVR functionality, plus extending movies, music and photos to other parts of my home, and then taking that music, movies and photos with me on my (Windows Mobile) device. It all amounts to a great experience, and one I find I miss, even when on vacation (go ahead -- call me a nerd). Now I'm looking forward to seeing Windows Vista Media Center on some of the new hardware I’ve heard rumored about.

One question I get from people who were early adopters of Media Center is what's going to happen with Windows XP Media Center Extenders once Windows Vista is released. If you have an Xbox 360 as your extender, then you are all set; you’ll just need a software update and it will work with Windows Vista. You can expect to other kinds of extenders on the market in the future. But for the older Xbox and other extenders (like the Linksys and HP), the story is a little more complicated.

Windows Vista incorporates better DRM, which will enable content like native digital cable support for HD. The Windows XP extenders aren't technically capable of being updated to support the new DRM requirement, so they will not support Windows Vista. They will continue to work just fine with Windows XP, though.

However, there is a way to get your content through your extender using Windows Vista, assuming you keep your Windows XP Media Center around. Set up your home network to share files from the PC running Windows Vista to the PC running Windows XP, and the Windows XP based PC will aggregate all of your content and present it to your extender. This way you can enjoy Windows Vista at home and still use your extender to access all the content on both PCs.