Top Home Theater PC (HTPC) Options in 2008

February 18, 2008 · Filed Under Product Reviews · 6 Comments

For years now I’ve run a home theater system of my own to comfortable serve up movies, tv and music in the living room. I thought it would be a good idea to round-up of options for those of us looking to upgrade in 2008.

Note that I’m going to focus on the software solutions in this piece mainly - hardware can vary widely for each.

Let’s start with the basics - what is an htpc (home theater pc)? Basically any box that you can connect to a monitor/tv and use to listen to music, watch movies and tv shows. HTPC’s can be simple off the shelf units or highly customized systems. Most all htpc systems can be controlled via remote (who wants to get the keyboard out in the middle of the living room) and are powerful enough to play today’s mp3’s and compressed video.

The requirements for an htpc system can vary widely based on the users requirements. Personally mine is primarily used for movies and music. Many use the PVR functionality. Anything beyond those 3 focals is gravy. Many systems allow for checking weather, stocks, email, for showing movie listings, previews, etc.

But at the core if they can’t watch movies, play music and PVR .. they aren’t worth the time.

All of that needs to be simple enough to be controlled by a non-technical person and a remote control.

The litmus test for me is to have a group of non techie friends over - toss the remote to one and see how easy it is for them to flip thru my music collection or queue up a movie.

Xbox (XBMC): The Microsoft Xbox is one of the most prevalent and common home theater systems. Openly developed software (XBMC) can be installed on the game system to transform it into a powerful htpc. Features include support for all major audio and video codecs, remote control, highly customizable, very easy to use. The biggest beneft to the Xbox Htpc is the prevelance of the Xbox system itself and the low cost. Very affordable and easy to find! PVR functions are a bit lacking.

Vista/XP Media Center: The most common software package - especially on newer high end laptops (vista ultimate includes Vista Media Center). Many hardware vendors sell pre-installed systems that run XP or Vista Media Center OS. MCE can handle about any file type you throw at it. Windows Media player hanldes the audio and video library. Photo slides are a breeze to show in MCE as well. A pretty healthy community exists where you can find plenty of plugins and advice. Major drawbacks include no support for ogg vorbis, awkward musc interface and very little in the way of updates/changes (always waiting for Microsoft to update).

Myth : Myth is an open source Linux package most often prebuilt with an OS customized to be used exclusively for htpc. Myth’s strength was originally PVR functionality but has grown over the years into a full fledged htpc system. The open source community is very active and it is easy to find support and asssistance when using. Since the active user base is so large there are plenty of customizations to be found as well. Negatives include some knowledge of linux, hardware support isn’t quite as easy to come by as some of the other systems.

MediaPortal: The small guy in the group. Media Portal is a windows based Open Source htpc engine. The effort started out rather small with limited support and has picked up momentum in the last year. A moderately active community help in setup and plugin/customizations. New Media Portal II version should be released later in 2008. Main advantage Media Portal has over the others - free and easy to use.

Meedio/Meedios: Meedio was the engine for my personal htpc system before Yahoo acquired them. It was similar to Media Portal above - with plenty of plugins and helpful users. After the yahoo purchase the product was killed off. A small community began talk of launching a replacement - Meedios - it seems yet to be released.

Others: Xlobby, Freevo, SageTV, BeyondTV, GB-PVR. All range from non-free products to dedicated pvr systems. Worth a look if you don’t mind spending some time tweaking and customizing.

System	Cost	OS	PVR	Notes
Xbox (XBMC)	Free	Xbox	NO
Vista/MCE	99.00+	Windows	YES
Media-Portal	Free	Windows	YES
Meedio	69.00	Windows	YES	Off the market
Xlobby	Free	Windows	YES
Freevo	Free	Linux	YES
SageTV	79.95	Linux/Windows	YES
BeyondTV	69.99	Windows	YES
GB-PVR	Free	Windows	YES
MythTV	Free	Linux	YES