Yes, when you enter Media Center, you click on "My TV". That brings up
options for watching live, watching a previously recorded show or the Guide.
The Guide is a table arrangemnt of times and channels. You can arrow along
a channel for up to a few days and clicking on a show in the future will
give you the option to record a single episode or the series at the same
time every day.
On the other access, you can find the time you're interested in and arrow up
or down and see what's on each channel. Reading the times is a little more
difficult, but you can get the hand of it.
In addition to the "My TV" option, there's "My Music", "DVD, "Photoos, and a
few more.
Initial set up may require some sighted help especially if you're setting up
a surround sound system.
I use a 15" Phillips tv as my monitor. I generally leave it set so that the
Media Center runs through it. However, by pushing a couple of buttons on
the tv, I can use the tv independently of the computer.
The card that came with mine is a single source card so you can watch one
show and record one other channel at the same time. I believe you can get
cards that allow you to record a couple of things at the same time while
watching a third.
Recording shows takes up lots of space so get a system with as large a hard
drive as you can and back up the shows or move them to another drive so they
don't record over themselves!
Once a show is recorded, you can edit out commercials using a program like
Vide Redo Suite or Lifextender. The second is only availabe of Vista so far
as I know.
I probably record three or four shows a day for my kids and they accummulate
up to about 50 shows before they start recording over themselves. So once a
week I either edit the commercials out and save the resultant file to a dvd
or to another drive or move some of the recorded shows until I can find the
time for editing.
I don't know about how well this works in VISTA or Windows 7 machines, but
in my XP Media Center, it's pretty flawless.
Let me know if you have more questions. Sorry that I'm responding from a
different address.
Clifford
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brett Boyer" <bboyer...@gmail.com>
To: "PC Audio Discussion List" <pc-audio@pc-audio.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 6:46 PM
Subject: Re: MEDIA CENTER COMPUTER
Can you set up schedules and things like that? How about just watching tv
through it?
bb
----- Original Message -----
From: "Blackwell, Clifford" <cblackw...@cityofmadison.com>
To: "'PC Audio Discussion List'" <pc-audio@pc-audio.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 9:56 AM
Subject: RE: MEDIA CENTER COMPUTER
I don't know of where to go, but I use an XP Media Center computer with
Jaws and Charter cable. It all works pretty slickly.
I've heard that there may be a little less functionality with VISTA or
Windows 7 Media Center computers, but can't attest to that.
If you have questions, I'll try to answer them.
Though I can easily find tv programs, record them and play them back and
play dvds, I can't say that the interface for other functions isn't a
little clunky from time to time.
Clifford
-----Original Message-----
From: pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org
[mailto:pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org] On Behalf Of Brett Boyer
Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 10:24 AM
To: PC Audio Discussion List
Subject: MEDIA CENTER COMPUTER
Hi everyone. I'm looking in to getting a new desktop pc but not really
sure where to start. I've been looking at media center computers because
I would like to hook up my tv / cable box so I can have some form of
control.
Any tips or places to go for some information?
thanks in advance
bb
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