My TV

My TV is where most of the fun is at with MCE 2005. The 2005 edition of the OS allows you to record up to three different programs at once using three different TV tuners. Our system only has one TV tuner installed so we can only watch or record one TV program at any one point. My TV is essentially a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) – similar to what TiVo and ReplayTV delivers. The UI for My TV has improved quite a bit although there are still some items that will annoy TiVo users. However, the PVR functionality works quite well. You can easily watch or listen to anything while the system records a show.

Users can schedule recordings using a built in electronic guide that comes from ZapIt. The guide is extremely accurate and provides up to 14 days of information at a time.

Here are some pictures of the MCE GUI. Yes – I'm a fan of the Food Network and of Star Trek episodes!

My Music

The first time you start up My Music- you will also be asked to add content to your library. My Music will automatically download album information if it can figure out your albums in your collection. However, My Music is extremely picky about how you label your ID3 tags found on your MP3 files. If there's one file that is off in labeling, My Music may not properly identify your music.

Browsing through the MP3 collection can be a pain sometimes if you don't have the files properly cataloged. This will encourage everyone to go through their MP3 collection and fix any ID3 naming problems. Of course – this is a real pain if you have thousands of MP3 files to browse through.

More Programs

The More Program section gives you access to software applications designed specifically for the MCE UI. Here you can record CDs or DVDs, set up an alarm clock, or perform various other activities. It's important to note that MCE 2005 does not provide the ability to record DVD-Video discs. You will need to purchase a third party application from either Sonic or Cyberlink to handle this functionality.

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