The MSN Remote Record Service allows you to remotely schedule programs to be recorded on your Media Center 2005 PC. A Public Beta is now available but only to users in the United States and Canada. To join the beta...

Go to http://beta.microsoft.com
Sign in with your Passport ID
At the top of the Beta Place page you should see:

"If you were issued a Guest ID by Microsoft, you can sign in by clicking
here."

Click on "clicking here"
Sign in with guest ID: myshows (all one word, all lower case)
Click on "MSN Remote Record Service Beta"
Click on "survey" on the left side of the MSN Remote Record Service Beta
Program page
Click on "MSN Remote Record Beta Nomination Form"
Fill out the form and submit.

All valid nominations will be approved. Once approved, it takes about 24
hours for the information to get through the Beta Place system and testers to have access to the Beta program

NOTE:  Release Candidate 2 of Service Pack 2 is still Beta software, and may cause unforeseen problems on your system.  This shouldn't be installed on a system which you cannot afford to reinstall. The final version should be with us Summer 2004.

In terms of Media Center this will update any previous non beta version of Windows XP Media Center 2002 or 2004 to build 5.1.2600.2149. This is mainly a bug fix/performance update rather than adding new features.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Release Candidate 2 (Full Network Installer): 
http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/1/6/C169BA60-E2D6-4C5F-B4F2-23DA024C9FA8/xpSP2.exe

Service Pack 2 RC2 Release Notes:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/relsprc2.mspx