What frontend software is the best to use? ..Cont
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MediaPortal
Description [taken from their website] MediaPortal turns your PC / TV into a very advanced MediaCenter / HTPC. Our software 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. Get your free copy of this outstanding mediacenter now! Description
MediaPortal is not tied to any specific OS and so can be installed on top of XP or Vista in either 32 or 64 bit versions. The frontend is hugely customisable by simply choosing one of the many skins available; of which themselves can be modified by users or the developers offering different styled menu configurations.
Add to this the multiple plugins that can be configured for anything from Youtube to RSS feeds, and you have something that should be able to cater to anyones needs.
Some of the skin developers are now wrapping other plug-ins inside their skin - take for example StreamedMP, which includes the popular Moving Pictures and TVSeries plug-ins without the need for seperate configurations, which really does help the user bypass some of the more detailed setups.
Screens below shown are the latest version of MediaPortal with the StreamedMP skin.
[IMGlink]http://www.castle-grounds.co.uk/htpc/images/stream-menu.jpg[/IMGlink]
[IMGlink]http://www.castle-grounds.co.uk/htpc/images/stream-mp-30days.jpg[/IMGlink]
[IMGlink]http://www.castle-grounds.co.uk/htpc/images/stream-tv-24.jpg[/IMGlink]
Downloads
The latest version can be downloaded from the Media Portal website, which as of April 09 is
version 1.0.1.
Skins to customise the look and feel of Media Portal, such as StreamedMP, Monochrome, Aeon, Black & White etc can be found
here.
Popular Plug-ins for Media Portal, such as MyEmulators, myTV Series, Lastfm etc can be found
here.
Automatic refresh rate changer - Changes refresh rate depending on the framerate of the media selected.
Satellite TV EPG over the air rather than via XML download - Added by
timbow For The Record A scheduling program for MediaPortal.
MPstandbyHandler - MediaPortal Forum - A program which enables the ability to record TV in MP on resume (by killing and resuming TVService). -
Added by Bushbrother Configuration help
Although referencing an older build of Media Portal, the guide from
ProjectHTPC showing how to configure KMPlayer with MediaPortal is an excellent starting point and one that I mention frequently in my thread (although I neglected to add it here until it was pointed out to me, thanks Whisler!). This guide is what got me starting the combination of the two software apps, and I cant see a reason for me changing this. Highly recomended.
Builds using Media Portal Theydon Bois -
[Zalman 160+ Case; E6600 + ASUS P5B; ATi 3470; Windows Vista] -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...e-project.html Maxamus - Using a custom Monochrome skin; Internal MP player; DVD playback; No TV card used.
Whisler -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...-question.html
DPM -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...irst-htpc.html
KMark40 -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...c-build-4.html
CallMeSteve -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...ld-thread.html
BushBrother -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...ec-fusion.html
FoxUK -
Request for HTPC links
srv128 -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...tpc-build.html Ninja 12 -
[Silverstone CW02; AMD 780G + 5050e; Windows XP] -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...lots-pics.html bjarvis2785 -
[HTPC/CCTV build] -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...ctv-build.html yetanotherbob -
[Fusion Max case, Intel build] -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...bash-htpc.html beaniator -
[CW02 case, AMD6400+, 8800GTS] -
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...tpc-build.html