MediaPortal is an open-source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 media center

Home theater PC

A Home Theater PC or Media Center appliance is a convergence device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that supports video, photo, music playback, and sometimes video recording functionality...

 software project, often considered an alternative to Windows Media Center

Windows Media Center

Windows Media Center is a digital video recorder and media player developed by Microsoft. It is an application that allows users to view and record live television, as well as organize and play music and videos...

. It provides a 10-foot user interface

10-foot user interface

In computing a 10-foot user interface is a software GUI designed for display on a large television with interaction using a regular television-style remote control."10 foot" refers to the fact that the GUI's...

 for performing typical PVR/TiVo

TiVo

TiVo is a digital video recorder developed and marketed by TiVo, Inc. and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include "Season Pass" schedules which record every new episode of a series, and "WishList"...

 functionality, including playing, pausing, and recording live TV; playing DVDs, videos, and music; viewing pictures; and other functions. Plugins allow it to perform additional tasks, such as watching online video, listening to music from online services such as Last.fm

Last.fm

Last.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....

, and launching other applications such as games. It interfaces with the hardware commonly found in HTPCs, such as TV tuners, infrared receivers, and LCD displays.

The MediaPortal source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

 was initially forked

Fork (software development)

In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...

 from XBMC Media Center, though it has been almost completely re-written since then. MediaPortal runs only under Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

, unlike most other open-source media center programs such as MythTV

MythTV

MythTV is a free and open source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living-room TV, and turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital multimedia home entertainment system, or home theater...

 and XBMC, which are usually cross-platform

Cross-platform

In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...

.

Features

• Direct X GUI
• Video Hardware Acceleration
  DXVA
  DirectX Video Acceleration is a Microsoft API specification for the Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms that allows video decoding to be hardware accelerated. The pipeline allows certain CPU-intensive operations such as iDCT, motion compensation and deinterlacing to be offloaded to the GPU...
  
  
• VMR
  DirectShow
  DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...
  
   / EVR on Windows Vista
  Windows Vista
  Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
  
   / 7
• TV / Radio (DVB-S
  DVB-S
  DVB-S is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Satellite; it is the original Digital Video Broadcasting forward error coding and demodulation standard for satellite television and dates from 1994, in its first release, while development lasted from 1993 to 1997...
  
  , DVB-S2
  DVB-S2
  Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite - Second Generation is a digital television broadcast standard that has been designed as a successor for the popular DVB-S system. It was developed in 2003 by the , an international industry consortium, and ratified by ETSI in March 2005...
  
  , DVB-T
  DVB-T
  DVB-T is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial; it is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in the UK in 1998...
  
  , DVB-C
  DVB-C
  DVB-C stands for Digital Video Broadcasting - Cable and it is the DVB European consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital television over cable...
  
  , Analog television
  Analog television
  Analog television is the analog transmission that involves the broadcasting of encoded analog audio and analog video signal: one in which the message conveyed by the broadcast signal is a function of deliberate variations in the amplitude and/or frequency of the signal...
  
   (Common Interface
  Common Interface
  In Digital Video Broadcasting, the Common Interface is an extensible digital interconnect found in the digital TV market. It is also known as DVB-CI for Digital Video Broadcast Common Interface....
  
  , DVB radio
  Radio
  Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
  
  , DVB EPG, Teletext
  Teletext
  Teletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
  
  , etc...)
• IPTV
  IPTV
  Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...
  
  
• Recording, pause and time shifting
  Time shifting
  Time shifting is the recording of programming to a storage medium to be viewed or listened to at a time more convenient to the consumer. Typically, this refers to TV programming but can also refer to radio shows via podcasts....
  
   of TV and Radio broadcasts
• Music player
• Video/DVD
  DVD
  A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
  
   player
• Picture player
• Internet Streams
• Integrated Weather Forecasts
• Built-in RSS reader
• Plug ins
• Skins

Graphical User Interfaces

Control

MediaPortal can be controlled by any input device, that is supported by the Windows Operating System.

• PC Remote
  Remote control
  A remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...
  
  
• Keyboard
  Keyboard (computing)
  In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...
  
   / Mouse
  Mouse (computing)
  In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...
  
  
• Game Pad
• Kinect
• Wiimote
• Android / iOS/ WebOS / S60
  S60 (software platform)
  The S60 Platform is a software platform for mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. It was created by Nokia, who made the platform open source and contributed it to the Symbian Foundation. S60 has been used by mobile device manufacturers including Siemens mobile, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic...
  
   handset devices

Television

MediaPortal uses its own TV-Server to allow to set up one central server with one or more TV cards. All TV related tasks are handled by the server and streamed over the network to one or more clients. Clients can then install the MediaPortal Client software and use the TV-Server to watch live or recorded TV, schedule recordings, view and search EPG data over the network. Since version 1.0.1, the client plugin of the TV-Server has replaced the default built-in TV Engine.

Even without a network (i.e. a singleseat installation), the TV-Server treats the PC as both the server and the client.

The TV-Server supports watching and recording TV at the same time with only one DVB/ATSC TV Card, on the same transponder

Transponder (Satellite communications)

A communications satellite’s transponder, is the series of interconnected units which form a communications channel between the receiving and the transmitting antennas .A transponder is typically composed of:...

.
Broadcast Driver Architecture

Broadcast Driver Architecture

The Broadcast Driver Architecture is a Microsoft standard for digital video capture on Microsoft Windows operating systems. It encompasses the ATSC and DVB standards and gives developers a standardized method of accessing TV tuner devices...

 is used to support as many TV cards as possible.
The major brands of cards, like digital-everywhere, Hauppauge

Hauppauge Computer Works

Hauppauge Computer Works , or just Hauppauge, is a US manufacturer and marketer of electronic video hardware for personal computers. Although it is most widely known for its WinTV line of TV tuner cards for PCs, Hauppauge also produces personal video recorders, digital video editors, digital media...

, Pinnacle

Pinnacle

A pinnacle is an architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire...

, TechnoTrend and TechniSat

TechniSat

TechniSat is a German manufacturer and market leader of direct broadcast satellite receivers as well. They also produce televisions, car navigation and entertainment systems...

, including analog cards, provide BDA drivers for their cards.

Video/DVD player

The video player of MediaPortal is a DirectShow

DirectShow

DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...

 Player, so any codec/filter can be used. MediaPortal uses the codec

Codec

A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...

 of MPC-HT

Media Player Classic

Media Player Classic is a compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The application mimics the look and feel of the old, lightweight Windows Media Player 6.4 but integrates most options and features found in modern media players...

 by default, but the codec

Codec

A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...

 can be changed to all installed ones, such like FFDShow

Ffdshow

ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well...

, PowerDVD

PowerDVD

CyberLink PowerDVD is a media player for Microsoft Windows. Several editions of the software are sold including "Ultra", "Deluxe" and "Standard". All editions support the viewing of DVD and the Ultra edition supports Blu-ray playback, including the playback of Blu-ray 3D content.The product is...

, CoreAVC

CoreAVC

CoreAVC is a proprietary codec for decoding the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video format.The decoder is currently one of the fastest software decoders, but is slower than hardware-based ones. CoreAVC supports all H.264 Profiles except for 4:2:2 and 4:4:4.CoreAVC now supports two forms of GPU hardware...

, Nvidia PureVideo

Nvidia PureVideo

Nvidia PureVideo is a hardware feature designed to offload video decoding processes and video post-processing from a computer's CPU hardware to Nvidia's GPU hardware series GeForce 6 and later, GeForce M series ; and Nvidia Quadro series...

 etc.
MediaPortal also support video post-processing

Video post-processing

The term post-processing is used in the video/film business for quality-improvement image processing methods used in video playback devices, , and video players software and transcoding software...

, with any installed codec

Codec

A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...

.
Due to the DirectShow

DirectShow

DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...

 player implementation, MediaPortal can play all media files that can be played on Windows.

Music player

The default internal music player uses the BASS Engine with the BASS audio library. The alternative player is the internal DirectShow

DirectShow

DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...

 player.
With the BASS Engine MediaPortal supports visualizations

Music visualization

Music visualization, a feature found in electronic music visualizers and media player software, generates animated imagery based on a piece of music...

 from Windows Media Visualizations, Winamp

Winamp

Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp...

 Visualizations including Milkdrop

MilkDrop

MilkDrop is an open source, hardware-accelerated music visualization plugin for Winamp, which was originally developed by Ryan Geiss. It uses DirectX and intelligent beat detection to render iterated images which blend seamlessly...

, Sonic

Sonic Solutions

Sonic Solutions, acquired by Rovi Corporation in 2010, was a computer software company headquartered in Novato, California. In addition to having a number of offices in the U.S., the company also maintained offices in Europe and Asia.-History:...

 and Soundspectrum G-Force

SoundSpectrum

SoundSpectrum, previously known as WhiteCap Technologies is a software company founded in 2000 that develops music visualization software...

.

Picture player/organizer

Digital pictures/photos can be browsed, managed and played as slideshows with background music or radio. The picture player uses different transitions or the Ken Burns Effect

Ken Burns Effect

The Ken Burns effect is a popular name for a type of panning and zooming effect used in video production from still imagery.The name derives from extensive use of the technique by American documentarian Ken Burns...

 between each picture.
Exif data are used to rotate the pictures automatically, but the rotation can be done manually too. Zooming of pictures is also possible.

Online videos

OnlineVideos is a plugin for MediaPortal to integrate seamless online video support into MediaPortal.
OnlineVideos supports almost 200 sites/channels in a variety of languages and genres such like YouTube, iTunes Movie Trailers, Discovery Channel etc.

Series

MP-TVSeries is a popular TV Series plug-in for MediaPortal. It focuses on managing the user's TV Series library.
The MP-TVSeries plugin will scan the hard drive (including network and removable drives) for video files, it then analyzes them by their path structures to determine if they are TV Shows. If the file(s) are recognized then the plugin will go online and retrieve information about them. You can then browse, manage and play your episodes from inside MediaPortal in a nice graphical layout.

The information and fan art

Fan art

Fan art or fanart is artwork that is based on a character, costume, collage, item, or story that was created by someone other than the artist, such as a fan, from which the word is derived from. The term, while it can apply to art done by fans of characters from books, is usually used to refer to...

 it retrieves is coming from TheTVDB.com which allows any user to add and update information. The extension will automatically update any information when new episodes/files are added.

Skins

The skin files are written in XAML

XAML

Extensible Application Markup Language is a declarative XML-based language created by Microsoft used for initializing structured values and objects. It is available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise...

.

Plug-ins

The development of own extensions can be done in different programming languages.
The main used language is C#, but any language can be used that can handle DLL

Dynamic-link library

Dynamic-link library , or DLL, is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems...

 files.

Minimum hardware requirements

The minimum hardware requirements listed here are for standard definition resolution playback and recording with MPEG-2

MPEG-2

MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...

 video compression using a single TV-tuner. Note that multiple tuners, or MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) playback carries higher system requirements, see the separate HDTV minimum hardware requirements section below.

• 1.4 GHz Intel Pentium III (or equivalent) processor
• 256 MB (256 MiB
  Mebibyte
  The mebibyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The binary prefix mebi means 220, therefore 1 mebibyte is . The unit symbol for the mebibyte is MiB. The unit was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 2000 and has been accepted for use by all major...
  
  ) of System RAM
• DirectX
  DirectX
  Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
  
   9.0 hardware-accelerated GPU
  Graphics processing unit
  A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
  
   with at least 64MB of video memory
  • Graphics chips
    Graphics processing unit
    A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
    
     which support this and are compatible with MediaPortal:
    • ATI Radeon series 9600 (or above)
    • NVIDIA GeForce 6600 (or above), GeForce FX 5200 (or above) and nForce 6100 series (or above)
    • Intel Extreme Graphics 2 (integrated i865G)
    • Matrox Parhelia
    • SiS Xabre series
• 200 MB free harddisk-drive space for the MediaPortal software
• 12 GB or more free harddisk-drive space for Hardware Encoding or Digital TV based TV cards for timeshifting purposes

HDTV minimum hardware requirements

HDTV

High-definition television

High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

 (720p/1080i/1080p) playback/recording, and also recording from multiple tuners, and playback of MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) video, carries higher system requirements.

• 2.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 (or equivalent) processor
• 512 MB of System RAM
• DirectX
  DirectX
  Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
  
   9.0 hardware-accelerated GPU
  Graphics processing unit
  A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
  
   with at least 128MB of video memory
  • Graphics chips
    Graphics processing unit
    A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
    
     which support this and are compatible with MediaPortal:
    • ATI Radeon series 9600 (or above)
    • NVIDIA GeForce 6600 (or above), GeForce FX 5200 (or above) and nForce 6100 series (or above)
    • Intel Extreme Graphics 2 (integrated i865G)
    • Matrox Parhelia
    • SiS Xabre series
    • XGI Volari V Series and XP Series
• 200 MB free harddisk-drive space for the MediaPortal software
• 12 GB or more free harddisk-drive space for Hardware Encoding or Digital TV based TV cards for timeshifting purposes

Supported operating systems

• Windows XP 32-bit Edition with Service Pack 3 or later
• Windows Media Center Edition 2005 with Update Rollup 2 or later
• Windows Vista 32 and 64-bit with Service Pack 2 or later
• Windows 7 32 and 64-bit

Software prerequisites

• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
• DirectX
  DirectX
  Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
  
   9.0c
• Windows Media Player 11(Only required on XP SP3, Windows Vista comes with WMP11 and Windows 7 comes with WMP12 already)

See also

• Media PC
• Windows XP Media Center Edition
  Windows XP Media Center Edition
  Windows XP Media Center Edition is a version of the Windows XP operating system designed to serve as a home-entertainment hub. The last version, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, was released in October 2004.-Versions:...
  
   (MCE)
• Windows Media Center Extender
  Windows Media Center Extender
  Windows Media Center Extenders are devices that are configured to connect via a Network link to a computer running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows Vista Home Premium/Ultimate or Windows 7 Home Premium or higher to stream the computer's media center functions to the Extender device...
  
  
• Windows Media Connect
  Windows Media Connect
  Windows Media Connect is a UPnP AV server from Microsoft for Windows XP and later Windows operating systems, to share and stream media on a Windows computer to WMC clients. The first two releases of WMC were made available as stand-alone software, and included a client as well...
  
  
• Windows Media Player
  Windows Media Player
  Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
  
  
• XBMC Media Center - the GPL open source software that MediaPortal was originally based upon.
• Comparison of PVR software packages
  Comparison of PVR software packages
  The following is a comparison guide for popular DVR software packages.-General information:Basic general information for popular DVR software packages....
  
  
• Microsoft PlaysForSure
  Microsoft PlaysForSure
  Starting in 2004, Microsoft PlaysForSure was a certification given by Microsoft to portable devices and content services that had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. These requirements include codec support, DRM support, UI responsiveness, device...
  
  
• 2Wire MediaPortal
• List of codecs