Ian Jackson compares and contrasts the three
main HTPC applications available
The Home Theatre PC (HTPC) has become an
increasingly prevalent addition to our homes. Gone are the days when only the geekiest
of enthusiasts had a PC providing their multimedia needs, instead these
extremely useful computers now sit underneath most serious movie and music
fan's televisions. Nevertheless, normal desktop operating systems simply aren't
designed to be accessed from the other side of the room - menus are too small,
fonts are difficult to read and using a keyboard and mouse as a sofa controller
is cumbersome and inaccurate.
Fortunately there are now a number of
dedicated HTPC applications that are designed to sit on top of your normal
operating system, providing an experience that's just as easy to use from the
comfort of your sofa as a conventional set top box or disk player. Today we
will be looking at the three most popular applications, discussing their pros
and cons and teaching you how to use their most commonly accessed features.
Windows Media Center
Windows Media Center is an application
that's built into Windows XP MCE, certain versions of Windows Vista and all
versions of Windows 7 - apart from the practically invisible Starter edition.
It's worth noting, though, that if you are using either of the older operating
systems, the interface is a little different to the version we will be
discussing today. Obviously the first major pro of WMC is that it's 'free' - in
that, once you have purchased the ubiquitous Windows 7, licence no further
expenditure is required. This fact alone makes it one of the most widely used
HTPC interfaces around, also virtually guaranteeing peripheral support for any
media remote or keyboard you end up purchasing.
Although it's the choice many enthusiasts
love to hate, a properly setup WMC HTPC is also a capable, feature-rich choice
that has some unique advantages compared to other open source offerings.
Windows Media Center is easy to use for the
most part, and unlike some of its competitors, you can add content and perform
the initial setup stages all from the comfort of your armchair. Adding content
is a simple process and you can either wait for files to be added to the library
in real time, or let it add files in the background as you continue to use the
application. One of the key features of Windows Media Center is its ability to
integrate seamlessly with the majority of TV tuners on the market, allowing you
to use your PC as a Freeview digital video recorder. It even supports multiple
tuners, so if you have more than one card (or a single card with multiple
tuners) you can watch one channel while you record another.
the
Xbox 360 games console
Another great feature of Windows Media
Center is its ability to use extenders. These essentially work a little bit
like a remote desktop client - everything you can do on your desktop you can
also do in another room by hooking up a media centre extender. There used to be
a number of standalone extenders on the market, but the only one still
supported and available to buy is the Xbox 360 games console. Although older
versions of Microsoft's ubiquitous games console are far too noisy to use for
acceptable media playback, the latest versions are both efficient and discrete.
