With the release of PCs running Windows XP Media Centre onto the Australian market, focus is shifting to the use of the PC as the home media centre. Media Centre PCs have been available in Europe and the U.S. for a couple of years, and their introduction here has been delayed with reaching assurances from Australian TV stations.

A Windows XP Media Centre PC provides a means to bring together all different types of media - photos, music, TV and video - under one central control for storage and playback. The special version of XP which runs on a media PC is specifically designed for easy access to your TV stations and music collection. Unfortunately Windows XP Media Centre can't be bought off the shelf and installed - it's made to only run on specially manufacturered PCs which are hardware certified and standardised.

But who wants to watch TV on a PC? Well, you don't. For some years graphics cards have offered a cable connection to a TV set. Now your media PC can connect via cable or wirelessly. Similarly, music can be streamed to other computers using wireless media sharing devices.

The basic reason that the PC is the choice for controlling media content is that is has, or can have, almost unlimited storage space (any new computer these days will have at least an 80 gigabyte hard disk with space to add more).

The other feature of a media PC is that is can happily carry out video time-shifting. This means that, while recording a show to your Media PC's hard disk, you can pause what you're watching, go out and make a coffee and return to where you were in the show. While you've been in the kitchen, the show has contined recording.

The most important function of the Media PC is to record TV shows and this depends on the TV stations making available their program guides electronically. The Media PC, being connected by broadband over the Internet, queries the TV station guide and downloads program start times. Thus when you've programmed your Media PC to record a certain show, recording will start at the correct time. Naturally, you can instruct your PC to record this show as many times as you like, knowing that the starting time will be available from the TV station.

So while you're off pondering all the new terminology (time-shifting, personal video recorder, PVR, DVR, and more), webDotWiz is off to tune his media centre to 3AR.

Microsoft has released a number of free software packs, particularly a new version of webDotWiz's favourite, Photo Story version 3. This program forces us to make good use of our digital photo collection, as well as being a handy tool to create tutorials. All Photo Story movies, the final product of your work, are playable by anyone who has Windows Media Player version 7 or later.

The Microsoft Partner Pack for XP contains a number of different programs but you're able to download just the ones you want or you can order the complete pack on CD (pay for just postage). Included in the collection are some games, a USB Flash Drive manager (to make sure you don't lose data), Post-It software notes, and Onfolio Express to manage and organise your Internet research.