MediaPortal is a free open source media center software, ideal for turning your PC into a very advanced multi media center, or Home Theater PC (HTPC). Using MediaPortal, you can listen to your favorite music and radio; watch your videos and DVDs; or view, schedule and record live TV, much like a digital video recorder such as TiVo, but better. Universal Media Server is a media server capable of serving videos, audio and images to devices like PS3s, Xbox 360s, TVs, smart phones, Blu-ray players and more. It is free, regularly updated and has more features than any other media server, including paid media servers. Mar 31, 2016  Plex, based off XBMC, is another fairly popular media player. It contains two components – the Plex Media Server, which is the backend, and the Plex Media Center, which is the frontend. With Plex, you could make one computer in your house a media server and access it using the Plex Media Center on your home theater PC. TinyMediaManager is a media management tool written in Java/Swing. It is written to provide metadata for the Kodi Media Center (formerly known as XBMC), MediaPortal and Plex media server. Due to the fact that it is written in Java, tinyMediaManager will run on Windows, Linux. CNET Download provides free downloads for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices across all categories of software and apps, including security, utilities, games, video and browsers.

1. Media Center Software For Mac

After I bought my iPad, I realized I don’t really use my laptop as much anymore. This means that I really use my desktop a lot a less! Unfortunately, my desktop, which has some decent specs, is in sleep mode most of the time. I thought this was a little sad and a waste of money, so I decided to do some research and figure out some way to utilize it.

Previously, I wrote about how you can install Windows 10 on an older PC to revitalize it and that’s something that I did with my desktop. Also, I previously had written about how to automate your computer when you’re not using it to perform certain tasks. In addition to accomplishing these two tasks, I wanted the desktop to be even more useful!

After a few days of testing and playing around with software, I can now happily stream music and videos to any web browser or to my smartphone while not being at home! Since my desktop has some extra hard drives, I even turned it into a NAS, also using some free software.

Now I can FTP into my server to download/upload files and I can even use it for Time Machine backups for my Mac. Sweet! So here’s a list of programs you can use to convert your boring old PC into something a little more useful.

FreeNAS

I bought a Synology NAS and even though I’m very happy with it, I realized I can pretty much do everything I want by just installing open-source software onto my desktop! One of the coolest programs out there that I had always heard about, but never used until now, was FreeNAS. It’s basically exactly what its name says: a free NAS OS for your PC, Mac or Linux box.

It’s a very capable and powerful OS that also supports additional features via plugins. I was amazed at what I was able to do with this software. Note that if you use FreeNAS on a computer, you really can’t use that computer for anything else.

Some of the other programs I mention below run inside Windows. FreeNAS is its own OS and manages all the hard drives installed on the computer, etc.

Another thing to note is that FreeNAS is really useful if you have a desktop with several hard drives and a at least 4GB of RAM. The hard drives don’t have to be super fast or giant in size, but the whole point of using FreeNAS is to store files and then to either stream those files or utilize them in some other way.

To get your started on your way, check out these FreeNAS guide articles from Lifehacker and Engadget. They walk you through all the steps to setup the NAS and how to setup all the extra functionality like streaming, downloading and more.

Kodi.tv

One of the best ways to convert a computer into a media center, Kodi.tv is an open-source project that can pretty much play all of the popular audio and video formats. It can even play direct DVD and Blu-ray rips, which is really nice.

You can stream any of your media around your house or across the Internet. You can also control the whole gig with a remote control and enjoy a ton of additional features with their large set of add-ons.

GSE SMART IPTV. If you are searching best IPTV player apk 2020 then GSE SMART IPTV is a must have app for you as it is one of the powerful live stream IPTV player that can play HTTP, HSL, M3U8, MMS, RTSP and more. Features: Support a wide range of formats; Good hotkey support; Copy and paste M3U contents; RTMP support all options including secure tokens. M3U8 files can be opened and edited by most text editors, such as Notepad on Windows. However, if you want to listen to it, you have to prepare a M3U8 player. Part 2: Top 5 M3U8 players Top 1: AnyMP4 Blu-ray Player. Key features:. Read M3U8 files and let you to listen to music simply. Keep the original quality of audio tracks and music. M3u8 player app for mac. Mar 28, 2019  For playing the M3U8 files, you need the M3U8 player apart from the M3U8 converter. Top 6 best M3U8 players online. When you want to directly play M3U8 files on Windows PC or Macstrong, you need to find a good M3U8 player app first. In case you don't know which M3U8 online player you should use, here we list 6 best ones for you to.

Kodi.tv is absolutely awesome, but you get the max benefit if you have a small desktop. I have two desktops: one giant Dell and smaller, newer HP desktop. I decided to use the HP desktop and connect it to my HDTV at home running Kodi.tv.

It works great, but I realized I could not have done it unless I had that smaller desktop. If you have an older desktop that is fairly large, then you might want to try one of the other programs mentioned below.

TVersity

TVersity is another good choice for media streaming. It used to be free, but now it seems you have to buy a license. They have a free version, but it can’t do any transcoding, which greatly reduces its utility.

You can either purchase the Media Server software or the Screen Server software. One lets you stream content from your PC to a TV or mobile device and the other lets you mirror your PC screen to a TV or mobile device.

Subsonic

For audiophiles with huge music collections, Subsonic is the best way to stream your music all over the place! Subsonic can automatically resample songs that are streaming over the Internet to a bitrate that will prevent songs from skipping or stop playing.

What’s awesome about Subsonic is that they have apps for Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7, Roku and lots more. Also, in addition to streaming music, it can stream video as well. However, this program is best suited for music streaming.

VLC Media Player

Not only does VLC Media Player play just about any music or video file you can throw at it, but it also lets you stream music and videos locally over the network or over the Internet! I really never knew this even though I’ve been using the program for 5 years now!

Check out the How-to-Geek’s guide to setting up streaming using VLC. It’s not anything fancy, but it gets the job done and since most people already have it installed, it might be worth checking out. Enjoy!

Front Row is a discontinued media center software application for Apple's Macintosh computers and Apple TV for navigating and viewing video, photos, podcasts, and music from a computer, optical disc, or the Internet through a 10-foot user interface (similar to Kodi and Windows Media Center). The software relies on iTunes and iPhoto and is controlled by an Apple Remote or the keyboard function keys. The first version was released October 2005, with two major revisions since. Front Row was removed and discontinued in Mac OS X 10.7.^[1]

Versions[edit]

Introduction[edit]

Front Row was first unveiled on October 12, 2005 with the new iMac G5 (along with the built-in iSight camera, the Apple Remote, and Photo Booth).^[2] The software was billed as an alternative interface for playing and running iPhoto, DVD Player, and iTunes (Internet radio stations could play by adding the station into a playlist in iTunes).

Apple TV[edit]

The next incarnation, released in the original Apple TV software in March 2007, was a complete, stand alone application that played content directly from libraries. Among the features added were more prominent podcasts and TV show menus, trailer streaming, a settings menu, streaming content from computers on the local network, and album and video art for local media. In the summer of 2007, Apple released an update adding streaming of YouTube videos.

Version two[edit]

Released in November 2007 with Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard),^[3] version two of Front Row included the new features introduced with the Apple TV (except for the YouTube viewer), a different opening transition, ending AirTunes functionality, and a launcher application in addition to the Command+Escape keyboard shortcut.

Front Row 2 has an undocumented plug-in architecture, for which various third-party plugins are now available, based on reverse-engineering the Front Row environment. Because it uses QuickTime to render video, Front Row can utilize any codec installed in QuickTime, including DivX, Xvid, and WMV, and play DVD images copied to the hard disk. However, because Front Row does not use QuickTime X, it lacks support for certain codec features like Sample Aspect Ratio.

'Take 2'[edit]

In January 2008, Apple announced an update branded 'Apple TV Take Two' for Apple TV Software. In addition to the prominent addition of direct downloads for movies, TV episodes, and podcasts via the iTunes Store, movie rentals, the ability to view online photos from Flickr or MobileMe (branded .Mac at the time), and the ability to stream audio to AirTunes were added. This update did away with Front Row and introduced a new interface for the original Apple TV in which content was organized into six categories, all of which appeared in a large square box on the screen upon startup (movies, TV shows, music, YouTube, podcasts, and photos) and presented in the initial menu, along with a 'Settings' option for configuration, including software updates.^[4][5]

Discontinuation[edit]

Media Center Software For Mac

Front Row was discontinued with the July 2011 release of Mac OS X Lion (v 10.7). The software appeared in neither the early Developer Previews nor the final version.

While it was initially possible to reinstall Front Row by copying the frameworks and application into OS X Lion,^[6]iTunes v 10.4 on 22 July 2011 broke compatibility, causing those who updated iTunes to lose access to their music through Front Row.^[7]

References[edit]

1. ^AppleInsider Staff (February 26, 2011). 'Mac OS X Lion drops Front Row, Java runtime, Rosetta'. AppleInsider. AppleInsider, Inc. Retrieved February 27, 2011.
2. ^'Apple Introduces the New iMac G5'. Apple PR. October 12, 2005. Archived from the original on July 25, 2006. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
3. ^Apple – Mac OS X Leopard – Features – 300+ New FeaturesArchived October 16, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
4. ^'Gallery: Apple TV Take 2 software update'. MacNN. February 12, 2008. Retrieved March 12, 2009.
5. ^'How to update Apple TV software'. Apple. September 2, 2008. Retrieved March 12, 2009.
6. ^9 to 5 Mac LLC (July 19, 2011). 'OS X Lion kills Front Row.. here's how to get it back'. 9to5mac.com. 9 to 5 Mac LLC. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
7. ^'Front Row missing with Lion upgrade'. apple.com.