Page #210 (Internet Enhancements)

If you've used previous Windows versions to work with digital images or music files, you've no doubt struggled with cumbersome third-party utilities and complex file-transfer procedures. With an assortment of wizards and new features, Windows XP streamlines the experience of working with all types of digital media.

Digital Music

Windows Media Player 8 is included in both editions of Windows XP. As Figure 1-6 shows, it's especially adept at managing your music collection.

Use Windows Media Player to accomplish any of these everyday tasks:

• Play music CDs and download information about the artist, album, and tracks from the Internet.

• Copy ("rip") tracks from a CD and store them as digital music files on your hard disk. Windows Media Player 8 supports the popular MP3 format and Windows Media Audio (WMA) files.
• Organize digital media files in the My Music folder. Windows XP stores downloaded information about each track in the properties for the digital music file and uses downloaded CD cover images to identify each folder.
• Copy music files from your hard drive to a portable music player, or use a CD-R/CD-RW drive to create custom CDs.

Figure 1-6. Use Windows Media Player 8 to copy tracks from music CDs to files on your hard disk. Then create custom playlists and copy the music to portable players and even custom CDs.

For detailed information about digital music features in Windows XP, see Chapter 17, "Using Windows Media Player."

Digital Pictures

Thanks to digital cameras, you no longer have to pay for expensive film developing. Figure 1-7 shows the Scanner And Camera Wizard, which does a superb job of connecting to newer digital cameras and flash memory cards so that you can quickly preview captured images and transfer them to your hard drive. By adjusting a few options, you can automate this process so that transferring digital images requires almost no extra effort from you.

Managing a large collection of digital photos is easier, too, thanks to file viewing tools built into Windows Explorer. Figure 1-8 shows the new Filmstrip view of the My Pictures folder. Each image in the folder appears as a thumbnail along the bottom of the window, with the currently selected image visible in a much larger preview area that occupies the top of the folder window. You can also view the contents of a folder as a slide show.

The My Pictures folder includes links to commercial services where you can order professionally printed copies of digital images. If you have a color printer, use the Photo Printing Wizard (shown in Figure 1-9) to crop and resize images; then use the layout tools to combine multiple images on a single sheet of paper.

Figure 1-7. The Scanner And Camera Wizard walks you through the process of transferring images from an external device to your hard disk.

Figure 1-8. The new Filmstrip view combines thumbnails and a large Preview area to make it easy to quickly inspect the contents of a folder full of digital photos.

Figure 1-9. The Photo Printing Wizard allows you to lay out multiple images on a single sheet, to avoid wasting expensive paper and other supplies.

To learn how to set up a digital camera or scanner and manage image files in Windows XP, see Chapter 18, "Organizing and Editing Images."

Digital Video

If you have the correct hardware, Windows XP gives you access to a passable set of video playback and editing tools.

• On any system equipped with a DVD drive and a compatible decoder (software or hardware), you can play back prerecorded DVD discs in Windows Media Player. This feature is especially useful for frequent travelers with Windows XP-equipped notebooks; skip the in-flight movie and watch a DVD from your own collection instead.
• Use the Windows Movie Maker program to capture video from a cam-corder or VCR; then edit it and add titles, narration, and other effects. No one will confuse Movie Maker with a professional strength video editing package, but its capabilities are good enough for casual use. It's particularly effective at compressing video clips down to sizes that can be sent easily via e-mail or posted on a Web page.