Basic DVD Playback

One of the admirable qualities of the Media Center design is that it knows when to lay back and keep a low profile. You just want to relax and watch a movie? Slip the disc into the DVD drive and let Media Center do the rest.

Watching FullScreen

When you put a DVD in the drive while Media Center is displayed, it will automatically begin playing. The entire Media Center screen will be used to display the DVD movie. If you are using Media Center in a window on your Windows XP desktop, you may want to switch to full-screen viewing mode to maximize the visual playback quality.

If you insert a DVD when Media Center is not running, Windows XP will prompt you to see what you want to do with the disc (see Figure 11.1). Choose Play DVD Video Using Media Center.

Figure 11.1. In this pop-up window, you can select Media Center to watch your DVD.

tip

If you want Media Center to be launched every time you insert a DVD movie disc, check the box for Always Do the Selected Action in the What Do You Want to Do dialog box that Windows XP displays when you insert the disc. (This occurs only if Media Center is not running when you insert the DVD.)

What do you do if you inadvertently make the wrong choice in the What Do You Want Windows to Do dialog box and, for instance, choose to always have Windows open a DVD movie disc using Windows Media Player? If you want to change your AutoPlay choices at any point for any reason, it's not hard to do. Just open My Computer from the Windows XP Start menu, and right-click on the DVD drive icon. Choose AutoPlay from the menu (see Figure 11.2), and make your new selections.

Figure 11.2. Right-clicking on the DVD icon shown here lets you reconfigure your AutoPlay choices.

Playing a DVD That Is Already in the Drive

To launch a previously loaded DVD, follow this simple procedure:

1. Press Start on the remote.

2. Select Play DVD to display the default DVD menu.

3. Select Play to begin viewing the DVD.

Controlling DVD Playback with the Remote Control

In addition to the Media Center remote control's basic transport featuresplay, stop, fast-forward, rewind, skip forward, and skip back (for details, see Chapter 4, Table 4.1)there are a few special functions you may want to use when operating your Media Center DVD player with the remote control. Table 11.1 lists them.

Table 11.1. Remote Control Commands for DVD Playback

To	Press
Access the DVD's on-disc feature menu	DVD Menu
Display the "chapter" or section of the DVD that is currently playing	More Info
Advance to the next chapter	Skip
Reverse to the last chapter	Replay
Zoom	More Info

Controlling DVD Playback with the Mouse and Keyboard

Most of the transport controlsshown in Figure 11.3are also available with the mouse (see Chapter 5, "Navigating XP Media Center's '2-Foot' Interface") and the keyboard (see Table 5.5).

Figure 11.3. While the DVD is playing, just move the mouse and the cursor, and transport controls will be displayed.

tip

To access the on-disc DVD menu from the keyboard, press Ctrl+Shift+M.

Although there are keyboard shortcuts for the skip forward and skip back features (Ctrl+F and Ctrl+B, respectively), skipping is not supported with the mouse alone. Likewise, the mouse does not give you a direct way to display the DVD's on-disc menu, though after the menu is opened using the remote control or keyboard, you can easily navigate and choose menu options with the mouse.