While some in the media are urging home users to hold off on Windows Vista, or to purchase a new system with Vista already installed, others, such as myself, have ignored that advice and have installed Vista on my home machine. Specifically, I installed Windows Vista Ultimate because I wanted to get a feel for what the new Media Center Edition looks and operates like. I have been a fan of the Media Center Edition since putting together an AMD-based Media Center PC last year.
I grew accustomed to watching TV on my time, rather than having to sit in front of a TV at a specified time. I also enjoy fast forwarding through the commercials ala Tivo, but without having to pay a monthly fee to do so. With the beta version of Windows Vista Media Center Edition, I experienced a bit of quirkiness, so much so that a wait for the shipping version was in order. With the new Media Center Edition in Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Vista Home Premium, things have changed a lot since MCE 2005, the main things of which are interface enhancements. Virtually everything is now visual. Gone is the harsh blue background and in its place is a more subtle blue that melds well with the other color elements in Vista MCE. We'll take a look at some of the enhancements to this neat extension of the Window Vista operating system.

Movies on local channels include a picture icon of what is playing. Clicking on the picon will give more information such as what time and channel the movie will play.

The More TV screen is interesting in that it acts as a browser of sorts, enabling you to click a variety of "channels" and garner more information. For example, you can click Vongo, a pay service that will enable you to download and watch movies from the Vongo Library for $9.99 a month. You can view previews of the movies as well before you download. Click on Fox Sports news and you can view news stories from all the major sports genres, scores, and other sports bits, including video highlights and photos, as well as sports schedules. And finally you can also watch DVD movies via TV+movies as well.

You can play music, burn CDs, download from online music vendors, and more.
Music
Music enables you to sort your music files as well as play them. When you insert a music CD into your CD drive and play it with Media Center, it pops up the album art, showing the name of the artist and the song. It shows track time and features a background countdown timer. You can browse your music files by year as well so you can play say 80s tunes if you wanted to. From Music, you can copy the CD, view the music you have Queue'd, play a slide show, and shuffle the tracks as well as buy music from an online music seller. One notable feature about copying a CD is Windows Media Player enables you to copy protect the music that you copy so there is no unlicensed distribution or sharing. Although it is an option, it is available nonetheless for those who wish to do their part to help prevent rampant piracy of music CDs. The Music Library shows you the album art for each album CD that you load into Media Center. In addition to listening to your music CDs and playlists, you can also listen to local radio stations and create presets of your favorite stations.

Pictures can be viewed by name and date. you can also play slide shows and add a simple transition. Pictures + Video
This provision in Media Center enables you to view pictures that you have added to Media Center as well as view videos. You add the media as you insert a device such as a USB flash drive or an external hard disk drive. When you do so, you have the opportunity to add pictures or videos. What Vista MCE does is enables you to select watch folders for new media. It will watch for music, images, and videos that appear in the folders that you specify. You can specify folders that are on the host computer, shared folders on another computer on the network, or from both the host and other computers. After you've added the pictures, you can view them individually or in a slide show, by name or by date.
Tasks
Vista MCE Tasks is where you can burn CDs and DVDs, sync your MP3 player or USB thumb drive, setup a Windows Media Center Extender, and make setting changes that affect your media. These range from visualizations when listening to music, to viewing pictures in random order. You can also adjust the recorder settings such as video quality, TV limit settings, and the record on drive. Tasks are essentially the setup module for Media Center Edition.

Tasks is essentially where you go to setup MCE on your computer. For example, in the image above, you can select the recording quality of the TV shows you set to record, as well as change drives. For those who haven't used Windows Media Center at all, this version is better than previous versions and exploits a lot of features that Microsoft would hope PC users would want when looking for an entertainment hub. Vista MCE is visual, has a lot more access to content (paid and free), and is an ideal solution for those who like to catch up with live TV while on their computer. A TV tuner card is needed for this functionality, an extra cost sure, but after that, there are no monthly service fees to watch free TV, unless of course you wish to download and watch movies from the various services that you can subscribe to. In all, Vista MCE is a huge improvement over Windows Media Center Edition 2005.



Source:Microsoft Windows Vista Media Center Edition