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Open Source Multimedia Center For Windows
An anonymous reader writes "A new opensourced multimedia center for Windows has been released. Media Portal boasts the ability to turn your PC into an advanced HTPC (Home-Theatre PC) and PVR/DVR (Personal/Digital Video Recorder). It allows you to listen to your favorite music and radio, watch all your video's and DVD's, view, schedule
and record live TV and much more. The software is a port of the homebrew Xbox Media Center software which requires a Modded Xbox to run."
What is the most inexpensive hardware with enough OOMPH to run this?
I wonder if because it was based on the XBox version if a sub 1Ghz machine with very little RAM would suffice?
I would be very interested in seeing a barebones media center application that ran on minimal hardware. MythTV remains out of reach for me as I would have to build a machine specifically for it that is 100x more powerful than my current fastest machine.
some of us happen to like windows xp for home applications. windows xp + cheap commodity x86 hardware = inexpensive, easy to set up and use home computer. Sure I am paying for my copy of xp, but I think it's worth it in terms of not having to deal with the hassle of installing linux. To qualify my opinion, I happen to use linux in a work environment because of certain features, but for (let's face it) linux is a pain in the ass to set up. Is it doable? Sure. Is it worth my effort? Probably not. Last time I tried to run linux at home and play mp3s I had to chmod 777 /dev/dsp so that the mp3 player could talk to the sound driver. Linux is a hacker's system and it's very good for what it is. It is not yet fully mature as a home system. I just plop my xp home system behind a simple router/firewall, install firefox, and I'm ready to websurf/play GTAIII/listen to mp3s.
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