Windows Media Player 9 is the current version of Microsoft's multimedia playback engine. The current version of Windows Media Player for Mac OS X is version 7.1.x.

Modern Apps Modern apps deserve an honorable mention. Apps for Netflix, Hulu, and other media services look awfully similar to media center interfaces. If you want an interface to play back streaming video from your couch, these modern apps may be a convenient alternative to a new media center application. Kodi (Formerly XBMC) is probably the most popular alternative to Windows media Center out there.

Kodi was formerly known as XBMC, and was was originally created for modded Xboxes. Today, Kodi runs on a variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux–even Android and iOS.

In addition to interfacing with a TV capture card for live TV and recording, it supports every type of media format you’d want. It can also stream YouTube, Pandora, and more via add-ons. We’ve covered in the past. Plex, based off XBMC, is another fairly popular media player.

It contains two components – the Plex Media Server, which is the backend, and the Plex Media Center, which is the frontend. With Plex, you could make one computer in your house a media server and access it using the Plex Media Center on your home theater PC. You could also use the apps for iOS and Android devices to stream media to all of your devices from the central server.

• Select the drive by clicking its icon once, then press Command-E (Eject in the File menu). • Right-click or Control-click the icon for the drive, and select Eject from the contextual menu that appears. • Drag the icon to the Trash. Usb icons for mac and windows.

Unlike XBMC and MediaPortal, Plex doesn’t support watching or recording live TV. Read more about setting up Plex: MediaPortal was originally a derivative of XBMC, but it’s been completely rewritten. If you’re not happy with XBMC’s interface, you might want to give MediaPortal a try. Like XBMC, it contains the standard PVR features for playing, recording, and pausing live TV, laying DVDs, and watching online video services. Moovida Update: This software appears to be unsupported now. Moovida is the least well known option on this list.

The Windows installer is packed with spyware and other junk that you’re opted into by default. If you do try this one, be sure to uncheck it all. We honestly wouldn’t recommend this option – there’s no reason to use spyware-packed installers when there are so many other good options higher on this list. It also doesn’t provide any integrated TV recording, unlike XBMC and MediaPortal.

However, if you’re not happy with the above options, you may want to give Moovida a go. It has two different interfaces – one optimized for file management on a PC and one optimized for finding and playing content on a TV.

Moovida bills its TV-optimized interface as a “3D interface,” so it can provide some additional eye candy. Many of these programs will play DVDs, too.

Nero 9 for mac. We’ve also covered some other. You don’t need the Media Center Pack for that, either. Which media center solution do you prefer for your home theater PC?

Leave a comment and let us know.

Devices and Mac OS X version VLC media player requires Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. It runs on any 64bit Intel-based Mac.

Previous devices are supported by older releases. Note that the first generation of Intel-based Macs equipped with Core Solo or Core Duo processors is no longer supported.

Please use version 2.0.10 linked below. Older versions of Mac OS X and VLC media player We provide older releases for users who wish to deploy our software on legacy releases of Mac OS X. You can find recommendations for the respective operating system version below.