The Ultimate Jukebox
(And It's Already in Your House)
by Des McGinn
December 20, 2007
"Ultimate Jukebox"? "In my house already"
How's that, you ask?"
Well, You already have your state of the art, Hi-Def TV. You already have a great surround sound system and a good DVD Player. The more advanced may have a Tivo (Digital Video Recorder (DVR) to many, but TIVO was the first and is still the best) and a few Hi-Def channels on satellite or antenna if you've read my "Free High Definition" page.
But that computer in your home office or in the family area, you, know the one that you bought recently, paying good money to basically check email, the one that says "Window Media Center Edition" although you don't know what that means.
That's the one I'm talking about. Put a little closer to that Plasma or LCD TV and with a little setup from yours truly,
can quickly become the most used appliance in your home (along with that TV and the frig).
How's that you ask? Well, that PC with Media Center Edition of Windows XP or Vista is designed for the big screen. And with an inexpensive remote control sold by Microsoft, and the Internet, can open up more audio and video delights and you could have only imagined before you read this.
Called a Home Theater Personal Compter (HTPC), your computer can do all that you can at your desk with it and a Satellite receiver or cable box and your entire CD or IPod collections can COMBINED!
The Media Center Edition (MCE) of Windows is designed for the big screen. The menus and fonts are made for a TV. And with the aforementioned Microsoft remote, your can sit in that big easy chair instead of that desk and really, finally feel you are getting the "most bang for the buck."
The MCE remote (about $75.00) comes with a usb infrared for your computer and designed for it. Just plug it in to your computer and it's already setup.
With your computer hooked to the VGA input on your TV, you can control it from anywhere and the room. Connected to the internet and your home network, the HTPC gives you access to all those songs, videos and picture buried in the rest of the computer in your house.
By simply sharing your picture, music and video folders on the network and telling Media Center to look in them, you sit back and select through all of your songs, pictures and videos, indexed and sorted.