Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is a major improvement over previous versions of XP MCE, with changes both to the underlying Windows desktop and the Media Center experience.
If you're an existing Media Center customer, you'll want to get this upgrade as soon as possible. If you've never considered a Media Center PC, this release will likely change you mind. Unlike previous MCE versions, XP Media Center Edition 2005 improves both the core Windows desktop as well as the remote-enabled Media Center experience.
Desktop changes
From the first boot, it's clear that Microsoft has not just changed the Media Center environment in this release, but has also updated the underlying Windows desktop to give XP MCE 2005 a unique, stylish, and professional new fascia.The new default visual style, Energy Blue (also seen in Windows Media Player 10 and Windows Media Player 10 Mobile), is a subtle improvement on the default Luna style used by other XP versions, with shiny, sharp edges.
XP MCE 2005 also includes a number of features that Microsoft previously made available only in its Plus! Digital Media Edition for Windows XP, including the Windows Audio Converter, Windows CD Label Maker, Windows Dancer, and Windows Party Mode (Figure). And, it includes screensavers and themes that it previously made available only in its Plus! for Windows XP package. Bundled screensavers include the ever-popular Aquarium (now with more fish) (Figure), Da Vinci, Nature, and Space. Themes include Aquarium, Da Vinci, Nature, and Space. XP MCE 2005 also ships with a unique screensaver called My Pictures Premium: This screensaver presents an animated slideshow of your My Pictures folder, with optional background music, and is quite nice.
Additionally, the version of Windows Movie Maker 2.1 that ships with XP MCE 2005 supports burning DVD movies (Figure), a feature that isn't available to other versions of WMM 2.1 on other versions of XP. It also sports new transitions and video effects (Figure). And while this isn't new to XP MCE 2005, if you like the Media Center interface, but want to use it as a media player, you can run it in a window alongside your other applications.
Finally, XP MCE 2005 ships with all of the core XP improvements from XP Service Pack 2 and is the only version of Windows to ship with Windows Media Player 10.
Improvements to the core Media Center experiences
The Media Center environment--or Media Center experience, as Microsoft likes to call it--has undergone far more impressive improvements. The first thing you'll notice when you bring up Media Center and navigate through the entries in the Start Page is the cleaner, easier-to-read new font. Also, most of the Start Page entries now spawn pop-up previews of commonly accessed, or recently accessed, content. So, for example, if you hover over the My TV choice, you will see pop-ups for Recorded TV, Live TV, and Movies (the latter of which is a new feature I'll explain below), three of the most commonly accessed features of My TV. However over My Videos, and you'll see your most recently accessed videos.
Microsoft has also subtly changed the behavior for shutting down Media Center. Previous versions supported the standard Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons in the upper right side of the Start Page.
In XP MCE 2005, there is a single Shut Down icon to the left of the clock. When you select this, it turns bright red and displays the text "Shut Down." Press the button and Media Center displays a handy Shut Down pop-up, from which you can close Media Center, log off, shut down the system, restart the computer, or enter standby mode.
One of the most dramatic changes in XP MCE 2005 is the new context menu-like pop-ups that appear whenever you right-click on an item in Media Center (or click the Details/More Info button on the remote control)
Setup
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 features a simpler new setup experience that walks you through the process of configuring your Internet connection, TV signal, speakers, TV or monitor, and other features. Particularly nice are the new options for optimizing the display to match your equipment (Figure). You can also easily setup your speakers to support 2-, 5.1-, or 7.1-speaker setups.
My TV
Billed as the ultimate experience in Media Center television viewing and recording features in XP MCE 2005 have, predictably, received the most attention. "As far as we're concerned, TV watching is the new mission critical application for Windows," Belfiore said.
Indeed the number one request from customers was that Microsoft improve the picture quality for those Media Center systems that were connected to televisions. In previous versions, the company focused on PC-based connections like DVI and VGA, because it felt (and rightfully so) that most people would use Media Center PCs solely as PCs, with traditional PC displays.
On the note, one of the big focuses with XP MCE 2005 was improving the quality of S-Video display. IBy simply upgrading to XP MCE 2005, the display improves Moving to a component video or DVI video out improves matters even further.
No longer does Media Center dumb down the display, and present a muddy palette of washed out colors and lackluster clarity. No longer do we need to switch to the standard cable box connection to view HDTV programming in full quality. Everything on the TV now looks equally beautiful when broadcast through my Media Center PC as it does without it. In other words, adding the Media Center to the chain no longer degrades picture quality.
Picture quality aside -Media Center's My TV includes a number of other exciting new features. As with previous versions, you can watch live TV and record television using the integrated personal video recording (PVR) functionality. The difference is, this time you can do both of those tasks simultaneously, thanks to multiple tuner support. That means you can watch a live TV show and record another simultaneously. Or you can record two or more live TV shows simultaneously, depending on how many tuners you have.
The main My TV screen has been improved to show both recently recorded shows and upcoming scheduled recordings, giving you at-a-glance access to the information you're most likely looking for. This is also important because most Media Center remotes do not include a dedicated Recorded TV button, as does the excellent HP remote, so this addition can often save you from having to delve deeper into the interface to find the shows you want to watch.
Live TV works similarly to previous versions, but features a wonderful new translucent overlay effect that doesn't block 1/3 of the screen display as did previous versions. So when you're pausing a live TV show, navigating through it, or viewing how much time is left in a show, you can do so without destroying the picture.
The Media Center program guide hasn't changed much since the last release, which means it's still excellent. The only thing that's missing is a timeline that displays exactly where you are in the guide, as Snapstream Beyond TV has. In that software product, a vertical line indicates the exact time, so you can see how close you are to the end of a show. That sort of feature would be nice.
What Media Center does offer, however, is a cool UI for determining which channels you receive. In previous versions, you could navigate through a list of the stations your cable system or other TV source provides, and uncheck those stations you don't get or want to see in the guide (for example, if you don't subscribe to Cinemax, it makes sense to remove those channels from the guide, because you don't want to inadvertently schedule a recording of a movie on Cinemax and then discover you've just recorded two hours of static. In XP MCE 2005, this UI actually changes from channel to channel as you navigate through the list of channels, letting you visually determine whether you receive individual channels.
The guide also offers the same filtering options as it did in the previous release. So if you click the Guide button on the remote a second time while in the Guide, you will see options to filter the display to only show movies, kids shows, sports, news, or special programming (which is essentially documentaries, music videos, and other content that doesn't fit neatly into a popular genre category).
Speaking of online services, one feature that many power users asked for was a way to remotely control Media Center TV recording from the Web. That way, if you were at work, or on a trip, you could call up a Web page and trigger a recording without having physical access to the PC. To satisfy this need, MSN Entertainment will provide a free remote recording service for Media Center users.
My Music
By default, the main My Music page now displays an album list , instead of the list of most recently accessed music that the previous version supplied (that information is now available directly from the Start Page's My Music pop-up previews). From here, you can change the view to display all of your music by artist, by playlist, by song, or by genre, and you can search for music as well.
Also new is a queue-it-up feature, which lets Media Center users add music to a currently playing playlist. Let's say you start playing a single album and want to add more music to the list. In XP MCE 2005, all you need to do is navigate to the new music you'd like to queue up (which is to say, add to the end of the current playlist, which is the single album you previously selected), and press the Add to Queue button. Or you can select it, press More Info on your remote, and then select Add to Queue
In a similar vein to playlist creation, you can also edit meta data information for individual tracks directly from the Media Center UI using the remote control, which was another major request. To do so, right-click on a track in the queue or an album or song list, and choose View Details to bring up the Song Details screen. From here, you can click Edit Info to change the song title, artist name, or, most interesting, the rating. These values, naturally, are written back to the file and will reflect in WMP 10 as well.
You can also acquire music from CD using Media Center. When you insert an audio CD, it appears at the top of the main My Music screen for easy access , and you can opt to copy that music to the hard drive using Media Center's 10-foot user interface.
Finally, because of Microsoft's new extensibility model, which allows third party developers to extend the Media Center interface, online music services like MSN Music, Napster, and many others are taking advantage of the product's ten-foot experience.
Printing is new, and Touch Up has been significantly improved. To print a picture, select Print and the photo will print to your default printer without any prompting or configuration choices, which is pretty limited. For more complete printing options, you'll still need to visit the Windows UI. But seriously, few people will want to print pictures anyway, when they can enjoy them on the big screen. It's a completely different kind of experience, and arguably those that will want to print will need the mouse and keyboard anyway to perform other, more advanced editing tasks before printing.
The photo Touch Up screen still includes the automatic red eye reduction and contrast enhancement functionality from the previous version, but also adds the ability to crop photos. This is particularly useful for poorly framed pictures that include too much background and too little of the actual subject.
My Videos
My Videos is the one component of Media Center that doesn't appear to have visually changed much in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, though of course it picks up the nice new screen overlays when you pause or perform other tasks. But My Videos has picked up some exciting new capabilities behind the scenes, and these changes dramatically expand this feature's versatility. For starters, you can obviously play back home movies created in XP MCE 2005's new Windows Movie Maker 2.1 version, which features new transitions and DVD burning capabilities. You can also take advantage of HD videos that you download from the Web from locations such as Atom Films (link). HD video, like any HD source, offers amazing resolutions and clarity, and with broadband connections becoming more prominent every day, we should see more and more new sources of these films appear.
Play DVD
Like My Videos, Play DVD hasn't changed much, but it too features the new translucent MCE 2005 overlays and benefits greatly from the overall picture quality improvements in this release.
Radio
Like XP MCE 2004, the new version includes FM radio playback support. But this version also adds the ability to timeshare FM radio, within limits. For example, you can pause, rewind, and fast forward through FM radio transmissions (the latter of which obviously requires you to have previously paused or rewound). However, you can't save FM recordings, which would be nice, especially given the product's portable device integration.
If you subscribe to an optional service such as Napster, you can also access Internet radio from the Radio feature.
Online Spotlight and third party customization
With this version of Media Center, Microsoft has expanded the ways in which third parties can plug into the Media Center interface and extend the experience and offer unique value to customers. So the Online Spotlight feature--which connects to online services such as Napster, MovieLink, and Live 365--will be dramatically improved at launch.
hope this helps - chip