Does anyone know a way to get these applications from Windows 8 to run on Server 2012 ? I ask becasue the video application has support for tagged mp4 metadata and would be a perfect lightweight replacement for media center.

Ive looked in the hidden "windows apps" folder but only found the graphics resources

You create a new user account, different from the default Administrator, another administrator account, so you will be able to acces Windows Store. There, using a Microsoft account (Live ID) you can download and install all the Windows 8 default Metro applications, including Music and Video.