Use your PC as a central point for TV, pictures, music and more

Shortly after Windows XP hit the market, Microsoft developed Windows XP 2005 Media Center Edition. This is a separate operating system that had all the features of Windows XP but with one extra feature. A new interface called Media Center.

This new interface brought together photos and pictures, videos, music and TV capture, into one easy to use interface that could all be accessed via a standard looking TV Remote control. Now with the edition of a TV capture card you could record TV shows directly to your PC by pressing a button on the remote control, or view a slideshow of all you photos, or listen to your music library, or combine two such as listen to your music library while viewing a slideshow of your photos

You can even pause or rewind live TV

Windows Vista brought a new version of Media Center included in the Home premium and Ultimate packages. This built onto the foundations that Windows XP 2005 MCE had built, streamlining the menu system and adding several features. The only issue was that in Australia the TV companies were very protective of their TV guide and did not want people to be able to program their machine to record a TV show and then skip through the adverts while watching the recording, so the TV guide feature that works in many other countries was disabled , and this caused Media Center to never really take off in Australia. .

Now with Windows 7, Media Center has again received a facelift and finally the TV guide can be viewed natively from inside Media Center. Windows 7 can read guide data sent directly from the TV stations themselves, the guide is often a week or more in advance of the current date and therefore you can schedule recordings well in advance of them happening.

You can add a second TV tuner and record one show while watching another, or record two shows while watching a previously recorded show. You can even start recording a TV show and then start watching it 20 minutes after it starts, while it is still recording, allowing you to skip through adverts ( this is great for test match cricket which has short adverts after every over bowled or wicket taken )

Windows 7 even allows more than 2 tuners ( a previous limitation in Media Center ).

Another great feature is that you can stream all your content from Media Center directly to your Xbox 360, so you can watch live TV or anything you have recorded, or listen to your music collection from another location, all you need to do is connect the two via a network ( Wired works better than wireless, especially for HD content ) For a demonstration of Media Center and a custom built PC ready to attach to your Big screen plasma or LCD call Smart City IT Services who have been building and using Media Center PC’s since the beginning.