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

Controlling My Music Playback

After you have located the songs you want to hear using the techniques discussed

previously, Music Center allows you full control of the playback experience with

your remote control, your mouse, or your keyboard:

■ Remote control—To play, pause, skip forward or backward, and so on, use

the transport controls as described in Chapter 4 (see Figure 4.1).

■ Mouse—Just move the mouse to make the audio transport controls appear

onscreen (see Figure 5.1 in Chapter 5).

■ Keyboard—To control audio functions, use the keyboard shortcuts for audio

controls, as described in Chapter 5 (see Table 5.5) .

Additional Audio Options

My Music gives you several additional ways to customize your listening experience,

including the capability to repeat and visualize audio tracks.

Repeat

Along with the Play and Shuffle playback options offered in My Music, you can also

choose to repeat a track. Just select the Repeat tab, available from the Now Playing

screen (see Figure 14.13). Place a check mark next to the tracks you want to repeat.

When you’ve finally gotten your fill of that particular musical selection, just press

OK again on your remote control to clear the Repeat command.

Visualize

Microsoft has incorporated into the My Music interface the ability to choose from

various visualization schemes that let you experience your audio collection in a new

and very interesting way. The results range from a primitive—and perhaps a little

hokey—synchronized graphic that looks as though it was created with a Hasbro

Spirograph and some colored pens, to sophisticated full-color effects worthy of the

psychedelic light travel sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey (see Figure 14.14). Don’t

be surprised if you find yourself mesmerized!

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ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO WINDOWS XP MEDIA CENTER

CHAPTER 14 PLAYBACK TIME: SORTING, VIEWING,

AND CONTROLLING YOUR MUSIC

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FIGURE 14.13

When you select

Repeat, My

Music will show

your choice by

placing a check

mark in the

Repeat tab.

FIGURE 14.14

After you select

Visualize, you

can use the

Ch+/Ch- buttons

on your remote

control to scroll

through the var-

ious visualiza-

tion schemes.

THE ABSOLUTE MINIMUM

Your old stereo is about to hang its head in shame. The My Music interface in Media

Center allows you to manage and take pleasure in your music using technology

your traditional home audio system never dreamed of.

To get the most out of Media Center’s music playback features, be sure to do this:

■ Set Music Center to be your default music player for audio CDs. This way

you’ll always be able to control CD playback with your remote.

■ Your days of playing “name that tune” to find music tracks on your PC are

over. My Music lets you slice and dice music metadata, allowing you to sort

songs by album, artist, song title, or genre.

■ My Music includes a powerful search engine. Search by any keyword—or

even a particular letter—to find exactly the music you want, every time.

■ Choose your weapon—remote control, mouse, or keyboard—to manage

music playback. Whichever way you are most comfortable interacting with

your computer system, Media Center supports it.

■ Sample some of the interesting graphic visualizations Media Center provides,

and select the perfect optical accompaniment to each musical selection.

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