Every version of Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate include Windows Media Center. So what is Media Center you maybe asking yourself, or why do you care that your PC has this application? The short answer is Windows Media Center is a DVR (digital video recorder, think tivo) on steroids. It has almost all the TV functions of a Tivo and most certainly all or more then the one you may be renting from your cable company. Media Center also includes Music, Video and picture libraries (think media player only optimized for your TV) as well as Internet TV, DVD playback, an integrated sports experience and much more, and that’s just what’s included the first time you load it up, there are hundreds of developers that write applications (usually free) for different Media Center scenarios, like cataloging your TV or DVD collection or something as simple and useful as checking the weather. So now that we know what Media Center is and what it does, how do we get started?
To take advantage of the DVR functionality of Media Center we need 1 or more TV tuner cards. This part can be a little confusing so I’ll try to explain this as best as I can. The original Media Center that shipped with Windows Vista supports up to 2 analog (cable, satellite, rabbit ears etc..) and/or up to 2 Over the Air (ATSC) HD tuners. A few months ago Microsoft shipped an update to OEMs for Media Center that allows up to 4 of each type of tuner (on vista ultimate) and allowed for combining some signal types that couldn’t be done before. Most everyone has the original release so lets not even worry about that OEM update (referred to as the tv pack). If you’ve purchased a PC recently there’s a chance it could have a TV tuner already in it. The easiest way to tell would be to look at the back of your computer for something that looks like a cable jack, like this:
You may only have one connection, in this picture one is for TV and one is for FM Radio so if you have two you’ll want to make sure you hook your coax up to the right one. If you don’t have one of these in your PC no worries they’re readily available and easy to install. If you’re comfortable taking the case off your PC and adding cards look for a PCI or PCIe tuner, if you’re not that’s fine too, there are quite a few USB tuners out there now also. Before buying a tuner you need to think about how you get your TV now. Are you a cable or satellite subscriber? Do you use a set-top box? Do you use an antenna? For this post I’m going to keep it simple and assume you have cable tv with no set top box, in later posts I’ll cover the other scenarios. In this situation you’ll want to pickup an analog TV tuner that has the Windows Vista logo on it and says that it’s certified for Media Center on the box. Hauppauge is probably one of the better known and easiest to find brands for this type of tuner. After you’ve purchased and installed your tuner card(s) (remember you can install 2) in your PC you’ll want to make sure you have the latest drivers for it installed, often times the drivers that are on the CD that came with the hardware is fairly dated. You can find the latest drivers buy going to your tuner manufactures website and looking for the support section and looking for your model tuner.
Now that we have a tuner installed with the latest drivers it’s time to setup Media Center to use the tuner. Before we go any further make sure you have connected the cable tv coax that is coming from your wall to the TV coax connection on your card. Now we want to fire up Media Center, if you’re never ran it before you’ll be greeted by a wizard choose custom, if you have already been in Media Center you’re probably just looking at the interface, navigate to Tasks, then click on settings, from that menu choose TV and then Set Up TV Signal. Now you’ll just want to go through the wizard and answer the questions, make sure you enter your correct zip code when asked as this is how Media Center presents you with the list of cable operators in your area. Make sure you choose your provider and Media Center will download the channels and TV Guide data for your provider. After the wizard ends you’ll be back at the Media Center start menu, Notice now that you have Live TV and Guide entries in your TV strip. Choose the guide and find something to watch, kick back and enjoy TV on your PC!
In upcoming posts I’ll be covering setting up cable and satellite with a set-top box, how to get HDTV in Media Center, how you can extend this experience to other rooms of your house and much more to stay tuned!
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