Absolute Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Windows® XP Media Center®

Taking Inventory

Every PC manufacturer in the world does things a little differently. Most of the good

ones pay a lot of attention to the “out of box” (OOB) experience, which means

making sure that from the first moment when you slice open the packing tape, it’s

absolutely clear what you need to do next. In fact, many manufacturers take great

pains to ensure that the first thing you see when you open the box is an oversized

instruction sheet that makes your next step patently obvious (see Figure 2.1).

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ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO WINDOWS XP MEDIA CENTER

FIGURE 2.1

Your first view

inside the pack-

ing crate of a

Media PC should

be of a large set

of instructions,

leaving no guess-

work as to your

next step.

Well, at least that’s the ideal scenario. But no matter what product you’re assem-

bling, a good first step is to stop and take inventory. The last thing you want is

to spend two hours hooking everything up just right, only to find out that you’re

missing the one final piece needed to complete the project.

What’s in the Box?

First off, you should find all the things you’d normally find as part of a new PC:

■ A mouse

■ A keyboard

■ A monitor (if you bought one)

■ The computer itself (also known as the CPU)

■ A set of speakers (possibly a microphone as well)

■ Assorted cables and wires

■ Documents and software

Now here are a few extra, less-familiar items that typically come with Media PCs:

■ A remote control (or as many as three of them, depending on which make

and model you buy)

■ An infrared (IR) receiver (for sensing instructions from the remote control)

■ An infrared emitter (to relay instructions to a set-top box)

■ Even more assorted cables and wires, some of which bear connectors you may

not be used to seeing around a PC

If your Media PC’s manufacturer has done its homework in creating an ideal OOB

experience for you, you will have located everything you need to get started—right

on down to a couple of AA batteries for the remote control. However, there’s no way

for the manufacturer to know or plan for every possible contingency that may occur

in the user environment. In other words, they can’t anticipate exactly how you

want your Media PC hooked up, or what you may want to hook it up to. Don’t be

surprised if you find yourself making a fast trip to the local hardware or electronics

store for a few last-minute items.

What You May Need to Supply for Yourself

Your Media PC probably came with everything you need for a very basic installa-

tion. If you’re just connecting your modem to a telephone jack for a dial-up Internet

connection and planning to watch everything on your computer monitor with no

optional external inputs and outputs, it should be a simple matter of connecting

a coaxial cable from your TV-signal source to the back of your Media PC, then

connecting all the other parts supplied by the PC manufacturer.

However, if you already have a home network with a broadband connection, or some

existing entertainment appliances you want to integrate with your Media PC, you

will quickly find that you have veered off into the uncharted waters of a “custom

installation.” Here are a few things you may want to consider having on hand:

■ Some extra video cabling—There are several types, and in some cases, you may

need all of them to get your system put together just the way you want it. A

Media PC is usually configured to accept various video inputs. These can

come in the form of a coaxial cable (coax, for short), an S-Video cable, or

composite video (see Figure 2.2). The composite video typically arrives via a

CHAPTER 2 BASIC SETUP OF AN XP MEDIA CENTER SYSTEM

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