About MediaPortal

MediaPortal is an Open Source application ideal for turning your PC in a very advanced Multi-Media Center / HTPC. MediaPortal allows you to listen to your favorite music & radio, watch your video's and DVD's, view, schedule and record live TV and much more. As Open Source software licensed under the GNU/GPL agreement, you get MediaPortal for free. This means anyone can contribute to MediaPortal or customize for their own needs! MediaPortal is built on the Microsoft .NET framework using C# and currently has a growing international community of over 10,000 users.

History

MediaPortal's roots lie in the XBox Media Center (XBMC) project which goal was to build a media center application for the Microsoft XBox gaming console. The founder of XBMC, Erwin Beckers (also know as Frodo) concluded early in the XMBC project that there were notable limitations to the xbox platform, mainly that it is unable to support TV cards. XBox Platform limitations like these would ultimately hinder the vision of a feature rich media center application. In February 2004, Erwin left the Xbox Media Center project to start a new project, now known as MediaPortal that would run on the Microsoft Windows platform. Initially existing code was re-used from the XBMC project but after several releases and innumerable feature enhancements there has been almost a complete re-design. Today, MediaPortal continues as an open source project, has a core team of developers and a growing community of over 10,000 registered users.

The vision of the MediaPortal project is to create an open source media centre application. In reaching this goal MediaPortal:
Promotes open source - MediaPortal is based on the ideas of open source, licensed under the GPL and builds on and supports other open source projects.
Promotes the sharing of knowledge and collaboration - Through the use of information sharing tools and practices MediaPortal is a collaborative environment.
Understands that development is a team effort - Treating our users as co-developers is proven to be the most effective option for rapid development.
Applies the Law of Diminishing Return - The majority of the effort should be invested in implementing features which have the most benefit and widest general usage by the community.
If you would like to know more about the future direction of features in MediaPortal please visit the roadmap (coming soon).