Information about media center

This article is about media centers in general. For the Microsoft application, see Windows Media Center. For the product by J. River, see Media Center (software application).

A media center system

A media center is a computer adapted for playing music, watching movies and viewing pictures stored on a local hard drive or on a (sometimes wireless) network, watching DVD movies and often for watching and recording television broadcasts. Some software is capable of doing other tasks, such as finding news (RSS) from the Internet. Media centers are often operated with a remote control, connected to a television set for video output, and can often function as a normal personal computer. A media center can be purpose-built, or created by individuals by adding media center software to a PC or some other computer, for example an Xbox.

Functionality and advantages

Typical, complete media centers offer the following functions to the user:

Integration of all forms of media, entertainment and communication functions including TV-reception (analogue TV, DigitalTV via terrestrial-, cable-, satellite-, IPTV-, webTV-networks), broadband Internet access, IP-telephony, video-telephony, e-mail etc. into one common user friendly GUI (graphical user interface) controlled with a remote control or wireless keyboard by the family members typically in the living room
Ability to receive digital media files (via direct video signal, computer network or USB)
Ability to store digital media (usually on a standard computer hard disk drive)
Ability to play back digital media through standard television or hi-fi equipment
Simplicity (compared to a computer equipped to accomplish transfer, storage and TV/hi-fi playback)
Cost savings (compared to a computer equipped to accomplish transfer, storage and TV/hi-fi playback)
Portability (compared to a computer equipped to accomplish transfer, storage and TV/hi-fi playback)

Though media centers are often built using similar components to personal computers, they are often smaller; media centers sometimes have hardware that is not usually seen in personal computers, such as receivers for remote controls, or television tuner cards. Media centers have not seen widespread popularity but are starting to take hold in the UK and the United States.

Common applications

There are several common applications for which media centers are beginning to gain popularity. Simply put, any application requiring the playback of digital media based files, but not requiring the full features and flexibility of a personal computer stands to benefit from the reduced size, reduced complexity and reduced cost of media centers when compared to similarly equipped PC's.

Common applications include:

Digital Sign Systems
Automotive Entertainment Systems (i.e. limousines, tour buses, car stereos
In flight/room entertainment and Video On Demand Systems
Mobile sales professionals
Portable collections for travelers and audio/video enthusiasts

TV Tuner Hardware

Vista View Saber Cards. Analog and Combo.

External links

Windows Media Center is an application designed to serve as a home-entertainment hub. It is included in Windows XP Media Center Edition and premium editions of Windows Vista (Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate).
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Maintainer: J. River

OS: Windows

Use: Audio player
License: Proprietary
Website: www.jrmediacenter.com Media Center, or formally, "J.
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computer is a machine which manipulates data according to a list of instructions.

Computers take numerous physical forms. The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century (around 1940 - 1941), although the computer concept and various machines
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Hard disk drive

An IBM hard disk drive with the metal cover removed. The platters are highly reflective.
Date Invented: September 13 1956
Invented By: An IBM team led by Reynold Johnson
Connects to:
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wireless LAN or WLAN is a wireless local area network, which is the linking of two or more computers without using wires. WLAN utilizes spread-spectrum or OFDM modulation technology based on radio waves to enable communication between devices in a limited area, also known as
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as a college campus, industrial complex, or a military base. A CAN, may be considered a type of MAN (metropolitan area network), but is generally limited to an area that is smaller than a typical MAN.
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DVD

Media type: Optical disc
Capacity: 4.7 GB (single layer), 8.5 GB (dual layer)
Usage: Data storage, audio, video, games

Optical disc authoring

Optical disc
Optical disc image
Recorder hardware
Authoring software

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RSS

Screenshot of an RSS feed as seen in Mozilla Thunderbird
File extension: .rss, .xml
MIME type: application/rss+xml (Registration Being Prepared)^[1]
Extended from: XML
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Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government
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remote control is an electronic device used for the remote operation of a machine.

The term remote control can be also referred to as "remote" or "controller" when abbreviated.
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TV-out is commonly used to label the connector of equipment offering an analog video signal that is acceptable for a television AV input. It is different from AV-out in that it only offers video and no audio.
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^NA November 15, 2001
^JP February 22, 2002
^AU March 14, 2002
^EU March 14, 2002

System storage 8-10GB Internal HDD, 8MB memory card
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Motto
"In God We Trust" (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum" ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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A home theater PC, or HTPC for short, is a personal computer connected to a television or a television-sized computer display. It is often used as a digital photo, music, and video player, TV receiver, and digital video recorder.
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Media PC is a convergence device that combines the functions of a personal computer and a digital video recorder. A Media PC can be purchased pre-configured with the required hardware and software needed to add television programming to the PC, or can be cobbled together out of
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file hosting service, online file storage service, or online media center is an Internet hosting service specifically designed to host static content, typically large files that are not web pages. Typically they allow web and FTP access.
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Small form factor (SFF) computers are housed in smaller cases than typical desktop computers. While the term has no exact definition, it generally includes cases designed for motherboards smaller than the standard ATX form factor.
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A quiet PC is a personal computer that makes little noise. Common uses for quiet PCs include video editing, sound mixing, and as home theater PCs. A typical quiet PC uses quiet fans and hard drives and energy-efficient parts.
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CenterStage is a Media Center Application that allows you to use the digital content stored on your Apple Macintosh computer & play it in your living room using any standard Televison set.
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Apple Inc.

Public (NASDAQ: AAPL , LSE: ACP , FWB: APC )
Founded California (April 1 1976, as Apple Computer, Inc.)
Headquarters 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California

Key people Steve Jobs, CEO & Co-founder
Steve Wozniak, Co-founder
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Elisa is a project to create an open source cross platform media center solution. Primary development and deployment platform is GNU/Linux and Unix operating systems and also currently support Microsoft Windows and also hope to support MacOSX in the future.
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Freevo is a personal video recorder application for Linux and BSD, intended to be used in home theater PCs and media centers.

Released under the GNU General Public License, Freevo is free software.
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Front Row is a software application for Apple's Macintosh computers that acts as a front-end for QuickTime, DVD Player and the iTunes and iPhoto libraries and allows for users to browse media on their computers using the Apple Remote.
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GB-PVR is a fully featured, home media center application, running on Microsoft Windows, allowing you to watch TV, schedule recordings, watch videos, watch DVDs, listen to music, view photos.
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iTheater: Mac Media Center is an open source project that aims to build a media center application for Mac OS X. Utilizing the power of the Apple Macintosh platform, iTheater will capitalize on the rich media environment that is created by programs such as iPhoto and iTunes and
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MediaPortal is an open source media center software that acts as front-end for Personal Video Recorder (PVR), video, pictures, music and many more functionalities. MediaPortal runs under Microsoft Windows unlike most other open source media center programs, such as MythTV, Freevo,
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MythTV is a Linux application which turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a digital video recorder, a digital multimedia home entertainment system, or Home Theater Personal Computer. MythTV is free software licensed under the GPL.
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My Media System is an application that manages, displays and plays media content such as videos, music, pictures, and . MMS runs on a variety of systems from a Set-Top-Box connected to a TV-Set to a specially tailored multimedia PC and HD display.
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Media Center

Functionality and advantages

Common applications

See also

Stand-alone software

Media center operating systems

TV Tuner Hardware

External links