In This Chapter
Media Center was primarily designed to offer the best multimedia experience for people living in a space-constrained environment, such as a college dorm room. In such a setting, the idea of combining your personal computer, television, stereo, DVD player, and so on into a single space-saving device ”and all sharing a common display screen ”makes an enormous amount of sense. That was the starting point, but only because creators of the system saw those single-room dwellers as the most likely early adopters of Media Center. From the outset, the eyes of Microsoft and its partners have been on a much larger prize: the living rooms of the world. While the initial focus on dorms and one-room apartments moved the development of most network- related features to the proverbial back burner , networks are no longer uncommon even in these small-footprint living spaces. However, to appeal to that larger marketplace , the Media Center still needed a sound network strategy. Today, Media Center offers complete networking capability from its "2- foot " PC side, by virtue of the underlying Windows XP Professional operating system. That networking allows only limited entertainment-related functionality in Media Center, however. Look for that to change. As Microsoft continues down this development path , new technologies and capabilities will emerge that place Media Center at the hub of a household's entire digital experience. Video and audio data will eventually course throughout your home, just like water, heat, and electricity do today. Turn on the digital tap in any room of the house, and you'll have instant and complete access to your library of images, games , audio, and video entertainment. The Media Center machine you own today is just the beginning. Adding it to a network in your home may not completely rock your world at the outset, but that connectivity promises to spark a new generation of applications and activities to expand the definitions of both "fun" and "functional," as they pertain to home computers. |