Free Windows Media Portal

[DragonMasterAlex]

MediaPortal

This is being updated all the time, and it's really good! I've been futzing with it since like 0.0.0.1 version several months ago, and I have to say I am really impressed. For all those who are jumping on the TV tuner/capture cards and building of HTPC boxes but don't want to get tied to the Microsoft Media Center (which is good, don't get me wrong), this is a great alternative and it's free.

Just trying to pass on a hot deal that can save you some cash *and* save you from pirating software

Jason

 

[aphex]

Does it work with BT878 Cards such as the leadtek series?

 

[djchemistry]

Seems like a repost, but any free product is worth plugging again for those that do not know about it. Here are two more open source or free software products for a media center alternative.

1. www.gbpvr.com
2. www.gottvpvr.com

 

[mscdex0]

I was unaware of this piece of software. Thanks OP

 

[Jeomite]

Media Portal works great. I been using it for about a month now on two HTPCs. It's still in its beta stages, but it still works great for what it does. The skinning feature and the IMDB retrieve feature is good stuff... Also supports VMR9 (of Direct X 9.0+) for its video rendering (better than Overlay

 

[digdugdogg]

Nice! Thanks for the heads up!

 

[ondarkness]

awesome!
WOOT!

 

[GotSomethingCheaper?]

Originally posted by: ondarkness
awesome!
WOOT!

Bump for this great post, never seen it either (boo to repost comments on some thread that go pushed out of site with little notice)

 

[vegeto456]

This software is pretty cool but I didn't really like the tv interface. The guide navigation was a little cumbersome compared to my tivo but maybe it's customizable? I only played with it for a couple minutes.

 

[kamranziadar]

nice

 

[kamranziadar]

awesome

 

[Queasy]

Another good free HTPC frontend is xlobby. I've been playing around with it and it is pretty nice. Very customizable.

 

[jaarjaar]

This is a port of the very popular Xbox Media Center (XBMC) software on the Xbox and is lead by one of the founders of the XBMC project.

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
MediaPortal

This is being updated all the time, and it's really good! I've been futzing with it since like 0.0.0.1 version several months ago, and I have to say I am really impressed. For all those who are jumping on the TV tuner/capture cards and building of HTPC boxes but don't want to get tied to the Microsoft Media Center (which is good, don't get me wrong), this is a great alternative and it's free.

Just trying to pass on a hot deal that can save you some cash *and* save you from pirating software

Jason

 

[hevnsnt]

Originally posted by: jaarjaar
This is a port of the very popular Xbox Media Center (XBMC) software on the Xbox and is lead by one of the founders of the XBMC project.

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
MediaPortal

This is being updated all the time, and it's really good! I've been futzing with it since like 0.0.0.1 version several months ago, and I have to say I am really impressed. For all those who are jumping on the TV tuner/capture cards and building of HTPC boxes but don't want to get tied to the Microsoft Media Center (which is good, don't get me wrong), this is a great alternative and it's free.

Just trying to pass on a hot deal that can save you some cash *and* save you from pirating software

Jason

Right on.. My Xbox is NOTHING without XBMC..
I wasn't even going to check this software out, until your post!
Thanks!

 

[mannydx]

this media portal and xbmc are awesome. i use both of them

 

[uurda]

bump

 

[drinkmorejava]

nice, bump

 

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Originally posted by: drinkmorejava
nice, bump

Seems like good stuff. The MCE 2005 skin makes it look like an OEM MS WinXP MCE 2005 install.

Some stuff was very cool. I got the weather to work and XML TV listings also (after fiddiling around).

HOWEVER, my Leadtek Winfast 2000XP Deluxe did not seem to work very well at all. The TV portion could not tune channels and would crash intermittently. Also the program was taking anywhere from 50-100MB of RAM at any given point (not a big deal though).

So it looks like I will hold off for now. The original included winfast software fits my needs for now (and is very stable too).

I guess I'll keep it on my computer and just follow the updates.


Hopefully they'll get some good HDTV card support soon. I plan on buying a computer this summer and its nice to know that If the computer doesn't inlcude MCE 2005, I'll still have something very similar to work with.

Thanks OP!

 

[lotust]

kool

 

[gaidin123]

bump again for a great piece of software. I have everything working but a TV tuner (need to scrounge one from somewhere) but weather, satellite image, internet radio stations, movies, music, pictures, and at least TV listings all seem to work well.

The fact that this tool integrates with things like daemon tools for mounting ISOs of your movies is great. With enough drive space I could toss most of my DVD collection as full ISOs so I could keep all the menus/extras. The shoutcast plugin I found on the forums auto updates my lists of internet radio stations (custom text string searches of shoutcast.com's listings).

Hopefully they get a few more tuner cards supported fully though it seems like there are a lot that do work. I have a Leadtek and an old Radeon AIW that may work with it somewhere....
Gaidin

 

[GT GUY]

Originally posted by: hevnsnt

Originally posted by: jaarjaar
This is a port of the very popular Xbox Media Center (XBMC) software on the Xbox and is lead by one of the founders of the XBMC project.

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
MediaPortal

This is being updated all the time, and it's really good! I've been futzing with it since like 0.0.0.1 version several months ago, and I have to say I am really impressed. For all those who are jumping on the TV tuner/capture cards and building of HTPC boxes but don't want to get tied to the Microsoft Media Center (which is good, don't get me wrong), this is a great alternative and it's free.

Just trying to pass on a hot deal that can save you some cash *and* save you from pirating software

Jason

Right on.. My Xbox is NOTHING without XBMC..
I wasn't even going to check this software out, until your post!
Thanks!

Same here. I love my XBMC.

 

[jst0ney]

thanks OP

 

[ondarkness]

Is anyone else getting that annoying NET Frames error after installing?

 

[tfinch2]

This program crashes within 30 seconds everytime I try to configure it. I've tried to run it on both Windows 2000 and XP Pro.

 

[Abdullus]

Will go home and try it tonight....bump!