Music in the house

Tap into tunes from every room

By Helen Bradley

“When I’ve worked hard to prepare a wonderful meal for a dinner party, I want everything to be perfect, including the music,” says Sally Slack, co-author of Windows Vista: Home Entertainment with Windows Media Center and Xbox 360 (Microsoft Press, 2007).

Although Slack’s music is stored on her computer, which happens to be on the second floor, she can listen to her favourite tunes anywhere in the house, including the dining room. “It’s music when and where I want it,” says Slack.

How to get your music

There are several ways to play music stored on your PC. Which one you choose depends on the tools you have available and your familiarity with the technology.

Here are ways to access the music on your PC — throughout your house.

Listen directly from your PC
Share music through your network
Hook up to your entertainment system
Use your extender to play tunes over your stereo system

1. Listen directly from your PC

Let’s start with the basics. The simplest solution is to play music with Windows Media Center or Windows Media Player.

Media Center comes built into Windows Vista Ultimate and Home Premium. If you don’t have either of these, you can use Windows Media Player 11, which is available as a free download.

You can use either Media Center or Windows Media Player to copy music from your CDs, assemble these tunes into playlists and play them on your PC.

If the sound quality needs a boost, augment your PC’s speakers with a set of higher quality ones and get a subwoofer for good bass sounds.

The easiest way to listen to music is directly from your computer — with speakers.

2. Share music through your network

A family with a home network and music scattered on PCs throughout the house doesn’t need more hardware to share tunes. Windows Media Player lets you access music stored on any shared folder on any computer on your network.

To access music on other computers on your home network:

choose File > Add to Library and locate and add your network folder,
wait as the files are added to your Library,
add tracks to your playlists and
play and enjoy!

3. Hook up to your home entertainment centre

If you have an Xbox 360 game console, you can use it to play music stored on your PC through your home entertainment system.

The Xbox 360 is a media extender device that connects to your PC and TV or entertainment centre to ensure that the two can communicate. It works even if the PC is in another room.

The Xbox 360 or media extender connects to your PC through the home network and displays music in a menu that appears on your television, much like the Media Center PC.

Media extenders can also be purchased separately. While they don’t have the gaming capabilities of the Xbox 360, some offer similar benefits, such as a DVD player and wireless connectivity to your PC. If you’re in the market for a new TV, consider the HP MediaSmart TV, which has an extender built directly into it, says Slack.

To make audio hook-up easier, audio mini-jack sockets are colour-coded.

4. Use your extender to play tunes over your stereo system

The most high-tech solution might appeal to music aficionados who want music throughout the house but who may not agree on what to listen to at any given time.

In this case, you can configure separate zones in the house so everyone can decide what to listen to, and where.

To do this, you can use either the Roku Network Music Player and Internet Radio player or the Sonos Digital Music System. Both let you stream music throughout the house, and both connect your PC to your home entertainment unit. The difference is in the added features.