Introduction

Windows Media Center is arguably one of the best home theater personal computer user interfaces out there today. Up until the introduction of Windows Vista, Windows Media Center (MCE) existed as a separate product SKU for Microsoft. That meant that if you wanted MCE, you either had to purchase a system with the OS, or you had to purchase the OS and build a system around it. With Windows Vista, Microsoft has decided to take a different approach with the digital media platform and make it a part of the Premium and Ultimate Editions of the OS. That’s right - MCE no longer exists on it’s own but is now bundled as part of the mainstream OS (assuming you don’t get the Home Edition of Vista). What this ultimately means is that MCE will become a part of so many more shipping systems than ever before. Of course, many hardware OEMs were already providing MCE 2005 as an option to consumers but the inclusion into the product line of Vista means MCE is here to stay and ready to branch out.

With Beta 2 now out for several weeks, I thought I’d finally look into what changes Microsoft made to the Media Center platform. Many of the changes are only skip deep but there are some new features that make the platform even more exciting than ever before. Note - I’ll refer to the MCE application in Vista as MCE Vista. Let’s jump right to it shall we?

Starting things off and the Start Screen

If you have the Premium or Ultimate Editions of Windows Vista, then you’ll have instant access to Windows Media Center. As in earlier versions of MCE, the platform is very picky when it comes to hardware requirements. If you plan on using MCE to its fullest, make sure to purchase at least one TV tuner and a supported graphics card with MCE certified drivers. Remember that Vista already has a fairly heavy graphics requirement in order to fully run Aero. MCE’s own user interface has been updated for Vista so you’ll definitely want to spend the extra cash and perhaps endulge in a powerful graphics card.

Start up Windows Media Center and you’ll get the following splash screen:

The Green Button is alive and well folks. Oh in case you are wondering about my system specs, they are as follows:

• Dual Intel XEON 2.8GHz processors with Hyper-Threading enabled
• Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 250
• DVICO FusionHDTV 5 PCI Card
• 250GB SATA HDD
• NVIDIA GeForce 5900 PCI card
• 2GB of RAM
• Dual 19 inch LCD monitors
• Microsoft MCE Remote
• AC 97 Sound

Some of you may wonder if MCE’s setup routine has changed under Vista and the answer to that is - not really. I won’t cover the setup here in this article but if you’re familiar with MCE 2005’s setup, then things are pretty much the same.

Once you get past the black splash screen, you’ll be presented with the familiar (sorta) MCE start screen:

If you’re a frequent user of MCE, you’ll probably notice that things are a bit different here. The blue background has been updated to what it seems like a Northern Lights show. Major menu items still run up and down but sub items now scroll left and right across the screen (in the MCE 2005, frequently used selections would be to the right of the main menu item). Let’s go ahead and look at the TV selection.
TV

For TV, you can access the following sub menu items:

• Recorded TV
• Live TV
• Guide
• Search

Here is a snapshot of the menu screen for TV:

Let’s dig a little deeper. First off, Live TV still works pretty much the same way. Select the menu option and the current channel will be shown on screen (in this case a Discovery Channel show called “The Deadliest Catch”):

Things look pretty much the same here. Here’s another snapshot taken of an HD channel playing live via MCE.

Bringing up Program Information is just like before. Click the “More” button on the MCE remote and select the “Program Info” menu item. You’ll get a screen like below. Although the information displayed is pretty much the same as in MCE 2005, things look crisper and cleaner in MCE Vista. (Notice the HD icon indicating the show was in High Definition)

Things start looking a little different when you switch over to the Recorded TV selection. In MCE 2005, you saw your recorded television shows via the show titles. You could then group them by recording date or by recording title. In MCE Vista, the display has been enhanced to show a snapshot from the recorded show as well as the title. Instead of a top-down display of recorded shows, MCE Vista displays them in a horizontal manner. You can sort by schedule date:

or by title:

Get used to this horizontal display of information - it’s used frequently throughout MCE Vista.

The Guide hasn’t really changed a whole lot under MCE Vista. The graphics have been spruced up to be similar to the rest of the new look but it’s otherwise the same old guide.

Now if you want to schedule television shows to be recorded, you’ll get the slightly updated Scheduled UI shown below:

And that’s basically it for TV.
Movies

In MCE Vista, there’s a new general Movies menu item which combines DVD movies with movies currently being shown on television. It also let’s you access any movies you may have recorded on your MCE system. However, do not confuse this with viewing your video collection which may included downloaded videos off the net or self made home videos. Those media files are under the Pictures + Video menu item which we’ll look at shortly.
For Movies, you can access the following sub menu items:

• Movie Library
• Play DVD
• Movies on TV
• Search

When you select Movie Library, you get to see your recorded movies on the box. You can sort the view using a variety of methods including “by title”, “by type”, “by release year”, and “by date added”.

What I particularly like is the new “Movies on TV” item which allows you to find movies via options such as:

• On Next
• Genres
• Top rated by star rating
• On Now

Movies by genre is particularly cool because you can look up “Action and Adventure” movies on TV or decide to only browse for “Horror” movies. Here’s a sampling.

Curious about what movies are on now? Here’s a snapshot of the horizontal display of movie titles:

Not happy with the movies on now? How about what’s coming up next?

Finally, you can always search for movies via the title, actor, or director in the movie.

One final note - make sure you have an MPEG2 decoder installed if you plan on either watching your TV shows or viewing your DVDs.  Thanks to JohnnyW - you do not have to install an MPEG2 decoder with MCE Vista. It’s about time! Of course, I don’t know how good the built in decoder is but it’s probably good enough for MCE usage. It would be interesting to measure the CPU utilization of the built in decoder vs. other decoders out there.
Music

For Music, you can access the following sub menu items:

• Music Library
• Play All Music
• Radio
• Search

For some strange reason, I forgot to take snapshots of this section but it’s not too much different from what you’ve seen thus far. Album covers are now shown horizontally and the entire interface is much snappier than before - especially if you have a lot of album titles.
Pictures + Videos

For Pictures + Videos, you can access the following sub menu items:

• Picture Library
• Play All
• Video Library

As you can see, Microsoft decided to combine videos and pictures into one category. We’ll look at pictures first. The picture library works similar as before except items are now displayed in a horizontal fashion. You can also sort pictures by when they were captured as opposed to viewing them in the original folders that they were stored in. You can also view them in folders if you wish.

If you select a specific month, the pictures are displayed as follows:

As for videos, it’s a similar concept - you can sort videos by the name or the date they were taken.

As you can see - MCE Vista makes heavy use of thumbnail views of videos, pictures, and music album covers.

Each video can be highlighted and selected for playback by your MCE remote. Here’s a snapshot:

Spotlight

For Spotlight, you can access the following sub menu items:

• More Programs
• Online Spotlight

Spotlight under MCE Vista hasn’t changed a whole lot. In fact if you click on Online Spotlight, you’ll see the exact same UI as in MCE 2005. Even the background image hasn’t been updated as of yet. I’m sure Microsoft will rectify this in the final version of Vista.

Under More Programs, you’ll find games that Microsoft has added to the MCE platform. Here’s a snapshot of More Programs and then a snapshot of Hearts:

Tools

For Tools, you can access the following sub menu items:

• Settings

I imagine that Tools will be built out further in the future but right now Tools simply leads us to Settings (which used to be on the MCE 2005 menu list). Here are some snapshots of Settings menu items:

Tasks

Finally, for Tasks, you can access the following sub menu items:

• Burn CD/DVD
• Sync
• Shut Down
• Add Extender

Tasks are basically specific operations that you could perform through the MCE interface. These include burning a DVD or shutting down the system. Expect more tasks to be added in the future - either from Microsoft or via third party vendors.

Summary

There’s your look at the Media Center platform under Windows Vista Beta 2. The graphics have been upgraded and in many ways, MCE is smoother looking than ever before. It’ll have to be as more software vendors enter the field of digital home entertainment and provide HTPC UI’s for consumers. However, MCE Vista got a bit more than just a facelift to its User Interface. Microsoft changed some of the fundamental ways that users viewed and interacted with their media collections. In many ways, MCE Vista displays more information than ever by making use of thumbnail images and a new menu structure which takes advantage of translucency effects introduced in Vista. The platform is not without it’s problems though. MCE frequently crashed on me when I alt-tabbed back into Windows Vista. I would also lose the video at times if I switched between applications. However, I expect Microsoft to iron out these issues before the final release of Vista which is right around the corner. Exciting stuff folks.

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