Ask the Photos & Music Team

Windows Live Photo Gallery Tags

Peter Near — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:11:05 GMT

Windows Live Photo Gallery allows the attachment of hierarchical tags. I've uploaded a sample file to skydrive, with lots of metadata. Inspecting the file with an EXIF/IPTC/XMP tool I can see that the WLPG tags are saved as IPTC Keyword Tags.

Flat keywords, in this example "Christmas Slideshow" show up in Media Center as expected.

Hierarchical tags, in this example "Events/Christmas" do not.

I would have expected to happen is at a minimum MC would treat "Events/Christmas" as a unique tag. The better way to parse these tags would be to select just the lowest-level tag (in this case "Christmas") for inclusion in the tags list in the MC photo browser.

Sample: http://cid-3323acf37bd7b107.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/MC7%20Troubleshooting/ChristmasDay%20001.jpg

Is this a known issue? Any update expected to resolve the incompatibility with the current release?

Thanks

Pete

Music Now Playing ended, but no sleep?

amolldk — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:07:17 GMT

I have a new HP TouchSmart 300, which I use only for music playing, using the Media Center in Windows 7.

Works perfect, the interface and touch is really great.

Only one minor issue so far:

The pc is set to go to sleep automatically after 10 minutes of inactivity. This works fine when in Windows desktop, in Media Center menu strip and in Media Center Music view.

But after having played an album, showing the Now Playing screen, the pc will not go to sleep automatically. This is a very annoying, as this is exactly the case where the sleep function would be most appreciated (for me, anyway).

I suppose the cause of the problem is the activity going on in the Now Playing screen, where the album art and info every minute or so change position from one side of the screen to the other, even after the music has stopped. I suspect the system will never be seen as idle in this case.

Does anyone know how to turn this off? I do not need this movement, as well as I don't need the waterfall or visualisation or whatever, only a steady presentation of what is actually being played.

Any hints or ideas for solution will be much appreciated, thanks.

Windows 7 Saved Slideshows - showing up in music playlists and not slideshows

cncb2 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:42:30 GMT

This feature is outstanding - thanks for adding it. I actually create slideshows in an external program and save them as playlist files (.m3u) which I then import into Media Center. This works pretty well - the only problem is that they initially just show up as Playlists in the Music library until I select them to bring up the playback menu and then they show up as available Slideshows in the Picture library. Is there any way these could be recognized as slideshows when they are imported? Also, it would be great to be able to easily do a normal or random slideshow. That is, add an additional "Play Random Slideshow" button so you can do either easily. I know you can bring up the options menu and toggle "random" but this is only available after you already started the slideshow. Thanks.

Xbox 360 changing Album Art

terrob — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:29:35 GMT

Hello i recently got an Xbox 360 installed in my bedroom as an extender.

The only trouble im having is that everytime I use it to listen to my music it writes over all my HQ 600 x 600 album art on my media center in my lounge.

I listen to music through the media center extender on the 360 and through the music section when the xbox button is pressed.

Ive tried to stop the write, modify permissions on the music directory but it seems to change the permissions back.

This is bugging me because of the wasted weeks ive spent getting perfect Album Art for 100 of albums.

Please Help.

Pictures one level too deep in MCE Windows 7

jpslynch — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:18:02 GMT

I recently moved my Picture library (actually all my Media) into a new folder structure. Using the Manage Library function in MCE Windows 7, I selected the new Picture folder. Now when I go to look at my Pictures using Media Center, all the pictures show up in one folder called Pictures and all the Picture sub-folders are inside of it. Previously, all the Picture folders showed-up at the top-level. It's a relatively small issue but annoying. This also happened with Videos but not with Music or Recorded TV.

Photo ratings in 7MC won't stick

mingleberry — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:07:16 GMT

I love the new remote control-based photo rating feature in 7MC but it's not working for me.

Essentially what happens is that I can rate a whole bunch of photos in 7MC but if I exit and then re-enter 7MC all the ratings are lost. Very frustrating after I'd spent a couple of hours rating 1000+ pics!

7MC also isn't picking up the ratings of pics properly either - ie a photo rated 5* in Windows Explorer doesn't appear in the 5* category in 7MC.

I've tried removing the My Pictures folder from the 7MC library and then re-adding it and this momentarily showed all the rated pictures correctly. Unfortunately it reverted to the standard limited selection of 5* rated pics when I next opened 7MC.

The photos are stored on an external e-sata drive.

I'm imagining a cache is corrupted somewhere or there's a bug. A friend doesn't report the same behaviour on his computer.

Anyone have any ideas what I should try next?

Thanks

Dom

I'm wondering if anyone can shed any light on what's going wrong?

modify slideshow

soapit — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:51:17 GMT

two things on the slideshow while playing music.

does anyone have an idea of a way in wmc7 to use the old BLOCKED EXPRESSION slidewhow that was in vista? as soon as the missus saw it she said "that looks crap" so i' like to go back to basics.

if this is no possible then....

When you do the slideshow in 7 it shows the date of the photo at the bottom. This is no good to me as I have never bothered to set the time and date on my camera. I’d like to somehow change it to show the folder its in or even the filename instead.

Apparently there’s no box to tick to just change for this in windows but has anyone any ideas about where to look for a setting to tweak. I cant imagine it would be that much different to show the file path or name rather than the date but I’m not too savvy on these things and not yet game enough to go looking through the registry on my own.

cheers
al

WMC 7 Podcast listening... rewind would be nice, skip forward/backward would be better

markjjordan — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:30:56 GMT

I've recently setup a Windows 7 machine for our living room media center, and was excited about the aspect of listening to some audio podcasts while preparing dinner, or while reading the paper. I quickly found out, however, that listening to podcasts via the Music feature of Media Center is not very usable. When I play a podcast, I can pause, play, or fast forward. But there's no rewind? That seems quite ridiculous to me. I've looked at this on several W7 machines, and all are the same. No rewind of music/audio files.

What would REALLY be nice is if I could FF and Rewind, AND skip forward and skip backward, like I am able to do for DVD/Video playback... seems like that would be logical and consistant, no?

If anyone has a way to enable rewinding a music/audio/podcast file, I would love to know about it. Even better would be a way to enable the same FF/Rew/SkipF/SkipB functionality for music/audio/podcasts that I have for video/DVD. I would even settle for the slider timeline bar to show up so I can use my mouse functionality on my remote control to point and click at a point on the time bar that is several minutes ago.

Windows 7 Media Center - Incorrectly sorting music

Spud72 — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:18:08 GMT

I have Windows 7 Media Center and have ripped all of my CD's to it. When in the music libary you can sort \ select your music by various items Including Artists and Album Artists. Album artists does what it say it will do but as I have a lot of various artists CD I have noticed that the Artists option does not do what it is meant to do - it is also sorting the tracks by the album artists instead of the artists property ( checked properties in Windows explorer ).

This makes it very difficult to find songs you like on a various artists cd.

Will it be fixed ?

Thanks

Simon

Record Scheduled Radio Programs

jfinney — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:49:01 GMT

I am using the FM Radio feature in MCC. My tuner card has an FM input. I receive a very good FM signal from a local radio station via an antenna - radio waves not internet FM. I would like to record radio broadcasts on a scheduled basis similar to the way I record TV programs. Is there a way to do this? Software?

Thanks,

Jim Finney

Windows 7 Media Center Album Art

nliolis — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:46:18 GMT

My music collection's album covers all show up perfectly in Media Player and in Media Center on my Media Center PC. But I'm having a problem with my extenders. I have a number of Xbox 360's as extenders and they each have random album covers showing up as pure black. Each extender is having a problem with different album covers. I've tried deleting the album art cache but it doesn't help. This is very frustrating.

VMC Music Library problem C00D0FF4

briabub — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:00:37 GMT

My media player and media center on my vista machine has stopped updating the music library. I tried to "add to library" and "media sharing" areas in Media Player and I got the error code C00D0FF4. After following microsoft.com's 3 fixes for this error, I still don't have an updating music library. I have also tried adding folders to watch in Media Center but the library still doesn't update. Strangely, my extenders libraries do update but they update every time I power them up. Do you have any suggestions or ideas?

Videos from my Handycam

Auburns — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:35:13 GMT

hello i recently uploaded a bunch of videos from my Handycam. To my external hard drive and the problem is i dont have any thumnails just a blue or black box. I have thumbnails on my external hard drive o.k. can any one help Please thanx

MUSIC only uses left and right speakers!

Presi — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:24:16 GMT

I've windows 7 media center with soundblaster and 5.1 surround system. All the speakers work during movie playback and TV playback, but when I listen to my music only the right and left speakers work, cutting out all the bass frequences generated by the subwoofer.

Any idea?

Thanks,

-Presi

Problems with Windows Media Center!

HAWKEYED — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:17:25 GMT

Hi to all of you! I'm having troubles with Windows Media center. 1) When I starting to use WMC, I make a scan of my computer so it lookk all my mp3's. Was ok. But then I aupdate some of them (my mp3's) wiht the correct album art. But when I get into WMC again, I look that not all the mp3's was apdated, just a few ones. The others maintain the cover art from the begining (when I make the first scan). Also those mp3's don't have cover art at this time, but WMC asign another cover art from another mp3's. So My question is why I can't update those tracks. I go into WMP and delet it from library, then update and scan again, but nothing happens. I'm using mp3tag editor to update my mp3's (info and cover art) 2) few weeks ago (I guess when apdate my windows vista home edition (64 bits) to windows vista service pack 2 or 3) if I want to run the setup again in my WMC, I can do it just to Video setup, when I need to press WATCH VIDEO, my WMC crash. I don't know why> 3) Another problem is to make my music library. For example: When you see the tags (ALBUM, SONG, ARTIST, .... ALBUM ARTIST) I have two or more cover arts for the same album. For example I have the CD for Micjael Buble, Call Me Irresponsible, into that CD Michael sing two songs with anothers, Boys II Men and another so In the tag into the mp3 (using winamp to edit) I put ARTIST: MICHAEL BUBLE with BOYS II MEN. But when I see in WMC the tag ALbum, I see 3 times the same cover art, Its ok one for michael alone, one for micheal with boys II men and one for micheal with the other one. But I'M INTO THE TAG ALBUM (just album) so why I see three times? Another example: I have the CD THE BEST OF MTV UNPLUGGED 3. In this CD various artist sing. So If I put the correct name into each mp3, Example ARTIST: SHERYL CROW and another ARTIST: CHRIS ISAAK, when I see the tag album into my WMC, I see twelve same CD cover art, but It's just one album!!! So I think "ok I put the into the artist ARTIST: VARIOUS and will be ok because It a various artists CD" so I do that, but when I see the tag (or folder) named ARTIST in my WMC, Sheryl crow or Chris Isaak (for example) are not shown!!!!! So, how can or how I need to edit to ain ALBUM just see just ONE TIME THE ALBUM, but to be shown correct in each folder ALBUM ARTIST to see the album to each artist,. and the 2 questions above. Thank you for your response and help in advance.

Browsing my playlists

TheEdge033 — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:35:18 GMT

Hello,

this is my first post here. I tried to find a solution for my problem with media center all over the net, but I found nothing. So I will try here.

The problem: In MCE2005 it was possible to browse my own playlists with the remote or the keyboard per character - example: I look for my playlist "R.E.M" I just press the letter R and there it is. In VistaMC and 7MC this isn´t possible anymore. WHY? :) I can browse in Albums this way but not in my playlists. This is really, really annoying because it prevents me upgrading to 7 which I do like very much. But I assembled a big library of playlists over the time so this is a crucial point. I tried the plugin "Music Browser" but I´m not happy with it, so this is not an option.

The Question: Is it possible to restore the searchoption per character? Maybe per reghack? Or exists a plugin I failed to find?

I would be VERY happy if someone could help me. This bug bothers me a LOT.

Many thanks!

The Edge

PlayTo Option Within MediaCenter

TheOsburnFamil — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:54:02 GMT

Is there an option within the 7MC GUI to PlayTo?

I'd like my wife to have the ability to PlayTo the xbox for the kids from the main mediacenter w/o having to minimize it.

Am I the only one frustrated?

a12vman — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:52:16 GMT

I am a purist when it comes to my music library. I stuck with MCE 2005 in hopes that Windows 7 would bring some improvements to library management. Recently I upgraded to Windows 7. I just tried adding my archived Christmas Music to Windows Media Player(which looked great in MCE 2005 with all tags, artwork, albums and artists organized an displaying properly) and things got really interesting. Even though I told WMP 12 not to update tags or artwork, it did so anyway.

I also find it very interesting that there are multiple ways to add music to Windows Media Center:

1. Drag albums into Windows Media Player Library(My preferred method, seems to be most reliable).

2. Manage libraries in Windows Media Player(not sure how this works, but seems similar to Folder Watching).

3. Manage libraries in Windows Media Center.

4. HomeGroup(Haven't experimented with this).

I've never been a big fan of folder watching, it always seems to create chaos.

For example, I had Time-Life's Treasury of Christmas Album that was setup correctly, then I add it to WMP 12 and some of the tags are modified and the Artwork changes.

I realize that Compilation Albums have always been a struggle, but is this really the best that MS can give us?

-a12vman

really?

ghostofamerica — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:52:53 GMT

WMC is really truly a useless piece of work. A beautiful interface to nowhere. I have an itunes library. I am a consummate end-user. I do not modify progs. I would like to use WMC on my 2008 hp, but, without the ability to import my itunes library, I never will. In fact I would like to delete it, as I am sure it takes up far too much space. can you help me to delete it without frying my computer?

Thank-you for nothing,

How to use Media center for Music in Windows 7

MELG — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:20:26 GMT

Feeling frustrated & stupid. Had Windows XP w/ Media player and was able to master all aspects.Got a new computer w/ Windows 7 that has the Media Center and I have yet to be able how to work the music aspect. I did manage to rip a few songs and by chance get them to play. But to find the library, create playlists, I am at a loss. I thought perhaps there was a help icon/button somewhere but could not find one. Is there a site that offer a tutorial or how to? Also I use to be able to download songs from my MP3 player to my computer - can I do that now? Thanks for any information.............

Windows 7 Music Library Questions

kiran-d — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 14:46:51 GMT

Hello All. This is my first post. I hope I am posting this in the right forum.

I have a couple of questions.

1. M4A Support in W7MC and WMP12: During the public beta, WMP recognized all my m4a files, some of which were encoded in AAC and some of which were in ALAC (Apple Lossless). But WMP/W7MC could not play ALAC files out of the box. Therefore in the RC, the behaviour was changed such that only supported files in the M4A container were imported into the library. As most of you know, enabling ALAC support in W7MC/WMP12 is as straightforward as installing any of the available Quicktime DirectShow Filters. But now, even though WMP12 can recognize all the metadata in the m4a Lossless file, it refuses to add it to the library. Is there a way I can go back to the Beta's behaviour of importing m4a (Apple Lossless) files even though it can't play them by default?

2. Contributing Artists in Windows 7 Media Center (W7MC?) - In the W7MC, the music library gives you a lot of views to browse through your Music Library. The two views that I am concerned are <artists> and <album artists> views. I had expected that <artists> view would use the "Contributing Artist" tag (hence providing support for multiple artists) and <album artists> view would support "Album Artist" tag. However, it looks like both those views use the same tag, i.e. "Album Artist". Is this behaviour intended? If so, is there a way to browse using Contributing Artists. Something like customize navigation pane in WMP12?

Any help would be appreciated.

Song Artist (Multiple Artists...)

Hubie — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:18:43 GMT

Something I've found truly annoying is where a song has more than one artist (especially if both are in my library).

Example:

I have about 30 Tupac songs, and 25 Snoop Dogg songs.

And then there is a song (on Tupac's album) that BOTH artists composed. For artist name, it says "Tupac and Snoop Dogg".

I have no problem that Tupac comes first for artist name, as when I sort by artist in WMP, itunes, etc, it comes up as a Tupac song. HOWEVER - all other Tupac songs show up as only "Tupac" and this song shows "Tupac and Snoop Dogg", THEREFORE not even showing up under the Tupac artist folder (a new folder "Tupac and Snoop Dogg" has been created with one track)

This becomes even more annoying when put these songs on my mobile device, and I navigate to play all Tupac songs, but it leaves this one out because technically in my library it is a "Tupac and Snoop Dogg" song.

I know everyone has dozens of songs with this issue in their library. What is the best way to deal with it?

The best thing I can think of is simply going through and manualy deleting the "and Snoop Dogg" part of the artist name so it simply shows as a Tupac song. At least I'd know where it is (despite shortchanging Snoop Dogg in my library!)

Any advice is appreciated

No pan and zoom in Win 7 MC on slide shows

Vladimir Uschintsky — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:01:53 GMT

Just upgraded from Vista to Win 7. Mostly very good, but a couple of issues.

When I play a slide show in Media Center the slides display fine but whether or not I check the pan and zoom button they always just cut and have no movement on the screen. The "Ken Burns" effect worked fine in Vista.

Ideas?

Nvidia 8600GTS using component out to Sammy LED LCD. Just got the TV and will be getting the HDMI cables today.

Why Do My Photos look Slightly Blurred and Lacking In Detail in Media Center (on PC or TV)

KevMull — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:43:36 GMT

I've tried MCE on XP and Vista and on two different Acer laptops (one a hig hend, high spec model)and the jpeg picture quality when viewing slideshow is simply APPALLING and unusable.
They are slighly blurred and lacking in detail.

When I view the same photos via the normal Windows Slideshow the the stills are pin sharp, high res quality
The difference is like that of High def and Standatd def...maybe more!

It can't be my gear as the quality difference is there to be seen directly on both the laptop screen displays or on the connected plasma TV (via HDMI, VGA or MCE extender in my 360).

What baffles me most is that this 'bug' doesn't seem to be well documented. I think i found only one thread on it in the newsgroups by a German journalist.

Can somebody explain to me why my photos look like something off a VCD when viewed via MCE?
The photos were taken with a Nikon D70 DSLR at 2240x1448 resolution.

I urge ayou to check your photos against MCE and Widows Explorer Slideshow. I think you may be a bit shocked in the difference in quality.

Is finding an album in Media Center harder in Windows 7 than in MCE 2005?

sbold — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:10:56 GMT

Hello,

I recently upgraded my HTPC system from MCE2005 to Windows 7. Previously, in Media Center I would always view albums sorted by artist, and it was pretty convenient. Now I find I have multiple choices:

The Albums view sorts by album name and it seems I cannot change this.
The Artists view shows names only, no artwork. If you have a lot of long artist names, you will see few per screenful. Also, the use rightward scrolling means the names scroll by very fast, making it harder to scan.
The Album Artists view might do better but I have too many artists with just one album and I see only a few albums per screen.

So for me, none of the options seem to work very well. Did I miss something?

Thanks.