Playing your favorite tracks from your Music Library has never been easier than with Windows 7 Media Center. Media Center can create an atomically generated playlist of your best rated, most listened to or even recently added tracks. The steps to getting this going are simple but allow for a bit of customization.
The first step to getting your favorites set are to choose how Media Center will determine which tracks to add to your favorites list. Options include tracks rated 4 or 5 stars, tracks you’ve played the most and tracks that have recently been added to your library. Alternatively it is possible to make a simple playlist that contains all of your favorite tracks for Media Center to play from.
Since your Music Library includes all the song data from Media Center and Media Player any changes made in one will be reflected in the other. This allows for easy editing of song information such as rating from Windows Media Player. Doing bulk editing of the library can be much easier from the Media Player interface, especially on the initial setup. However, it is possible in Windows 7 Media Center to edit some song information from inside the Media Center interface.
Bringing up the editing window is simple. In the album view scroll down the song list to the song you want to edit details for and select it. Other views will bring up the song edit view by default once a song is selected. From this song view rating can be changed quickly, a nice feature when using ratings to determine favorites. Just select the star item and press until the appropriate rating is listed. These same options can also be brought up with the information or right-click button menu.
Choosing the “Edit Info” selection will allow for the editing of artist name, song title as well as rating. This can be cumbersome with a remote and is another situation where using Media Player would probably be better suited. Using the media sharing native to Media Player you can even edit details from another machine on the same network. Having a second machine on your network to edit playlists, ratings and to use the new Play To feature is certainly something that can enhance the user experience in Windows 7.
Once your done setting up your favorites and editing your music ratings, starting up a playlist of the best music in the library is as easy as pushing a single button. Just hit the “Play Favorites” button under the Music section and your off. Media Center will pull together a playlist and get it started, perfect for a quick party mix or when there just isn’t time to make a playlist.
If you’ve got FLAC files in your music collection be sure to check out this article on getting them into your library too!
Post a Comment