XBMC spinoff Media Portal reaches version 1.0, five year countdown to MediaPortal 2 begins

by Richard Lawler posted Dec 27th 2008 at 3:05PM

It's been five long years, but the devs behind MediaPortal have decided their Windows Media Center / SageTV / BeyondTV competitor is worthy of exiting beta, finally reaching version 1.0. A long way from its roots as a Xbox Media Center port for Windows, it promises easy access to music, movies and more from a full screen display, along with support for watching and recording live TV. DownloadSquad mentions MediaPortal 2 is now on the way, with the open source project looking to add media streaming to / from various devices to the mix. Certainly seems worth a look if waiting on a boxee invite isn't your cup of tea.

[Via Download Squad]

Filed under: Media PCs

Tags: media center, media portal, MediaCenter, MediaPortal, open source, OpenSource, windows, xbmc

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

glenn s @ Dec 27th 2008 4:30PM

Yea, because Boxee goes open to everyone on January 6th on max and linux. And the windows version is not far behind. They had to do something or be left in the dust. So lo-and-behold - version 1.0. I'm a big fan of XBMC and Boxee. I use both on my HTPC. I'm willing to give media portal a look, but my hopes are not high for it.

Neutral

Ghoti @ Dec 27th 2008 4:51PM

This is good news, kudos to them!!! I have thought about trying out their program, but the lack of freely, easily available TV listings makes me a little hesitant. I know you can get listings from Schedules Direct for $20 a year, but I'd want to research it more.

Highest Ranked

xemumanic @ Dec 27th 2008 6:58PM

I've been using this since even before they had a name for it.

I love XBMC and its variants, but this is so very different from its roots. Other than the TV recording functionality, the Direct Show player is in some ways better than what XBMC and its children have to offer. With a proper codec setup, there's nothing it cant play, with audio/subtitle track switching for MKVs and such.

Neutral

keith @ Dec 28th 2008 12:47PM

Guys, MediaPortla is a complete redesign using .net. At one time it used some XBMC code but I think that day is beyond now.
So think of it as a project 'inspired' by XBMC when it didn't run on anything but a Xbox.

Now that XBMC is ported, its a different project completely. I have used it in the past but personally I prefer Boxee and XBMC myself. Long live good open source software!

Neutral

keith @ Dec 28th 2008 12:51PM

Oh an another thing, XBMC/Boxee is self contained. No using DirectShow filters, no fighting with Windows usually. It's a much cleaner end user experience and runs the same on nearly every platform. Windows has more bugs, since its the newest port but in 6 months everything will be solid and based off one codebase. I can't wait!
I've been doing SVN builds of XBMC for a year and a half and recently switched to OSX from Linux for my HTPC and it's perfect now. I got a $450 2ghz device that plays all my media and my roommates and friends never have to open up terminal to type in commandline sequences to bring optical audio back like they did on Linux.

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