Vista Media Center

This is something that is not a secret, but is also not very widely known. I would imagine that it is because not too many people have a use for it or know how it could be used.

Of course, I’m talking about creating video playlists that can be used within Vista Media Center. I’m sure everyone knows what a playlist is, as they are most commonly used for music playback on just about any media player available. Anyway, I don’t like rambling that much, so I’ll get right into it.

First, you need a media player capable of generating a playlist with the asx extension. This is most commonly a Windows Media Streaming extension. However, Vista Media Center can recognize and playback this format in both the Music and Video Libraries. I used Windows Media Player 11 to create mine. Simply drag your files into the Drag items here section, arrange them in any order you wish, click on the Untitled Playlist menu directly above and choose Save Playlist As. When naming your playlist, be sure to add the .asx extension and then choose Save As Type “Any Playlist” so that the asx extension is applied correctly (simply RENAMING it DOES NOT WORK). That’s it, you’re done!

You do need to place the playlist file within the directory structure of your Video Library (obviously) so that it is picked up. You can even create a JPG file of the same name (playlist.asx = playlist.jpg, for example) to get a thumbnail to show up in the library nice.