Customer Reviews

PC Magazine Guide Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Basically, this guide will seem very much like it was written by Microsoft's marketing and bribe department. Not much substance and very little in the way of teaching you how to utilize Windows Media Center 2005 fully or how to use it when building your own Media PC.

This is the best instruction manual for some one coming to Media Center 2005. It was the only comprehensive book on the subject I could find and like all tech information from PC World is well written and totally understandable for the average PC user.

PC Magazine Guide Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
At best, this book was a gross dissappointment. I was written as if it were a sales brochure and is the worst waste of money by me in recent memory. Actually when I researched Amazon Books, I was hoping that Dr.Indera E. Murphy, the auther of two excellent books: No Stress Tech Guide to Works 8, and No Stress Tech Guide to Windows XP. No such luck. When I was looking for a book on XP Media Center Edition, there were a number of choices, but none by Dr. Murphy. Of those available, I probably made the worst possible choice.

Never having used a TiVo or Media Center before I was interested in a book that would help get acquainted with MC as well as help me use all of the features. MC is not that intuitive to use so a good manual is needed to get full functionality. This book aint it.

This book does tell you how to use MC features but leaves the detail up to you. For example, it may show the menu you use for changing a setting but not how to drill down to it is left up to you.

It's sorta helpful but I'm sure there are better books out there.

Surprised that PC Magazine put their logo on this rather poor book.

I am recently retired and traded in my "office" computer for a media center in order to deal with pictures, videos and music. Although I had been working with documents since 1981, the entertainment category was new to me. The PC Magazine Guide to Windows XP Media Center was a great help.

At last. Microsoft's long awaited (and long dreaded to some) big entry into consumer electronics. There have been earlier forays by Microsoft, like the XBox. But nothing to this extent. Ulick goes over Microsoft's ambitious attempt to be the focal point of home electronics. He shows how the Media Center Edition PC can, with suitable configuration, replace a bevy of devices. Like a CD play, TiVo, VHS player, DVD player and home stereo, and any attendant remote controls.

One immediate criticism is that the name is poorly chosen. Ungainly. Cumbersome. Compare that to names like FireWire, WiFi, Blu-Ray. Who is actually going to say "Media Center PC" or "Media Center Edition"? These names look like a committee design. A little surprising, because Microsoft has shown skill in name choosing. Most obviously with "Microsoft Windows". So that if you say "windows", most people now associate it with Microsoft, even though X-Windows predated it by years.

As to the actual technical capabilities shown in the book, it seems competently done. Each major task is probably outdone by existing products devoted to that task. Like the playing of audio files and music CDs. Or the playing and burning of DVDs. But vendors of those products should not be complacent. Each task implemented here seems to have been done with a minimum level of functionality that might be enough for most consumers. Microsoft is gambling that the integrated convenience will outweigh any loss of little used, high end functionality.

Sound familiar? This is a reprise of how Microsoft revved up its Windows in the 80s and 90s. Or perhaps more cogently, how it used the integrated aspect of its Office suite to overtake competitors offering only specific products and not a suite.

It looks like media centers are beginning to come of age. For several years the PC manufacturers have been markeing, if not media centers, at least PC's with a lot of media equipment. Now they've begun to stabailze the hardware configuration and combined them with the Media Center version of Windows XP.

Media Center PC's give you almost total control of the various devices that can be attached to them. You can record video, move your CD's to a hard drive, and of course use various kinds of editing devices to create your own media by combining several sources.

This book is a complete introduction to digital media and what you can do with it.