A favorite band probably spend a good bit of time conceptualizing on their album art. Pay credit to this creative innovation, and give the media center something to show when these tracks are playing, by embedding album art in the MP3 collection. A trial was put through the basics in the 2007 guide to beating your MP3 library into shape , and the best sources and tools for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems in a 2008 album art guide. Any tool used, having album art consistent across a library might feel a bit obsessive. There's a certain assurance payoff when the TV displays similar art as an iPod.
Another thing is that commercials are worth their short time commitment, but at times you just want to watch exactly 24 minutes of pure television. So one would like to have the option of removing commercial ads from recorded TV. Windows 7 Media Center plug-in Lifextender does the trick inside your hooked-up PC, while DVRMSToolbox runs through Media-Center-recorded files on its own, and can then export them to more generally usable formats than Windows' locked-down system.
Boxee is the basic XBMC media center application with a different look and an enhanced social flair. It also has the ability to support a lot of independent content creators and independent developers, whether by the official App Box, by adding repositories of new apps, or through stand-alone RSS feeds. Great sources for Boxee application have been covered and content in a quick Boxee guide.
There is also the provision for renaming files so that a user can easily identify them in Windows 7. Media player applications also try their best to find out exactly what TV shows and movies you've got into storage, but then they tend to have a hard time keeping up with the naming schemes deployed by a variety of applications and error-prone humans. Grab an application like MediaRenamer (for movies and television) or TV rename and beat your files into a shape that XBMC, Boxee, Windows, Plex, or any other media center can figure out easily.
The next major feature is the ability to plug-in Hulu into the Windows 7 Media Center. It's is,neverthless, not an officially supported streaming site, like Netflix or CBS, but Hulu's own Hulu Desktop that can be worked into Windows Media Center with a tricky little back-and-forth plug-in. Install Hulu Desktop Integration. One can get an icon for Hulu among your video options. One will will to simply click on it, and Windows Media Center shuts down by itself, it opens up Hulu Desktop; when one is done with the task of watching Hulu, the application than closes that down and re-opens Media Center. This is really something that is clever and also at the same time very helpful.
Ripping DVDs could have never been easier than this with the new Windows 7 Windows Media Center. Instead of finding out halfway through the final disc of The Lord of the Rings ; The Twin Towers that your Netflix disc is scratched and repairing it is beyong you, one could rip the suspect DVD to a digital file and play it from there, all this possible with just a small skip. A tool has been built called DVD Rip to make it a really simple process in Windows, but it's quite easy to pull off with HandBrake or VLC Media Player on Windows, Mac, or Linux systems.
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