4. Watching and Managing Movies with Windows Media Center
Windows Media Center is, of course, the premium
environment in Windows for enjoying digital media content such as
photos, music, movies, and, yes, even live and recorded TV shows. But
Media Center — isn't
just for people with expensive home theater setups. There's no reason
you can't use Media Center with a mouse and keyboard on your desktop PC
or notebook. In fact, you may find it quite enjoyable to do just that.
NOTE
Because it is a premium feature, Windows Media
Center is not available in all Windows 7 product versions. You have to
be using Windows 7 Home Premium or better (Professional, Enterprise, or
Ultimate) to get Windows Media Center.
As shown in Figure 10,
Windows Media Center is a seamless, home theater–like application that
works best full screen but can absolutely be enjoyed in a floating,
resizable window alongside your other applications if you feel like
doing a bit of multitasking.
To use Media Center to manage your digital movies,
navigate to the Pictures + Videos experience in the Start page and then
choose Video Library. The first time you enter this area, Media Center
will ask if you'd like to choose other folders for locating videos. If
you've already configured the Videos library to watch the folders you
use for videos, or you intend to only use the default folders for video
content, you can select No.
NOTE
Unlike Windows Media Player and Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Media Center actually does
integrate with the folders you monitor via the Videos library. So if
you've configured Videos to aggregate content from other locations,
those videos will automatically appear in this application as God
intended. Hey, one out of three ain't bad when you're Microsoft.
NOTE
Confusingly, the Windows 7 version of Windows
Media Center also includes a top-level Movies option, so you're
forgiven for thinking that this might be the place to go to see your
digital movies. It is not. Instead, Movies is designed as a front end
for online movies, like movie trailers, as well as DVD movies you might
play via Media Center. Videos stored on your PC will be found in
Pictures + Videos, Video Library.
If you choose Yes, Media Center will walk you
through its Library Setup wizard. From here, you can easily add other
folders to monitor for video content.
NOTE
If you do add monitored folders via Windows
Media Center, those locations will be added to the appropriate
libraries as well. So if you add a folder with video content here, that
folder will be added to the Videos library too.
The Video Library experience, shown in Figure 11,
provides a horizontally-oriented grid of videos through which you can
navigate by either name or date. To watch a video, simply select it.
NOTE
Although Windows Media Center offers tag-based
navigation for music and photos, it does not do so for videos. To
navigate your video collection by tag, you'll need to use Windows Live
Photo Gallery.
In a related vein, you can't tag, rate, or add
captions to videos in Media Center. Essentially, Windows Media Center
simply offers a high-end place for video consumption. If you want to
interact with videos, you'll need to look elsewhere.
