Just getting started with Windows 7 Media Center? Microsoft has created a short series of videos to help you get started using your brand new media experience. These videos are perfect for the absolute beginner to the Media Center experience. If this is you and you’re more of a visual learner be sure to give these videos a quick view for a quick overview of using Media Center’s Music Playlist, CD/DVD Burner and TV Recording features. Thanks to Ian Dixon of The Digital Lifestyle for finding these little gems and sharing them with the community.

The fist video covers the basics of burning a CD/DVD with Windows 7 Media Center. Watch it in SD or HD on YouTube or watch the HD version here on Hack7MC below. We’ve also got the video available for download right here at Hack7MC.

The next video features the process to creating your own music playlist with Windows 7 Media Center. Watch the video below, on YouTube or Download it from Hack7MC.

Finally we’ve got everyone’s favorite feature, Recording Live TV with Media Center. Once again you can download this video from Hack7MC, watch it below or watch on YouTube.

For new users don’t forget to subscribe to Hack7MC as well and we’ll bring you all the tweaks and downloads to make the best of your Windows 7 Media Center!

Yesterday we announced a brand new offering for Windows Media Center users: Sports Channel. Sports Channel will be offered to Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate users as a new tile under Sports in Windows Media Center.

Sports Channel offers a variety of sports content from great sources CBSSports.com, Fox Sports, MSNBC.com and more. Content flowing through Sports Channel ranges from breaking sports news to interviews of your favorite players to the ability to track your fantasy sports teams.

Sports Channel is a great example of our continued investment in providing new and easier ways for people to find and access compelling content through Windows Media Center.

Instead of going through my own experience with Sports Channel, Id like to call out Ian Dixons overview of Sports Channel here and Stuarts screenshots of the Sports Channel experience here from The Digital Lifestyle.com (one of the best Windows Media Center sites on the web today).

For the best experience with Sports Channel in Windows Media Center, a broadband connection is highly recommended. Today, Sports Channel is currently available in the U.S. only.

I also recommend checking out MSNBC News in Windows Media Center (which I blogged about last October) which is no longer in beta.

SageTV has been adding all sorts of media center features to its product line, including clear QAM support and HD media extenders. They are completely out-innovating Microsoft. With all the features they are delivering, there is one lingering problem: SageTV does not support digital cable tuners and CableCards (i.e. cannot watch.record premium HD cable content).

Currently, Vista Media Center is the only viable option for digital cable tuners (DCTs). Why is that you might ask? DRM, also known as digital rights management. CableLabs has made life very frustrating for the HTPC enthusiast by requiring all HTPCs with DCTs to be certified.

In order to buy/use a digital cable tuner, I have to purchase a pre-built system from an OEM vendor like HP, Sony, or Velocity Micro PC. Definitely a pain in the butt, not to mention expensive. This layer of DRM essentially has locked you into the Vista Media Center ecosystem.

No OEM is going to sell you a Sage product or BeyondTV product that can use DCTs. It currently does not exist and I will be very surprised if it ever does. HTPCs are definitely a niche market for nerds only. There is no market incentive for HP to offer SageTV on their machines when Vista Media Center is readily available. In order for SageTV to offer suport for DCTs, they have to be approved by CableLabs AND then convince an OEM to include them on their systems.

So what does this mean for Microsoft? Basically, they have a monoply of the digital cable tuner market (not including Tivo since it is not a PC-based solution). How many companies have the ability to deliver DVR software and convince vendors to supply their software? No matter what Microsoft does or how far they lag behind the market, you have to use Vista to watch cable premium content on your computer in HD. No competitor can match them on that important feature. All thanks to DRM. Not innovation or feature-sets, but content protection.

I wonder how much Microsoft has actually fought with CableLabs about its DRM-scheme. Publicly, they appear to be butting heads but privately, Microsoft has a lot to gain by being the only option on the block. Could Microsoft be using the iTunes/iPod model of vendor lock-in?