The Bottom Line

It's taken a few years for Media Center to take off, but with MCE 2005 it's finally a big thing. As time goes by, I envision consumers adding Media Center PCs to their home theater systems, for both television recording and music playback. It's a solution to a lot of different problems.

If you're a lucky owner of a Media Center PC, keep these key points in mind:

• Media Center is nothing more than a separate remote-controlled interface that sits on top of the regular Windows XP interface.

• The latest version of MCE is Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 although the only way to get it is to buy a new Media Center PC.

• One Media Center PC can replace several different audio/video devices including a hard disk recorder, CD player, and DVD player.

• You can use your Media Center PC to watch television shows, as well as record shows on its hard disk for future playback.

• A Media Center PC can also serve as a digital CD jukebox, after you've ripped all your CDs to hard disk.