I have been using Media Center for a long time now since I got my desktop from the store pre-installed with Windows XP Media Center edition. It offers a more immersive experience of media playing because it blows up in the entire screen and thus hiding away the distractions of all the other applications running in your screen.

When I got Windows 7, I instantly fell in love with the Media Center that came with it. Below are first glances of the updated software:

At first it looks like the original Media Center but the changes are apparent when you start to hover your mouse over the menus. The menu choices glide and work like a game menu. Once you open your music tracks it will show a panoramic collage of all of your music album covers:

If your album does not contain an album cover, they will be represented as random colors which make the whole catalog display nicely. 

Clicking an album will list all of the tracks. You can press the “play album” control to start playing the tracks.

When you play the album, all of your album covers will be presented on a grid collage as a background. The grid animates too so your party guests won’t be bored looking at your screen.

These visual artistries make Media Center a step above the others in terms of visual effects.

If you want the classic visualization of the earlier versions, they are available too once you click “visualize”.

You can also use your own pictures as background visualization:

Since the version is still in the beta stage, there still may be some improvements like equalizer settings and audio effects. By default it uses your sound card’s driver software settings like graphic equalization.

Windows 7’s Media Center is a great looking app that you can use if you have guests in your house and you use the computer to play music. You can set it up to play your favorite party music and display an animated collage of your pictures at the same time. If you just want to wow them with your music collection, the visualization of the album covers is a winner. Expect them to borrow your burned Windows 7 installer on their way home.