Most of the home computers sold today qualify as multimedia machines. They include high-end sound cards or audio functions built into the motherboard and fast AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) video cards with more memory available for video functions that were available for the entire computer system a few years ago.
Video cards with TV input and output jacks allow you to watch television on your computer or to play your computer games on your TV screen. High-speed CD and DVD players and recorders make it easy to not only play music and watch movies, but also to burn (make copies of) your own music and movies.

Compression technologies, such as MP3, have shrunk good quality media files to manageable sizes. Finally, low-cost, widely available high-speed Internet connections such as DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and cable modems make it possible to access large amounts of multimedia content quickly and easily.

Two of the most exciting uses of the Media Center PC are pausing live TV and recording TV programs for later viewing, turning your PC into a PVR/DVR. PVRs and DVRs have become very popular and are beginning to replace the VCR (video cassette recorder) as a way to record programs when you're away or it's just not convenient for you to watch your favourite programs.
A PVR/DVR stores recorded programs on a hard disk. This is more flexible than a tape system, because you don't have to wait until a program is completely recorded before you can start watching it.

Another advantage is that, with your Media Center PC acting as your PVR, you can easily back up your programs to another external disk or to another computer on the network. Keeping programs organised is also easier with a PVR/DVR. Instead of shuffling through many separate video tapes, you can use search and sort tools to quickly find the show you want to see, wherever it's stored on the disk.

With the My TV feature of the Media Center application, you can watch live TV programs in a window on your desktop or in full-screen mode, and you can pause, rewind, and fast forward through the program.
The Media Center PC differs from popular PVRs such as TiVo by being more expensive initially, you're buying a full fledged Windows XP computer that does much more than a dedicated PVR. Dedicated PVRs are computers, too -- but very specialised ones. For example, TiVo uses a stripped down version of Linux as its operating system. One big advantage of the Media Center PC is that there's no monthly programming fee, as there is with TiVo and other PVR/DVR services. In addition, you're not limited by the size of the built-in hard disk as you are with PVR/DVR devices. If you want to store more programs, you can add external hard disks easily by plugging them into the USB or IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports.

Finally, because you can join your Media Center PC to your home network, you can transfer TV program files to another computer (and even watch them on another computer) without the limitations imposed by a dedicated PVR/DVR box.

Media Center PC's functionality can be expanded even further with products designed to work with Media Center and/or handle the files it creates. Several hardware vendors are set to offer Media Center Extenders, and some vendors already make DVD players that can connect to your home network and play Media Center's MP3 and .dvr-ms files on a remote television set.

Microsoft has partnered with several hardware vendors to produce a device called the Media Center Extender, which connects to a TV in a different part of the house from your Media Center TV.
The extender communicates with your Media Center PC over a wired or wireless network and allows you to use the same Media Center application interface to watch TV and videos, listen to music, and view digital photos on the remote TV.

A special Media Center Extender product works with Microsoft's Xbox game console. It is a software product that runs on the Xbox hardware like an Xbox game, and allows you to play your Media Center files on the TV connected to the Xbox.
With Media Center Extenders, one person can use the Media Center PC (for example, to watch a recorded TV program) while another listens to Media Center music files in another room. There can be up to five instances of Media Center running at the same time (the Media Center PC and four extenders).

Vendors, such as Gateway, make DVD player and recorders that have built-in wireless networking and/or Ethernet ports to connect to a home network, and are capable of playing all Media Center file formats, including recorded TV files (.dvr-ms).

Streaming video requires high bandwidth, so connected DVD devices generally use 802.11g wireless technology rather than the slower (but more common) 802.11b.