Scott
13-03-2005, 09:59 AM
This probably won't interest most, but for a few I'm sure it will. Just recently I've become interested in setting up a media center (computer hooked up to tv specifically for enterainment purposes). My original plan was to buy a microsoft media center remote, and install Windows XP Media Center 2005. Some of you might have seen this combo in action on TV at some point in the last 6 months. The bottom line is that it looks pretty good, and with myself in need of a new gadget I thought I'd check it out.
Long story short Microsoft's offering is a pile of shit at best. It's flakey (unstable) on a whole lot of levels and it works if you're lucky. I was very disappointed (esp after forking out $70 for the remote). As it turns out you need a freakin super computer to run it, and a directx9 compatable video card.
Anyway, in a huff I decided to have a quick search to see if there were an alternative. Afterall, microsofts offering was nothing special. My first search brought me here:
http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/
Upon looking at the screenshots you can see that its basically a rip of the ms media center. It's only at version 0.1.0.10, so I expected it to be a buggy, unstable pile of crud. Very wrong I was. This program at version 0.1.0.10 is way more stable than ms media center. Not only that, it has support for my remote and has a heap more features to boot (EVEN TETRIS!).
So yeah, the point I'm getting at is if you're thinking of doing the same as I, check out media portal. It'll save you some screwing around, $$ and its free to boot. If anyone else has already tried this out I'd appreciate some comments.
Long story short Microsoft's offering is a pile of shit at best. It's flakey (unstable) on a whole lot of levels and it works if you're lucky. I was very disappointed (esp after forking out $70 for the remote). As it turns out you need a freakin super computer to run it, and a directx9 compatable video card.
Anyway, in a huff I decided to have a quick search to see if there were an alternative. Afterall, microsofts offering was nothing special. My first search brought me here:
http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/
Upon looking at the screenshots you can see that its basically a rip of the ms media center. It's only at version 0.1.0.10, so I expected it to be a buggy, unstable pile of crud. Very wrong I was. This program at version 0.1.0.10 is way more stable than ms media center. Not only that, it has support for my remote and has a heap more features to boot (EVEN TETRIS!).
So yeah, the point I'm getting at is if you're thinking of doing the same as I, check out media portal. It'll save you some screwing around, $$ and its free to boot. If anyone else has already tried this out I'd appreciate some comments.