PC Magazine Guide Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 [Paperback]

Terry Ulick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0764569783 | ISBN-13: 978-0764569784 | Edition: 1

Learn to use your power well

As much as this book is about how to buy and use a Media Center PC, down deep it is.about how owning one changes the way you watch TV and manage your entertain-ment content. Like all good revolutions, this one empowers you.

The revolution has begun-in your living room!

Now PC Magazine gives you control of this new era in entertainment

One device. One remote. If that isn't a revolutionary approach to entertainment, what is? Now a former PC Magazine contributing editor and digital lifestyle pioneer shows you how to activate all your MCE's power. You'll never again worry about missing the end of a TV show, finding that special photo, or having the perfect soundtrack ready to go. You can even say good-bye to your stereo, DVD player, and TiVo -- your MCE PC replaces them all!

You'll be empowered to
* Select and set up a Media Center Edition PC
* Decide whether to use it for general computing
* Record and pause live TV
* Edit, store, and share digital photos and videos
* Control all your media with one remote
* Connect and use both a TV and standard monitor-at once
* Build your home network around your MCE
* Transfer content to DVD
* Put Media Center on any TV in your home with a Media Center Extender

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Learn to use your power well

As much as this book is about how to buy and use a Media Center PC, down deep it is…about how owning one changes the way you watch TV and manage your entertain-ment content. Like all good revolutions, this one empowers you.

The revolution has begun–in your living room!

Now PC Magazine gives you control of this new era in entertainment

One device. One remote. If that isn’t a revolutionary approach to entertainment, what is? Now a former PC Magazine contributing editor and digital lifestyle pioneer shows you how to activate all your MCE’s power. You’ll never again worry about missing the end of a TV show, finding that special photo, or having the perfect soundtrack ready to go. You can even say good-bye to your stereo, DVD player, and TiVo — your MCE PC replaces them all!

You’ll be empowered to

• Select and set up a Media Center Edition PC
• Decide whether to use it for general computing
• Record and pause live TV
• Edit, store, and share digital photos and videos
• Control all your media with one remote
• Connect and use both a TV and standard monitor–at once
• Build your home network around your MCE
• Transfer content to DVD
• Put Media Center on any TV in your home with a Media Center Extender

About the Author

Terry Ulick lives on the front lines of the tech revolution. An early PC Magazine columnist, he created the first online digital photo service for AOL® and developed ways to put TV information into MSN TV, WebTV®, and UltimateTV®.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (October 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764569783
• ISBN-13: 978-0764569784
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,572,694 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Complete waste of money, March 24, 2005

By 

MarkInCalifornia "Mark" (LA, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PC Magazine Guide Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (Paperback)

If you own MCE 2005, don't bother with this book. After "reading" this book (which took about 30 minutes), I learned absolutely nothing more than I learned by playing with the menus and options in MCE.

I was expecting a book that would give more technical tips and such, but there was none to be found. I suppose if you didn't own MCE and didn't have means to go the Microsoft website to learn the basics, this book might be interesting. Otherwise, don't bother.

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Does this guy work for Microsoft or something?, March 7, 2005

By 

R P (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: PC Magazine Guide Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (Paperback)

2 things:

1. This reads like an extended brochure from Microsoft. There is never any acknowledgement that any kind of software or device not bundled with media center pc would ever be useful. Let's be honest: the Tivo UI and user experience still beats the cr*p out of MCE. I own both so let's just acknowledge that that is still the case. But that possibility is not even discussed. They're not even compared. Anyway, I have no agenda against MCE (as I said, I just bought one!) but it is not the end all and be all. Just one more example would be photo managment. If you use MCE to manage your photos rather one of the many excellent standalone photo management and editing applications (like Adobe), you're just not using the best available application. Also, what should you do if you have four TVs in your house and want them all to be watchable at the same time on different channels? Are you supposed to buy two MCE's with 2 tuners each? Anyway, I would have liked a book that objectively discussed setting up the best system and acknowledged both MCE's strengths and weaknesses. That would be a book written for consumers. This seemes like a book written to please MSFT's PR department.

2. It's not all that detailed -- don't expect a detailed how to manual. For instance, if you are going to set your MCE at the center of your home network, you are going to very quickly move beyond this book in terms of thinking about how to do that.

Other than that it's a good introduction to MCE.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worked for me!, October 23, 2005

By 

Don W. Allen (Southern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: PC Magazine Guide Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (Paperback)

My first purchase of a Media Version computer left me completely baffeled as no instructions came with it. This book is not a step by step 1,2,3 how to guide as I expected. But rather it is an in depth description of how XP Media works, what it is designed to do. For me, a beginner owner, it is extremely helpful. It answered a lot of my questions.