For those of you who are not familiar with Microsoft's Windows Media Center XP Operating System which is installed on Media Center PC's, a brief explanation follows:
Media Center gives you a PC that is at home in your living room, family room, etc. Your TV becomes the display device and you can watch and record TV, view your digital pictures and movies, listen to your audio files, surf the web, burn DVD's with video or music, and more. This can also be called a Home Theater PC (HTPC)
BUT what about those of us who have a great PC that COULD be a Media Center PC but just has XP Pro or XP Home on it? Well, MediaPortal is the answer. An OpenSource project (which means FREE) which brings Media Center functionality into an XP PC. It supports all the basic Media Center functionality (including the use of a remote control with your PC) and also has a variety of plug ins including RSS feeds, Weather, TV Program Guide, Instant Messaging, Web browsing, E-mail, and more. Check it out! I found the link to this project at the Volleynerd Knowledge Base blog.
Note there are thousands of OpenSource projects and programs out there! If you own a PC this is an avenue you should explore.
Media Center gives you a PC that is at home in your living room, family room, etc. Your TV becomes the display device and you can watch and record TV, view your digital pictures and movies, listen to your audio files, surf the web, burn DVD's with video or music, and more. This can also be called a Home Theater PC (HTPC)
BUT what about those of us who have a great PC that COULD be a Media Center PC but just has XP Pro or XP Home on it? Well, MediaPortal is the answer. An OpenSource project (which means FREE) which brings Media Center functionality into an XP PC. It supports all the basic Media Center functionality (including the use of a remote control with your PC) and also has a variety of plug ins including RSS feeds, Weather, TV Program Guide, Instant Messaging, Web browsing, E-mail, and more. Check it out! I found the link to this project at the Volleynerd Knowledge Base blog.
Note there are thousands of OpenSource projects and programs out there! If you own a PC this is an avenue you should explore.
3 comments:
if you want to turn a pc into a dvr i used this http://www.mythtv.org/ fun project
I will give it a look and make a comparison post!
Hmmmm, while I have not downloaded this, viewing the webpage this appears to focus more on the TV/PVR functionality while MediaPortal seems to be more full featured.
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