what do you guys think is the best media center software

i already know media portal and windows media center edition 2005. i know windows MCE is more stable, but the best of media portal is that it's open source, everybody can make additional things for it. what software do you guys use, and why?

i personally use media portal, it's freeware

What do you mean by media center? Is it some type of hardware/software that runs your TV DVD etc stuff via computer? That is something I am looking to do, get my computer to run the entire entertainment center.

Ive hacked an old xbox to bits and made it into a GeexBox
Ive got an old p2 500mhz with 128megs of RAM made that into a Geexbox.

Take a look at this ...boots from a CD or DVD and turns virtually anything into a media center.
You can modify soo much of the Iso Image before you burn it also..I burned it onto a re-writable tried it first time..then modified the backgrounds some of the Xvid settings.channels for my tuner..then burned it again with these new settings...worked with my TV card right away when i tried it on my pc with hardly any config.
Plays mp3s and movies-Xvids divx..u name it!! plays DVDs fine.

Its well worth a try out for the price of a blank disc GeexBox Homepage

Awesome. Reminds me of when I heard all this stuff about MythTV and how people were using old Xboxes as the "frontends". Some day I will try one of these things out, and I'm the ideal candidate because my family hardly ever uses our Xbox, and we only have like 4 games (crimson skies, clone wars, halo 1, halo 2)

I have a an old comp in our living room behing the tv that we serve movies to the tv from... but what is the advantage of having a "media center" type software set up? I mean, we just have a normal OS on there and it plays all our movies/music fine to the tv/soundsystem... I'm just wondering if there is a benefit if we were to switch over to using one of these instead?

Well I use Geexbox on older pcs so that you can cut the overhead down on resources that the OS uses.

Better to have an OS tuned to the job and you just reboot and go into Geexbox when you want to watch a movie or some TV.

In our house the p2 500 runs the TV - plays music - plays DVDs and can connect to other pcs to stream movies etc from there too.
This pc was literally thrown out on the street and all I have done is add a 5 yr old Tv tuner card that i got for 10 Euro.As you can see its a VERY cheap entertainment system!!

Yea exactly, we have an old machine someone didn't want rigged up and it runs fine. But true the free resources would probably aid in running everything smoothly... I'll have to try out geekbox sometime just to see how it goes. (plus, why not, I try out everything else right? haha)

sounds cool.. i will try to build one..
currently i have two pentium 3 units i use as proxies and gateways..

got them for P3000 and P4000 or roughly $55 and $74..

i can use them for full desktop use since they can get broken when being used with newer software. an i am thinking that since I already have software firewalls.. i can only use just one and server it as a firewall/proxy..

then i will be left with a p3 spare unit.. i think i will look for the surplus shop for a tv card.

Frontrow...a Mac Mini with a remote, wireless keyboard and mouse, and DVI to S-video adaptor + 1 65" HDTV = world's largest monitor. My Dad loves it. He's 66 and checks his stocks and emails a few people. Now he can play the world's largest Solitare game too.

Actually it works really well. The picture isn't perfect, but good enough for him and words are easy to read with the letters being an inch tall. With Frontrow he could watch a DVD or view digital picture slide shows with iPhoto or even edit something with iMovie HD if he really wanted...or actually owned a camcorder.

He kind of wishes 6 years later he got the next model up HDTV that had the VGA port..not sure if that would be any clearer or not...