Software for Digital home Entertainment is one area where there has been frantic development in recent times. With the number of people who are into the "Home Entertainment Hub" this was expected. Though there were many products geared towards this aspect, it was Microsoft who jump-started the 'Home Entertainment' wagon with the development of the XBox and the humongously popular Windows Media Center Edition (MCE).
Though Windows MCE is an excellent product and is somewhat of a pioneering attempt in the development of HTPC (Home theater PC), it does have its limits. And the multitude of commercial solutions available on the shelves don't offer much either. This is where Open Source steps in.
MediaPortal by Erwin Beckers and team is the perfect solution for turning your PC into a complete Media Center. Well its not perfect, but the closest thing to it. Erwin was the founder of XBMC (Xbox Media Center) project who later went on to start MediaPortal as a free open source product.
There's more after the turn...
In their own words,MediaPortal is an Open Source application ideal for turning your PC / TV into a very advanced Media Center. MediaPortal allows you to listen to your favorite music & radio, watch and store your videos and DVDs, view, schedule and record live TV as a digital video recorder and much much more. You get MediaPortal as Open Source software. This means you can help in developing MediaPortal or tweak it for your own needs with lots of innovating plugins from our great community.
MediaPortal includes a host of excellent features.
To speak from a general overview, they are:
Create your own skins, or choose one of the available skins!
MediaPortal can easily be extended with extra plugins
You decide which keys you want to use for which actions
Internal support for several remote controls
Windowed and fullscreen support
And many more features like MyTV, MyVideo/DVD, MyRadio, MyPictures, MyMusic, MyWeather, Emulators, CD/DVD burning within MediaPortal, Email, PC monitoring, Scheduled Recording, alarms, games etc. MediaPortal is not a demo, shareware or anything like that. Rather it is a complete, free-to-use full version software that will turn your PC into a real 'Media Center' without changing much of your computer's hardware. Moreover, since it is open source, anyone can contribute to or customize the software according to their own requirements.
The hardware and software requirements to use this software is very much acceptable and will run as it is on almost every PC that is somewhat up to date. MediaPortal is developed on the Microsoft .Net framework using C#.
Download the full product here.
You can learn more about this amazing FREE, open source product by visiting their website, and also by having a look into this extensive documentation.
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