The basic Plex service is free but the iOS app costs $5 and while the Android app is free, you’ll either have to pay $5 or sign up for a Plex Pass subscription to stream videos to your Android device for longer than one minutes. What’s interesting about Plex is that the front-end can either run on the same PC as the back-end or on a different device. This is one of the most popular media center applications not called Kodi (or XBMC), and it’s a cross-platform solution that supports Windows, Mac, and Linux.īut Plex is a bit different from Kodi or Media Portal since it’s basically a two-part system composed of a media server back-end and a home theater front-end. Media Portal costs nothing to use, but you may need to pay for program guide data if you use it as a digital video recorder. Like Kodi, Media Portal includes support for music, videos, and photos and there’s support for plugins and skins. This open source app isn’t quite as versatile as Kodi since, among other things, it only runs on Windows. You’ll need to install a third-party DVR app (see the DVR section below) to actually handle live and recorded TV functionality.
You can use it to manage and play music, videos, and photos stored on a local hard drive or a shared network drive. Kodi is an open source application with a strong development community, support for third-party add-ons, and a customizable look and feel thanks to support for skins. Now Kodi is available for Windows, Linux, OS X, Android, and supports all sorts of hardware including the inexpensive, low-power Raspberry Pi mini PC. On the other hand if you’re looking for a way to record broadcast television from an over-the-air antenna or unencrypted channels from your cable provider, there are still a few other good options which should work with Windows 10 (and some work with Linux if you feel like leaving Microsoft behind altogether). Update: Some home theater PC enthusiasts have come up with an unofficial Windows Media installer for Windows 10. If you want to retain all the functionality of Windows Media Center, Microsoft says your best option is not to upgrade to Windows 10.Īnd if you’re using Windows Media Center with a CableCard to record encrypted broadcasts from your cable TV provider, that really is probably your best bet. Snapstream ceased development of BeyondTV and stopped selling the commercial version of its digital video recorder software to focus on the enterprise market. Google acquired SageTV a few years ago and stopped selling that company’s DVR and media center software (although an open source version may be on the way). The good news is that there are still some good options available for Home Theater PC (HTPC) enthusiasts.
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