How to improve the Windows Media Center in Windows Vista and Windows 7

The Media Center provided by particular versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 can be tweaked in several ways to improve it as an entertainment centre, the video-handling ability, which is poor, can be significantly improved, the video picture quality and sound production can be improved and third-party software can be used to add missing features.

Visit the Media Center PCs section of this website for information on them.

The information provided here applies to Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Without tweaking it, Windows Media Center (MCE) is fairly basic. For example, it can only play WMV video files. If the appropriate codecs for other file formats, such as DivX and Apple's QuickTime video, are installed, they can't be fast-forwarded. However, by installing some free software this situation can be easily overcome. An official Microsoft Media Center Remote control is required, because third-party remote controls don't work well with some of the third-party software that is required to enhance Windows Media Center. You can find sellers of these remote controls by entering the search query microsoft media center remote control in the web seach engine of your choice.

After extra software is installed, Windows Media Center can lose screen priority and the Start menu can reappear, which is annoying at most or it can cause crashes if a video is being watched. To force Media Center to run in full-screen mode and to prevent other applications taking control, open the Tasks section of Media Center's main menu, choose Media Only and click Yes. Choose the Media Only option again and choose No to revert to the initial setting.

It is also advisable to disable some of Windows' intrusive automatic features such as Windows Update to prevent Windows from automatically restarting the computer. To do that, open the Control Panel and choose Security in Windows Vista (System and Security in Windows 7). Under Windows Update, click Turn automatic updating on or off. In the drop-down menu, choose Never check for updates (instead of the default Install updates automatically) and click OK. Of course, you must still update your PC regularly by using Windows Update => Check for updates option.

It is also advisable to disable the indexing service, which periodically scans the computer's hard disk drive for Windows Search. Note that the indexing service is used by the keyword record feature, so don't disable it if you use or intend to use that feature.

"Windows Photo Gallery introduces a new way to organise your photos: Tags. Using this new feature you can specify a keyword for individual photos or for a collection of photos. Windows Media Center helps you view your photos using those tags. For example, suppose you have a collection of wildlife pictures taken over the years. Those pictures may be stored in a variety of folders on your PC, making it difficult to view all of those wildlife pictures at once. Because you used Windows Photo Gallery to tag them as ‘Wildlife’ pictures, you need only use your remote control to navigate to the Wildlife collection, and you can see all of those pictures, no matter where you stored them."

To disable the indexing service, right-click with the mouse pointer on Computer in the Start menu and select the Manage option. Expand the Services and Applications section on the left-hand panel and click Services. Scroll down to and then double-click Windows Search. Change the Startup type from Automatic to Disabled and click Apply. Click the Stop button and then click OK.

Apart from WMV files, Media Center's handling of videos is very poor. Moreover, even if you install the codecs required for playing other types of files, you won't be able to fast-forward them. However, free software is available that enables you to do all of that. First, uninstall any video codecs you've already installed, such as QuickTime and DivX via Control Panel => Programs and Features, because they are not required. Then download and install the latest ffdshow tryout from http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/ using the application's default settings. This free audio and video decoder should be able to handle any video format you are likely to be using.

This still won't enable you to fast-forward videos, so you also need to download the latest Media Control plugin from http://damienbt.free.fr/. Make sure that you get the right version for your operating system (32-bit or 64-bit). Opening System in the Control Panel will tell you which bit version you have. This program allows you fast-forward all videos, add bookmarks and resume watching from the point at which you stopped. However, before installing it, download and install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86).

Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) -

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...

Then install the Media Control plugin. Select the option to launch the Media Control Configuration. Click on the Remote control & keyboard tab. There's currently no option to stop a video fast-forwarding, so click Add command. In the first drop-down menu, select Stop Fast Forward/Rewind. The next two options allow you to set a keyboard shortcut for the function, so skip these and select Play from the Remote button drop-down menu. Click Commit changes. To complete the configuration, click on the fddshow configuration tab, click on Apply minimal configuration and then on OK. Next click Apply recommended configuration => OK. Click Commit changes => OK and restart the computer to apply the changes. You should find that you can play any video format and fast¬forward and rewind video. If you come back to a video later, an option will pop up to ask if you want to resume from where you left off. Press i on the remote control and choose More and then Media Control. You can use the menu options to set Bookmarks for programmes you're watching so that you can go back to your favourite scenes.

How to improve the Windows Media Center's video picture quality

The picture quality of many downloaded videos isn't very good, but you can correct this. When playing a DivX video, switch Media Center out of Media Only mode by using your mouse to put the application into windowed mode (click the middle icon when you move the mouse to the top right). You should see two new icons in the Notification Area (bottom left corner): a blue ffdshow audio decoder and a red ffdshow video decoder. Double-click on the audio icon first to set the correct audio settings. Place a check mark in the Mixer box and then click Mixer. Select the Output speakers configuration from the drop-down menu. For most PCs with surround sound, this should be 3/0/2 for five channels, but for 7.1 speakers select 3/2/2. If you have surround-sound speakers, also place a check mark in the LFE box to send the subwoofer its own signal. Next, click Dolby decoder and choose Apply Dolby Pro Logic II decoding to all stereo sources. This should upsample stereo soundtracks to use all of your speakers. Click OK.

Now double-click on the video icon. For every setting we mention here, make sure the Process whole image option is selected. Place a check mark in the Deinterlacing box and choose Cubic interpolation from the drop-down menu. This will deinterlace TV programmes so that they match your TV's progressive mode. Use the mouse to place a check mark in Postprocessing, and another in Picture Processing and adjust the sliders until you're satisfied with the picture's colour, brightness and contrast.

Because downloaded video can look disagreeable, place a check mark in the Blur&NR (blur and noise reduction) box. Setting Soften to 40 or less and Gradual denoise to 40 or less should help to reduce noise and produce a better image. The detail in a video can be improved by placing a check mark in the Sharpen box. Select Unsharp Mask and adjust the Strength bar until you're satisfied with it (25 should be good enough). To make sure the picture look as good as possible on a TV, you can force ffdshow to upscale video so that its screen resolution matches that of your TV. Place a check mark in Resize & aspect. Select Specify horizontal and vertical size, and enter the size of your display in the box below, such as 1,920x1,080 for 1080p TVs. The video maintains its aspect ratio by default, so old TV shows will have black bars down the side of the picture. If you don't want this, select No aspect ratio correction, click Apply and the image will fill the screen. You can now maximise Media Center and use it as normal.

There are some problems with Media Control. It prompts you to launch ffdshow when you play a DVD so that the program can take over the picture processing, thereby increasing quality. However, that prevents the DVD menus working. Fortunately, all you have to do is wait for the option to disappear.

Another problem occurs when you stop watching a video and press fast-forward. The old video will start playing again. To prevent that, after you've stopped watching a video, choose Media Control from Media Center's main menu and choose Restart Media Center. You have to put Media Center back into Media Only mode.

Media Center can be used to catch up with missed TV shows by using the free TunerFree MCE application from http://www.milliesoft.co.uk/.... This provides a single interface for all of the catch-up services, including the BBC's iPlayer and Channel 4's 40D. Download the application for your operating system (Windows Vista or Windows 7), close Media Center and install TunerFree on your computer using the Typical settings. It should take several minutes while the program downloads the database of available programmes. Note that before using the software, make sure that your computer has all of the necessary codecs to play the files. To do that, visit each service using the Internet Explorer (or alternative web browser, such as Firefox) and play a sample video. If any extra software is required you will be prompted to install it. Now you can start Media Center. TunerFree MCE appears in the TV + Movies section of the main menu. When you launch the application, you can browse through individual channels, or use the options at the top to browse by date or search by keyword.

The default installation allows you select Hulu, which is a US-only service. To remove it, choose Preferences and choose Get Hulu so that a grey box appears next to it. Click Save and then back. Now you should have access to every on-demand TV service in the UK.

How to improve the Media Center's sound

You can improve the sound when watching DVDs. Media Center's built-in audio decoder allows you to listen to Dolby Digital soundtracks only if you use analogue outputs, but not digital DTS. To fix this, download and install AC3Filter from http://ac3filter.net/. From the Start menu, run AC3Filter Config. Change the output to match your speaker configuration. Surround-sound users should select 3/Z+SW 5.1 channels. The other settings, such as the Equalizer and Mixer for adjusting speaker volume, bass and treble, are best adjusted when listening to some audio. AC3Filter places an icon in the bottom right Notification Area when compatible audio is playing, which allows you to double-click it to adjust the settings.

Making AC3Filter work in Media Center requires some configuration. You need to find out the CLSID of the software. This is done by downloading the DirectShow Filter Manager from http://www.softella.com/dsfm/index.en.htm. Run the software and double-click the entry for AC3Filter. Copy the CLSID, including the curly brackets. To open the Registry Editor, enter regedit in the Start => Start Search box in Windows Vista and the Start => Search programs and files box in Windows 7 and navigate to HKey_Local_ Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Media Center\Decoder\. Double-click the key labelled PreferredMPEG2 AudioDecoderCLSID and paste in the CLSID you copied. Click OK and shut down Registry Editor. Now when you watch a DVD, you should be able to listen to DTS soundtracks.