Playing Media with Windows Media Center

The following sections discuss how to play back videos and photos from Windows Media Center. The methods in these examples are similar to those used to play back other types of media, such as recorded TV shows, music, and movies.

All TV shows, including Internet TV, live TV, recorded TV and movies recorded from broadcast, cable, and so on, are accessed from the TV menu stripe. Movies on DVD, Blu-ray (when you add a third-party Blu-ray player), or ripped from those media, are accessed from the Movie menu stripe.

All music tracks on CD, ripped from CD, or downloaded from the Internet, are accessed from the Music menu stripe.

Video Playback

Videos other than those recorded from TV are viewed in the Video Library section. To view videos from the main menu:

1. Click Pictures + Videos.
2. Click Video Library.
3. Click the wanted view: Folders, Date Taken, or Shared.
4. Highlight an item to see details.
5. Navigate to the video you want to play, and click it.
6. To play all videos in the current view, click Play All.

NOTE: The Shared view in any Windows Media Center library lists media residing on another computer on the network. When you play back shared media, you might see a Buffering x% message appear before and during playback, and pauses during playback.

Viewing Photos

Digital pictures and scanned photos are viewed in the Picture Library section of the Pictures + Videos task. To view pictures from the main menu:

1. Click Pictures + Videos.
2. Click Picture Library.
3. Click the wanted view: Folders, Tags, Date Taken, Ratings, Slide Shows, or Shared.
4. Click to navigate to the specific item you want to view.
5. Click a photo to view it individually.
6. To view all photos in the current view, click Play Slide Show.
7. To stop playback, press the Esc key or click the square Stop button in the media playback control cluster.