TVSquad

The team behind the Media Portal have released the first official preview of Media Portal II. Last month, we heard that the developers were planning a complete rebuild of the open source media center application. While users might not notice many new features or changes in the interface, Media Portal II is built to be much more developer-friendly. The new structure should make it easier for members of the Media Portal community to write updates, or create new plugins.

Media Portal II also has anew GUI and skin system making it easier for people to develop custom skins that can completely change the look and feel of the application. This is still a preview release, and lacks some major functions. For example, while you can use Media Portal II to access movies, pictures, weather, or music, there's no TV component right now. You can't watch or record live TV. Of course, if you have previously recorded shows in your library, you can use Media Portal II to watch them. But I wouldn't recommend replacing your current media center software with Media Portal II just yet.

[via floppyhead]

The folks behind open source media center application Media Portal are preparing to launch the first public alpha of Media Portal II.

The goal is to make the application more open and customizable. In other words, it will be easier for developers to design plugins and it should be simpler for end users to download and install skins, plugins, and other add-ons. The basic system will be pretty minimal, with most of the functionality provided through those add-ons.

Another goal is to add an auto-update feature that will make it easier to keep your system up to date.

Because Media Portal II is still in its infancy, the team will continue to support the original Media Portal application for now.

[via Missing Remote]

Remember ReplayTV? Once upon a time the company was about as well known as TiVo, which is to say not very. While TiVo eventually became synonymous with "personal video recorder," ReplayTV stopped making set top boxes a few years ago.

Last year the company emerged from the ashes to relaunch as a desktop software maker. ReplayTV PC Edition is a complete desktop PVR solution that lets you turn your computer into a video recorder. There were just two problems:

1. A ton of other companies already had a stronger foothold in this space
2. It's not really a complete solution if you still need to buy hardware to make your PC record TV shows.

Point number 2 is a problem for pretty much anyone who sells desktop PVR software, Microsoft included. When I tell people how easy it is to turn their computer into a PVR, the first question they ask is "great, but where do I plug my cable box in?" And there's the rub. You don't, unless you get a TV tuner. For a computer geek that's hardly a deal breaker. But until TV tuners begin coming preinstalled on all computers, ReplayTV, BeyondTV, SageTV, and other PVR packages will have a limited audience of people who are savvy enough to buy hardware to go with their software.

Does the fact that ReplayTV is getting ready to launch what looks like a standard USB 2.0 HDTV tuner change any of this? Probably not. But it does give the company a way to package an all-in-one solution. Buy a retail package with the ReplayTV hardware and software all in one box. We're guessing this tuner will probably work just as well with BeyondTV, SageTV, or free software like Media Portal or MythTV.

It's probably worth noting that the ReplayTV HD looks an awful lot like the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 950 recorder with a red and white paint job. So you can probably expect it to sell for about $100.