My old buddy Charlie Owen has posted an outstanding overview of Windows Media Center in Windows 7. This oft-overlooked feature is getting a number of refinements. While PDC is focused on developers, there is a lot of goodness happening here. A few of my favorites:
- Turbo Scroll- an essential for those of us with large libraries
- Refined Album Art Presentation
- A great new Now Playing view with animated album art
- Shared Libraries - yep, that's right - navigate Photos, Music, Video and even Recorded TV stored on other computers in your Home Group
- Pictures with Ambient Slideshows and Ratings - more needed refinement
- The Slideshow Creator - Now just give me the ability to order the photos to tell a story.
- For Video, H.264 playback out of the box. Yes, you heard that right. Even on Media Center Extenders.
- Bookmarking for videos so you can return to where you left off.
- HD Pivot in the Movies Guide
Kudos to the Media Center team. Apparently I need to start testing again. Time to dust off my old(er) PC for some Windows 7 goodness. Beta can't come fast enough.