What is Media Center?

Media Center is an application by Microsoft that at its most basic provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) via mouse, keyboard or remote control with access to your Music, Photos and Videos, and with additional hardware also allows you to watch and record free-to-air digital TV channels with the ability of multi tuner support and personal-video-recorder functionality (PVR). It's been designed so to be usable from across a room (what Microsoft call a 10' interface - operable from 10' away).

Media Center first appeared in 2004/5 on Microsoft's XP operating system as an OEM only release (PC builders) and was based on a 4:3 display ratio with fairly basic library lists of items. In Microsoft's next OS, Vista, it was included in the retail version and had an improved GUI, but although more attractive to look it, it still lacked basic TV features that stopped it competing with even the most ordinary of set-top boxes. However with the most recent release, Windows 7, it has had a complete overhaul and now includes features such as satellite viewing, HD support (H.264), and interactive TV (Red Button). The latest graphical touches to the interface such as the floating background made up of your album art and the soft fades in and out from TV programs to the menus make the whole package feel very slick and hi-tech. But the real appeal of Media Center, even back to its relatively basic initial release in 2004, lies in the flexibility and power that comes from the vast array of hardware available for PCs meaning the size, style, power and features of any given system are almost limitless.

What other software is needed?

If browsing your Photos, Music library, Videos and watching/recording TV and DVDs is all you need, then nothing else is required. However even with the system at its most basic I would still highly recommend Slysoft's AnyDVDHD. DVDs and Blu-rays are littered with copy protection and even if you don't intend to store them on hard disk (ripping), just playing them can be problematic. But if like me you also wanted to store the films you'd bought on hard disk to watch as and when, then AnyDVDHD allows you to do that as well. I have a blog entry listing the software I run on all my systems.

Does it need a hi-spec, expensive PC to run?

Not necessarily, any modern PC up to a couple of years old should easily run the latest Windows 7 and allow all its standard features to work well. The connection to your TV should be VGA at a minimum, HDMI / DVI are better still but be aware that not all TVs display PC signals properly through these HDMI / DVI ports; it's getting better with time but try and contact the manufacturer first to confirm that all is ok. And if going down the HDMI route then you'll need an HDMI graphics card; the current ATi HD4550 are a good buy and relatively cheap (~£45). The main benfit of HDMI is that it carries the sound as well so you only require one lead between your PC and TV.

Of course a TV tuner (DVB-S or DVB-T) is required to be able to watch Television, and a mulitple tuner card, or several single tuner cards gives you the ability to record more than one program at once. However any HD content requires more CPU power and a specific entry-level of graphics card (e.g. ATi HD4550 are ok), and the ability to watch Blu-ray films will also require a Blu-ray drive (BD-ROM). And unless you have grand ideas of achieveing THX quality sound, the standard soundcard your PC currently has will be fine for general use as well.

Lastly you'll need a remote control for comfortble control of the system and these range from £10 (Compro K100) up to £60 (Gyration - what I have).

What alternatives are there to Microsoft's Media Center?

There a quite a few out there, some with an incredible array of features such as Media Portal, however they generally rely on a certain level of PC skill, that although I may have, I can't be bothered with; I want to come in after a long day at work and watch TV, not mess about with a PC. The latest version of Windows, Windows 7, is also very quick to install and setup; it requires the smallest amount of input to get it up and running TV. And now that Media Center is included in the retail releases of Windows, it's practically free. The level of hardware support is also incredibly high.

Can you run X, Y or Z software?

There are hundreds of different ways you can set up your system(s) with all manner of software or servers (the most obvious being Windows Home Server). For my systems the Media Center PC's have to be stable and running them with the barest of software is the only way to do that. I get no thrills from running a plethora of software downloaded from the internet, but rather feel a sense of karma with a nice, compact, tidy OS. And on the rare occasions that I do need to troubleshoot any of the PCs, it makes it a lot easier and quicker if I know that there's nothing else installed that may be causing issues.

What about a server?

To make life easier running HTPCs in a home you can also utilise Windows Home Server.

This basically is a version of Windows (Windows Server 2003 to be exact) that comes with a few additional features for the sharing of media across the home. Slightly cheaper in price to that of a normal Windows OS license, and able to 'manage' upto 10 PCs, once installed it is designed to be left running with no monitor or mouse/keyboard attached - a 'headless' installation. It's main screen is very basic and reminiscent of the first XP release, all of it's clever stuff lies in 'services' that run in the background and are only accessible through the Home Server Console from the other client computers on the network.

For hardware it needs nothing more than a basic PC to run (a P4 CPU with 512Mb RAM is enough, although Gigabit ethernet is a must for speed) with the only desirable feature being the ability to hold and connect plenty of hard drives. It's main feature is it creating the storage visible on the network as JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks), so you can fill the PC up with whatever drives you may have lying around and it will combine them all automatically to create one large network folder with sub folders for Videos, Music, Photos, Software and RecordedTV, be warned that these drives are formatted when added to the Home Servers network storage! At the moment (Jan2010) a 1.5Tb SATA drive is aprox £80, so even with newer drives server storage has never been easier or cheaper to implement.

Once the Home Server has been installed on its dedicated PC, by simply visiting http://server:5050 on the other PCs in your home you can download and install the Windows Home Server Connector software which once installed then remains visible in your system tray highlighting the Home Server status (green for On and Healthy). The network shares of Videos, Photos etc are automatically added as watched folders in Media Center by the Home Server Connector software, and with the release of the Power Pack 3, Windows Home Server will also automatically move your RecordedTV material to itself so you can access it from any other PC automatically.