5. MCE As Home Theater

Playback of video DVDs means that Media Center Edition 2005 must incorporate numerous codecs. These are included with DVD player software and are installed onto turnkey Media Center PCs as part of the build process. Playback programs that are compatible with MCE include WinDVD, PowerDVD, and the Nvidia DVD-Player. In fact, one or more of these will often be bundled in OEM versions of graphics cards or motherboards with integrated graphics capabilities to avoid extra expense.

Those who want to build their own Media Center PCs might not have to buy this software, if they're careful about picking products that bundle playback tools. In any case, you'll control DVD playback with the remote control, and quickly learn that the Info button provides easy ability to switch quickly among various zoom and display settings.

The Zoom function switches among various presentation formats.

With a broadband Internet connection at its disposal, MCE will soon be able to handle video-on-demand output from companies like Akimbo and DivX (not to mention video-on-demand services already available from most cable television vendors, such as Time-Warner or Cox, through normal cable TV hookups in the U.S.). Such films are ready for access 24/7 and use DRM for protection. These films are accessed through and may be saved in the My Videos folder that MCE manages for its users.

MCE 2005 supports other formats such as AVI data formats, different MPEG video formats, and Intel's Indeo format alongside the MS-DVR format. By installing other codecs as add-ins to Windows Media Players, still other formats may be played back on a Media Center PC.

Online Video Store: Video-on-demand from Akimbo will be directly available from MCE in the U.S. very soon.

To edit or color balance home videos, Microsoft bundles the same program that's included with Windows XP - namely, Movie Maker 2.11. But this program is not integrated with the Media Center interface, so using it requires jumping into a more conventional mouse and keyboard Windows environment (which MCE allows quite happily).