Or, you can configure an advanced network with MediaPortal on the server and as many 'client' PCs as you like.
If you prefer, you can set up a separate Home Theatre PC (HTPC) to run MediaPortal, and even connect it to your existing network. Display either fullscreen or in windowed mode. Use your mouse, a touch screen, keyboard or remote. Simply configure MediaPortal to display on your TV screen. You can just connect your TV and sound system to your existing PC and be up and running in no time. You don't need a fancy, expensive system. MediaPortal works on many different configurations.
So you do not need to install anything to play all your files. In Windows 7, codecs are included, and supported by MP out of the box. You can play any file that you can play in Windows.
No additional hardware or commercial software is required. Thus, the performance and playback quality is unsurpassed. Unlike many other Media Center programs, MediaPortal was designed especially for Microsoft Windows. New clients can easily be added to the environment and connected to the MediaPortal 2 Server for immediate use. The modern client/server architecture in combination with the central database greatly simplifies the use and management of the system. Integrated news, weather information and management for your digital images complete this software package. MediaPortal also provides access to online video sources such as Amazon Prime. actor, director and much more) that are automatically downloaded from the internet.
Besides its TV and Radio services it is also offering a complete media management for movies, series and music, including posters, album and fan art as well as additional metadata (e.g. MediaPortal is a full-blown media center software that addresses the most common user requirements out of the box. It is probably one of the first things you will want to do when you set up TV.Using MediaPortal, you can listen to your favorite music and radio watch your videos and DVDs or view, schedule and record live TV, much like a digital video recorder such as TiVo, but better.
If you really want to get the full advantage of using TV in MediaPortal, then getting good EPG data is the key. nxtvepg also provides a list of supported channels and providers. This data can be decoded with a program called nxtvepg (nexTView EPG Decoder Software). NexTView EPG data is transmitted as part of the analog TV signal, mostly in Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland. MediaPortal includes a system for getting EPG data from the internet called WebEPG, but we also provide a list of XMLTV alternatives (by no means complete). XMLTV is one of the first popular applications to retrieve program information from the internet. For the storage of program information, MediaPortal uses the file format created by XMLTV. There are many programs available that download these guide and format the data so that it can be imported into MediaPortal. Also the web sites of newspapers often contain a TV guide. Most providers have an online guide for their stations and sometime other stations as well. Many sites provide a human readable and searchable TV guide on the internet, in most cases for the coming week or even two weeks ahead. MediaPortal has built in support for getting the EPG data from the DVB stream. Not all DVB systems include EPG data so you will need to check with your provider if this is available to you. In most cases this is for the coming 48 hours. The DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) system has the ability to transmit EPG data with each channel. Not all sources provide all data or in a usable form. The amount of information available depends on the source of the information and on the application used to retrieve the data. The EPG consists of information about each program that will be shown. The data can be displayed either in the TV Guide or the Mini Guide. MediaPortal then uses this information to display what broadcast is on at a certain date/time, to schedule and label recordings. The listings are loaded either over the internet or through a dedicated data stream within the TV signal and are stored in a database on the HTPC. An Electronic Program Guide ( EPG) is an overview of the television programs and airing times for each of your television channels.