Introduction+++
There are a lot of people in this world who hate Microsoft and its products. I am certainly not one of these people! There isn't one friend I know who works in an office and doesn't use word and excel on a daily basis! I know I do! I've been consistently impressed by the different versions of windows over the years, and this, one of their newest offerings, Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) is no exception. PC's are getting more and more user friendly aren't they? My nana (75 years old) took a night class in computers, and now she emails me! Well, MCE takes user friendly PC's to a new level.

Wouldn't it be cool if your PC could play DVD's, could display live TV and record it to the hard drive, pause and rewind live TV, schedule recordings from the TV guide? Wouldn't it be cool if your PC could store and display digital photos, store and play your entire music collection, if you could listen to the radio, if you could store and organise your DVD collection, download music videos, news streams and film trailers from the Internet and watch and organise them on your PC? Wouldn't it be cool to burn any of this media to DVD or CD with one button, and to top it all off, all this done with a remote control? If you think any of this sounds useful, you may enjoy MCE!

MCE is basically Windows XP Pro with the addition of a user-friendly front end for displaying and organising the media on your computer. My discovery of this program came about because 8 months ago I bought a front projection unit and wanted to hook up lots of gadgets to it: my VCR, my DVD player, my freeview box, my DVD recorder, my CD player etc, and this program conveniently combines all of the above and more on my PC.

Installation +++
Installing MCE is as difficult as installing Windows XP, to some people this may be a daunting task, but for most it should be a breeze, you can't go wrong if you carefully read each window that pops up. As always, if you've had previous installations of windows on your hard drive, it's always recommended to format the drive before continuing with a fresh install. One word of advice to note is MCE comes on two discs, and confusion can occur when it asks you to, "Please insert Windows XP service pack 2 disc", I don't know why it says this, but this means insert disc 1. The remote control comes with an infer red sensor that plugs into your computer via USB. Once you've installed MCE, plug in the IR sensor and it will be automatically detected and installed by windows. Pressing the green windows button on the remote control will launch the media center front end, and will then take you through some set-up screens; these include setting up your Internet connection, your speakers and your display.

My TV+++
If you want to use the amazing "My TV" section of MCE you'll need a TV card. I bought a freeview digital card from http://www.blackgold.tv/products/digital.htm - the current cost is £59.99. You'll need to go to settings and select set-up TV signal. It'll give you a selection of broadcast masts near your postcode and ask which one you receive your signal from. Once you've selected one of these, it'll start scanning for channels. This normally takes about 10 minutes and the full selection of freeview channels is 37. Next MCE will automatically connect to the Internet and download an EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) for each channel for the next two weeks.

The guide is really fun to use. You can search all the channels for specific genres of entertainment over the next two weeks, such as films, sports, documentary etc. The search results come back ordered in date. If for example you hit documentaries, one such result would be "Horizons." Clicking on the title of the Horizons broadcast would take you to an information screen telling you all about that broadcast with 2 options for recording: Record this episode or Record series. So if you're a fan of Horizons, you can set MCE to record it every time it's on! Once you've set a few series to record you may find that you start getting recording conflicts. This is easily overcome using the recording series priority set up - where you can tell it that you prefer Horizons to Little Britain, so every time they are on at the same time, it'll record Horizons!

When you go into My TV, it will give you a short list of recently recorded programmes or films, and a short list of scheduled recordings, opening either of these will give the full view. It is great to note that MCE records TV in the same quality it's broadcast in, so playback of recorded TV is excellent quality. When viewing live TV, MCE caches up to an hour of live TV, so if your phone rings during Eastenders, just hit pause, answer the phone, make a cup of tea, come back and press play! You're then free to rewind, play or fast forward (until you catch up to the broadcast!) to your hearts content. Never miss another goal on the footie because you had to go to the toilet!

My Pictures and My Videos+++
These two modules within MCE are very similar. When you first go into either of these sections, MCE will ask you to add videos/pictures. It will then search whichever folders or hard drives (including network drives) you tell it to. I have literally thousands of pictures, so I've arranged mine all in folders and by date to make things neat and accessible. The slideshows are really nice, with the transition effects looking very professional. You can add music to these slideshows and there are many other options too.

My Music+++
I love the fact that I have all my CDs right there in front of me and I don't have to get out of my seat and change discs when they finish! A couple of years ago, I ripped my CD collection to my hard drive, it came to a little under 4,000 mp3's! In MCE it arranges mp3's by the ID3 tags. Thankfully most of mine mp3's were tagged automatically from the CD, but I still had a few hundred that were Unknown artist, Unknown album. So I spent a few hours tagging these up. MCE arranges songs into album and displays the albums by cover art. I love it; it's like looking on the shelf! One gripe is that for large collections it can be hard to find the song you're looking for since it won't let you arrange songs in folders (but this is only a small gripe!) When you select a song to play, you can add it to the current play list or play it now. Any visualisations that work with windows media player also work within MCE too. You can also convert CD's to mp3 within MCE.

My Radio and third party plug-ins+++
Not having an FM tuner on my TV card, I've been unable to use this option, although looking at the menu, it's as easy to understand and navigate as the rest of MCE, with auto tuning and manual tuning options. You can also pause and rewind live radio much like the My TV option.

The great thing about MCE is that a lot of programmers have been making free plug-ins available for download to the masses. The best two I've discovered so far are My Movies, found at http://www.mymovies.name/, this program allows you to make a complete list of the DVDs you own and displays them by cover art. Each entry contains information on each actor in the film, gives you the running time, a brief overview of the film, the tag line, sometimes the trailer and much more.
Secondly, if you want the most out of the plug-in TV Tonic found at http://www.tvtonic.com/, you'll need an unlimited broadband connection. It downloads high quality music videos, film trailers and cartoons for viewing at a later stage.

In conclusion+++
MCE has the feel of a set-top box, you don't realise that it's a PC; it's highly polished and just feels like a quality product. I've been using it for about 6 months now, and the only reason I haven't given it 5 stars is the fact that it has crashed on me once or twice in that time. Still fully recommended to all those people who want all their media in one place, in one box.

It costs around £75
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=7773&GroupID=69
and the remote control cost around £20
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=8268&GroupID=69
an invaluable forums site dedicated to MCE problems is found here:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/index.php - under entertainment PCs & Computer hardware.
For more info check out the Microsoft website:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/default.mspx

Please note: the word "Center" is not a mistake; I understand the correct spelling is centre, but Microsoft released it in the UK with the American spelling!!