Windows Media Center - Link Your House

Windows Media Center

Microsoft Windows Vista Media Center

What's it going to be—the show's schedule or your schedule? Until now, it's often been one or the other. With Windows Vista you decide not only what you watch, but when and where you watch it. Welcome to the future of entertainment. Get the preview here, then read on to explore the complete TV and Movies Experience.

It's entertainment on your terms with Windows Media Center. If your PC has a TV tuner, you can use Windows Media Center (an integral component of Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate) to record, watch, and pause live television on your desktop or mobile PC. Use the built-in television guide and a compatible remote control for even greater convenience. You'll never miss a single episode of your favorite show. Into channel surfing? Use the mini-guide in Windows Media Center to scroll through other channels without interrupting your current program.

Windows Media Center and Xbox 360 border=

Windows Media Center and Xbox 360 border=

Make any room your media room

Take Windows Media Center to the next level and enjoy your favorite live and recorded TV shows, movies, music, and pictures on TVs throughout your home, with remote-control convenience using a Media Center Extender like Xbox 360. Windows Media Center supports multiple TV tuners so you can record a program on one channel while watching another. Connect up to five Media Center Extenders to create a versatile entertainment system that can grow with your needs and interests.

Right at home

Befitting a twenty-first-century entertainment center, Windows Media Center supports both high-fidelity audio playback and surround sound, so you'll be sitting in a sonic sweet spot whether you're at your desk or on the couch, engrossed in movies or grooving to music. To help you make that sweet spot even sweeter, Windows Vista features Room Correction settings that automatically optimize sound for your speakers and for a particular location in your room, such as the center cushion of your couch.

For a complete all-in-one experience, Microsoft Windows Vista Media Center is the answer. Integrate the advanced computing power of Windows Vista and enjoy all of your media needs with seamless navigation. Media Center allows the user to watch DVDs, record TV, listen to music, share your digital photos, and much, much, more.

Television

Record what you’re watching while you’re watching it, or record something that is scheduled to air later. A Media Center PC allows any level of TV viewer complete control of what they want to watch. Sports enthusiast can literally pause a live game and walk away, or simply have a custom replay of any moment while watching. Enjoy TV series or sitcoms, Media Center can be set to record the entire season of the selected show every time it airs. Media Center also allows users to burn recorded TV to CD or DVD.

Music

With Microsoft Windows Vista Media Center, it's easy to access your entire music library. You can use Media Center to play individual songs or entire albums, view album covers, play songs by genre, create playlists of your favorite songs, and watch captivating visualizations that change with the rhythm of your music. Media Center also gives you more control when you listen to FM radio by allowing you to pause, rewind, and fast forward FM radio. If the phone rings, you can pause the radio, and then continue listening to it exactly where you left it. If you want to hear your favorite song again, you can rewind to the beginning of the song. You can even skip past parts of the radio broadcast that you don't want to listen to.

Pictures

Media Center allows the user to add pictures easily from digital cameras and then seamlessly view an impressive slideshow with or without music from your library. Pictures can also easily be burned to CD/DVD through Media Center.

Media Center Remote

Enhance your Media Center experience with a Media Center remote control. Most Media Center PCs come equipped with a Media Center remote control. The Remote allows you to control everything media related without needing a keyboard or mouse. This gives the user an ability to quickly navigate from TV to Music to Pictures and back and forth in any combination.

Home Control for Windows Media Center
HAI Home Control for Windows Media Center makes changing lighting, temperature, and security as easy as changing channels! HAI's Home Control for Windows Media Center is software for Windows Media Centers that allow you to control all of your HAI home control system features from the comfort of an easy chair using a single Media Center remote.
Learn more about HAI's Home Control for Windows MCE by watching this webinar (20 minutes)

Microsoft Windows 7
Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) is the next release of Microsoft Windows, an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, Tablet PCs, netbooks and media center PCs.

Microsoft stated in 2007 they were planning Windows 7 development for a three-year time frame starting after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Microsoft has stated that the final release date would be determined by product quality.

Unlike its predecessor, Windows 7 is intended to be an incremental upgrade from Vista, with the goal of being fully compatible with device drivers, applications, and hardware with which Windows Vista is already compatible. Presentations given by the company in 2008 have focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, most notably Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are no longer included with the operating system; they are instead offered separately (free of charge) as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite.

Windows 7 includes a number of new features, such as advances in touch, speech, and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, improved performance on multi-core processors, improved boot performance, and kernel improvements.

Windows 7 adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors, a new version of Windows Media Center, Gadgets being integrated into Windows Explorer, a Gadget for Windows Media Center, the ability to visually pin and unpin items from the Start Menu and Taskbar, improved media features, the XPS Essentials Pack being integrated, Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE), and a redesigned Calculator with multiline capabilities including Programmer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion.

Many new items have been added to the Control Panel including: ClearType Text Tuner, Display Color Calibration Wizard, Gadgets, Recovery, Troubleshooting, Workspaces Center, Location and Other Sensors, Credential Manager, Biometric Devices, System Icons, Action Center, and Display. Windows Security Center has been renamed to Windows Action Center (Windows Health Center and Windows Solution Center in earlier builds) which encompasses both security and maintenance of the computer.

Windows Media Center Designing Spaces