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

As we trade in our old film canisters and cartridges for reusable memory devices, the

whole process of picture-taking begins to change. Shooting scores of photos to get

the one perfect shot used to be a trade secret of the professional photographer, but

no more. If you own a digital camera, there’s no incremental cost associated with

taking three dozen rather than just one. You may run out of room on your remov-

able memory card temporarily, until you delete the photos you don’t want to keep,

but you won’t start running up your bill until you begin making hard copies.

Therein lies the Shakespearean “rub” in digital photography: printing. Although con-

sumer-grade color printers and related software continue to improve, they have not

reached the point where the process can match the ease and convenience of dropping

your film off at the one-hour photo shop or corner drugstore. In fact, many of us

have shelled out hundreds—even thousands—of dollars in digital photo equipment

and supplies, only to find that we have essentially become our own one-hour photo

technician. In fact, count yourself lucky if you can actually produce a set of quality

prints from your digital camera in only an hour. Most of us find ourselves spending

much longer, and still end up frustrated with both the process and the results.

Surely there must be a better way? There is. Why print photos at all when you can

easily share them with family and friends electronically? Email and Web pages pro-

vide effective ways for showing off your photos over long distances, but for display-

ing them in your own home, nothing beats the television screen. Here’s where the

whole idea of Windows XP Media Center Edition’s My Pictures feature set really

starts to shine.

My Pictures lets you display your photos individually or as a virtual slide show. You

can sort your pictures in various ways, and browse through them using the remote

control, or your mouse and keyboard. Your digital photos never had it so good, and

the one-hour photo guy will have to find somebody else’s pictures to leaf through in

his spare time.

Transferring Your Photos

To put My Pictures to work for you, the first step is moving your photos from your

digital camera into your Media Center PC. As with connecting your video camera to

the Media Center (see the section “Connecting to Your Camcorder,” in Chapter 10,

“Capturing and Creating Videos with Media Center”), you’ll need to start with an

inventory of the types of outputs your camera supports, and then compare that list

to the types of inputs your PC supports.

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ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO WINDOWS XP MEDIA CENTER

Connecting to Your Digital Camera

The process of transferring photos from a digital

camera to a PC used to be a tedious one. Serial

cables were usually involved, along with TWAIN

(believe it or not, it stands for “Toolkit Without an

Interesting Name”) drivers and other abstruse bits

of software. However, camera and PC designers

have come together in recent years over interfaces

such as USB (Universal Serial Bus), which, along

with Windows XP’s Plug and Play features, can

virtually eliminate the headaches that used to

accompany the process of establishing a connec-

tion between your camera and your computer.

Although the oblong USB connector on your PC is

pretty easy to spot (see Figure 17.1), its counter-

part on the camera is apt to look quite different.

CHAPTER 17 IMPORTING AND STORING YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS

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tip

Chances are that your

Media Center PC will not

have just one USB recepta-

cle, but several to choose

from. The design goal of USB

was to make it, well, uni-

versal—so that anything

plugged in to any USB port should

be recognized automatically by

the host system. As such, it

shouldn’t matter which USB port

you plug your camera into.

However, because it’s likely to be

an intermittent connection, used

only when you have fresh photos

to download, it’s probably most

convenient to use a USB port

located on the front of your com-

puter (see Figure 17.3), rather

than one in back. Use the less-

convenient, rear-facing receptacles

for “permanent” peripherals, such

as a USB-equipped mouse, key-

board, printer, or monitor.

FIGURE 17.1

The oblong USB

plug that con-

nects to the PC is

quite distinctive,

making it easy

to identify.

Some USB plugs for cameras and other input devices are small and rectangular, some

are vaguely bell-shaped, and some have shapes that simply defy description. A collec-

tion of USB connectors supported by various digital devices is shown in Figure 17.2.

In most cases, your digital camera will come equipped with an appropriate connec-

tion cord, so all that remains to be done is find the correct receptacles on the camera

and the PC, and plug everything in.