Section 16.4. Music: Your PC as Jukebox: Home Premium Ultimate

16.4. Music: Your PC as Jukebox: Home Premium ¢ Ultimate

You'll probably be listening to a lot of music in Media Center. If you'd rather use Windows Media Player, that's fine, but you can do a lot more with music in Media Centerlike using a remote control.

Tip: Media Center musicany music, actuallysounds best on good speakers . To get the most out of your sound system, though, you'll need to connect them correctly, take the room's size and layout into consideration, and consider equalization options. If you'd like some guidance, you can download a free bonus appendix to this chapter that describes how to set up a surround-sound system step by step. It's available on this book's "Missing CD" at www.missingmanuals.com.

Use the arrow keys (on the keyboard or remote) to scroll through the main Media Center menu (Music, TV+Movies, and so on). Select Music to get started, and then, from the Music options, select Music Library. (The Music Library is, wildly enough, where your music is stored.) If Media Center asks you to set up the Music library automatically, select OK.

Once setup is complete, you're ready to rock and roll!

16.4.1. Your Music Library

Sooner or later, it will occur to you that your copy of Windows Vista actually comes with two massive music- and video-playing programs: Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player. Inevitably, there's quite a bit of duplication.

Fortunately, your PC has only one video and music library, which serves up the same music and movies to both Media Center and Media Player. If you've already added music to Media Player (Chapter 14), then it shows up in Media Center, too.

16.4.2. Ripping CDs

To rip a CD means to copy its songs onto your computer. You now have two different programs that can do the rippingMedia Center and Media Player.

Truth is, Media Player is the better program to use for ripping CDs. For one thing, it lets you rip only some of the songs from a CD. For another, you can configure Media Player to start ripping automatically whenever you insert a CD into your drive. And you're not wasting any effort, since all CD music winds up in the same central PC music library, whether Media Player or Media Center does the work.

Still, Media Center can rip CDs if you're so inclined. Here's how it works:

Open Media Center and insert a CD .

The CD starts playing. If you want to listen to the CD, that's fine; it can keep playing while you rip the tunes. If you don't want to listen to the CD, move the mouse to the lower right of the screen and click the Pause button.
Click Copy CD. When asked if you're sure, click Yes .

Ripping an entire CD (that is, copying it to your hard drive) takes about 5 minutes. Once the ripping process is done, nothing happens at all; you see only a little note that the ripping process is complete. To rip another CD, eject the first one and insert another.

After all the ripping is finished, click the Back button (top-left corner of Media Center). You arrive at the main Music screen (Figure 16-8). Here, you can view the song list, view the queue, and select Visualize to listen to the music with wild, laser-light-show graphics.

Figure 16-8. When you insert a CD while Media Center is on, the CD plays automatically. Several choices are then displayed on the left side: Copy CD, View Queue, Visualize, Play Slide Show, Shuffle, Repeat, and Buy Music. To rip the CD to your PC, select Copy CD .

To return to the Music Library, click Back again ; select Music, and then Music Library. (Media Center remote controls usually have a Music button that shortens those steps.)

Tip: You can edit album or song information from the queue list as detailed in the previous section, or you can edit them directly from the Music Library. To edit a song, album, or album artist, locate the item to edit in the library, right-click that item, and select Edit. You can change the album title, artist name , and genre. This is particularly helpful for songs that are listed in the wrong genre or for a remake or live version of a song you already have on your hard drive.

16.4.3. Playing Music

The first thing you'll notice when you open the Music part of Media Center is that there are songs in therebut not all of them are yours! In fact, if you've never worked with music before, you may have a dozen or so songs in there you've never heard of.

Consider them a little gift from Microsoft, presumably so that you can start fooling around with the Media Center even if you've never downloaded or ripped a single song in your life. Figure 16-9 shows you how.

Figure 16-9. Use the arrow keys to highlight the sort criterion you want (albums, artists...), and then use the down arrow to browse your collection. You can then play the entire album or one song, burn the album to a CD, delete a song from the list, add the song to a queue, and more. Return to the Artists list by repeatedly clicking the Back button .

Tip: Figure 16-9 shows that you can return to the Artists list by repeatedly clicking the Back button. Depending on your PC model, though, there might be a more efficient way.Your keyboard or remote control may offer a button for Music or Music Library. If so, clicking it takes you back to the main Music Library menu page.

Music you've ripped shows up in the list illustrated in Figure 16-9, too. You can burrow to it through any of the criteria headings: Artist, Genre, whatever.

When you've drilled all the way down to a song's name, you'll see a list of options at the left side of the screen:

Play Song (or Play Album) . If you have a special media-control keyboard, or a remote control, you can use it to skip songs, pause and play, control the volume, and so on. If not, position the mouse at the bottom-right corner of the screen, and use the playback controls that pop up there.
Add to Queue . This option presumes that some other song is already playing; it means, "line up this song to play next ."
Buy Music . Takes you online so you can pay for more tunes. (As you'll discover, the music store is not designed to be operated from across the room. You'll have to move close to the screen and use the keyboard and mouse.)
Edit Info . Change the song's title, rating, and so on. (The cellphone-like number pad at the right side is intended to help you input text using only your remote control. It ain't pretty, but it works.)
Delete . In other words, you've had quite enough of this song.

16.4.4. Buy or "Rent" Music Online

Ripping music from your CD collection is one legal way to build up your library. Buying it online is another (see Figure 16-10).

Figure 16-10. To see what's available in the way of online media, open Media Center, select Music, and select More Music. Now choose Music & Radio. There are lots of choices, including VH1, MTV Overdrive, XM Satellite Radio, Napster, Musicmatch, AOL Music, and Live365.com. To obtain music from any of them, click the one you like best and work through the subscription process. Once you've done that, follow the directions from the media's Web site to select and download music. Many of these music services also give you access to Internet radio .

You'll soon discover that the online music-store racket has evolved into two different business models:

Buy the songs for $1 each . These songs are copy-protected , but you can copy them to up to four other PCs, burn them to CD, or download them to a pocket music player. Usually.
Rent the songs . You pay $10 or $15 a month for the right to download all the music you wantflat fee, baby. The only downside is that when you stop paying the fee, all your music self-destructs. You're left with nothing but memories.

(One of the most heavily promoted of such services is MTV's Urge service, described on page 477.)

Note: Songs from rental services don't look or play any differently than music you've ripped from your CD collection, or music you've purchased. The only difference you'll notice is that you can't burn the downloaded rental music onto a DVD or CD. If you try, you'll get a message that says, "Some of the music in your burn list has been protected with media usage rights. Protected files will play on portable music players, but cannot be burned to a CD or DVD. Would you like to continue?"You can thank the record company lawyers for that one.

16.4.5. Search the Library

With Media Center you have the option to search for what you want using your remote control, keyboard, or mouse, as with just about any other task in Media Center. In Media Center, select Music, select Search, and then enter a search term by typing letters using the numeric keypad, your remote control, or your keyboard. Clear letters using the Clear button on the remote or the Backspace key on the keyboard. Click the Mode button to change from symbols, to lowercase, to uppercase letters. The search is refined as more letters are added.

16.4.6. Playlists

A playlist is a set of songs that you've hand-picked and hand- sequenced . They might have originated on a whole bunch of different CDs, but you think they go well together. You can read more about playlists in the Media Player chapter (page 473)because guess what? Windows Vista is smart enough to make the same playlists show up in both programs. Any playlists you create in Media Player appear in Media Center, and vice versa.

Auto Playlists are self-building, self-updating lists of songs that change as you listen, download, and change ratings. These, too, are described in Chapter 14but unlike Media Player, Media Center comes prestocked with Auto Playlists. Here you'll find playlists of music you listen to the most, music you've listened to in the last month, music rated at four or five stars, and so on. As your preferences and playback habits change, so do the items in the playlists.

Note: Media Center has playlists for videos and pictures, too.

To view all of your playlistsones you made, and Auto Playlists Microsoft madeselect Music Music Library Playlists within Media Center.

Click Play to play a highlighted playlist immediately, or click Add to Queue to play it after whatever's currently playing. You can also delete a playlist by selecting Delete.

16.4.6.1. Creating Playlists

You can create playlists of your own in Media Center, but it's a little bit awkward . You start the process by assembling a queue , as described next. Once you have a queue in place, select Save As Playlist, name the playlist, and click Save. Your playlists are listed (in a playlist list , of course) on the Playlists tab of Media Center.

All of this explains why you'll probably be a lot happier building your playlists in Media Player , as described in Chapter 14. The playlists you build there also show up in Media Center.

Tip: Once you've set up a playlist, you can immortalize it by burning it to a new, custom CD. Suddenly, you're a one-person record company. Any songs you've imported from your own CD collection or bought for $1 apiece online are fair game. (You generally can't burn songs you've only "rented," using one of those online-music-store monthly subscription programs.)

16.4.7. The Music Queue

A queue is a waiting line, whether it's the one at the Department of Motor Vehicles or the list of songs you've lined up to play in Media Center. The music queue is a way to set it and forget itto slate certain songs, albums, or playlists to play all afternoon without your intervention.

16.4.7.1. Creating a Queue

You can add music to your Media Center queue in any of three chunks :

An album at a time . Select Music Music Library Album, and click an album to add. Click Add to Queue.
A song at a time . Select Music Music Library. Select a songs name, right-click it, and, from the shortcut menu, choose Add to Queue.

Tip: A remote control, of course, doesn't have a right mouse button. It does, however, have a More Info button, which does the same thing.
A playlist at a time . Select Music Music Library Playlist. Click a playlist; click Add to Queue.

GEM IN THE ROUGH
Listen to the Radio

If your PC contains a radio-tuner cardmost TV tuner cards include radio tuners, tooMedia Center's Music Library also offers an option called Radio. That's not Internet radiowe're talking genuine , bona fide, over-the-air FM radio.

Open Media Center and select Music Radio. Use the Seek buttons to find the station you want. You can also select Save as Preset to save the station for easier access next time.

(If you don't have a radio tuner, you can still listen to hundreds of Internet radio stationsbut not with Media Center; you need Windows Media Player 11 for that. See Chapter 14.)

16.4.7.2. Managing the queue

The queue begins to play the minute you add something to it. If you want to edit, clear, or get info on it, select "Now Playing and Queue" in Media Center's main menu. Select Music View Queue.

Tip: While a song is playing, you can also view and edit the queue by clicking once on the album's icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen.

At this point, you can delve in using three different methods :

Edit the queue . From the Queue page, select Edit Queue. You can now delete any song from the list by clicking the X, or change the order of the queue by clicking the up and down arrows next to any song. When you're finished, click Done.
Scramble the queue . From the Queue page, select Shuffle. The songs in the list now play in random order.
Empty the queue . From the Queue page, select Clear Queue. (No songs are actually deleted from your hard drive or library.)
Manage the queue . Right-click any song in the queue list (or click the More Info button on your remote) and select View Details. Choose Play Song to play the song now. Choose Delete to permanently delete the song from the computer. Click Edit to change details about the song, like the song name, artist name, and rating.