Window Vista Media Center: Exploring the Experiences

Window Vista Media Center | Configuring Media Center

Media Center overall provides the best experience of accessing the live as well as recorded TV programs and movies, digital music, digital photos, home videos and other digital media content. It equally works well on notebook, desktop PCs, or via HDTV displays in the living room. The various digital media experiences offered by Media Center.

TV and Movies

TV experience sits up front and center in Windows Media Center, even though most of the Windows Vista users will not have a TV tuner card installed in their sys-tem, but can control TV source may be cable, satellite, or any other. In Media Center, TV capabilities are the most impressive and quite superior to competing digital video recording.

• Live TV

  You should be able to click the Live TV button on your remote or one can just select Live TV from the TV + Movies entry on the Media Center Start screen and start watching live TV. Using remote, one can change channels, view a program guide using TV and Movie Guides, pause, rewind, and restart live TV, and do all other options as per the normal TV functionality.

  the superior feature of it is, if one plays a movie or video it continue to play in the background of the screen if one navigate back to the Start screen or the program guide. To return back, press Back or the Live TV button.

• Recorded TV

  Live TV is cool but older as it is from twentieth century, Media Center provides you feature to record TV and then watch as per your timings. It is more beneficial as compared to the live TV, as you can skip commercials, pause live TV if interrupted, watch the show on your schedule, not the TV's. Thus you can watch what you want and when you want.

  It also has same features like live TV in Media Center, pause, rewind, and fast forward recorded TV. To record a TV show best way is to use Media Center's search capabilities to locate the shows you want. One can configure it to record individual shows; record a movie, a serial in series.

  • To search for a show to record, navigate to the Start screen, TV + Movies, and then Search like as in window displayed below, one can see a variety of ways to search, including by title, keyword, categories, movie actor, or movie director and many more.

    

  • For searching a TV shows, one can always use to by title, so select the Title and type the beginning of the show title until search whittled the results down to a manageable list as displayed in the following window.

    

  • Finally select the show you want to watch, you will be on the screen where you can watch that show is on.

  If one know a particular show always runs some time late be sure to configure it to record right from the moment it start. One can view and configure various recorded TV shows and features from the Recorded TV screen. Just choose View Scheduled to see a list of shows that will be recorded earlier, view for all the series you recording, and see a list recorded in the past too.

  • To record an individual show, just select it from the list and click the Record button on remote or right click the show title and choose Record. A red circle appears indicating that the show will record.

  • To record a series, just press the Record button two times or right click and choose Record Series option. Multiple red circles next to the show appear as in the windows displayed below.