XBMC has been expanded since then and it can now be installed on various platforms including Windows, Linux or Macintosh computers. It is intended to be used for media PCs (like the Xbox but with additional features) that stream the media to the television but it can be installed on any computer meeting the requirements obviously.

The interface has been designed with usability and wow effect in mind. Links to video, music, images, settings and plugins are available from the main menu. The first three entries lead to similar sections of the media center. The user has to first pick at least one data folder that contains files that can be read by the player. This takes a few seconds at most and it is possible to navigate with the keyboard, mouse or gamepad in the menus.

The media center will pick up metadata automatically but it can also search the Internet for additional information like movie posters, plot summaries or actors.

Plugins enhance the system further. They can add all kinds of new functions to the system like games, communication, news and service integration (Youtube, Apple Trailers, Podcasts).

That Xbox Media Center is apparently going cross plattform and a early alpha release is available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. The funny thing is that you can download all three releases but not the Xbox release from the website because of legal reasons. I still think that Microsoft should hire those guys and make the XBMC the default media application of the Xbox.

It is clearly aimed at media PCs that are used in the living room but it can also be started from any computer that runs a supported operating system. Users who know XBMC from their Xbox will feel familiar with the interface because it looks pretty much alike, only that the gamepad navigation was replaced with mouse navigation.

XBMC is fully skinable, supports plugins that can be downloaded from XBMCScripts like tv guides, games, communication plugins and media plugins. It does come with two scripts, a Tetris game and Apple Trailers which provides access to the vast Apple movie trailers archive which means you can access nearly 1750 movie trailers from within the interface.

The media player plays pretty much everything that you throw at it and supports audio formats and pictures as well. It’s a great application, probably the best media center software ever released.

Boxee is XBMC-based media centre software currently in private alpha, currently only available for OS X Leopard(Intel Macs only) and Linux, although a Windows release is in development.

Boxee is a social networking orientated media centre, allowing you to make recommendations to friends and allowing your friends to make recommendations to you. In addition, it has several features such as on-the-fly grabbing of subtitles, album art, descriptions and the ability to play streaming media from YouTube, last.fm etc.

It also has an automatic indexer, which can scan both local and networked storage, and an integrated DVD player. Mac users can also utilise their Apple Remote to control Boxee.

Overall, it seems like a pretty complete solution. I do have a few concerns regarding its ease of use. For example, you can’t use your mouse inside the application and you have to change settings inside its interface (there isn’t a nice separate options window, which would in my opinion be much more convenient). The automatic grabbing of descriptions/album art is a bit weak too, for some reason Boxee decided to identify the 1950s classic ‘Det Sjunde inseglet’ as ‘Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs’, despite the fact that is still in production!

Boxee will be a nice media centre should you need one, but the lack of support for TV tuners puts me off using it in my media centre PC. I think it’s definitely an improvement on Front Row, and the social aspect will add another dimension to it but is currently a little useless as very few people use it.

Update: Andrew Kippen responded to that review (Press and Relations Manager)

After reading your article and hearing the comments of a few others this past week, it’s become clear that the lack of mouse support needs to be explained.

boxee brings a TV-like interface to digital media (on a PC or connected-TV). We built boxee to work with a remote (for simplicity) or keyboard (for functionality), and we’ve purposely avoided the mouse. While we’re all accustomed to using a mouse when we’re at the computer, directional keys or buttons make for an experience that translates much better onto the big screen.

Additionally PVR and TV Tuners are definitely on the road map (that was one of the major take-aways from the XBMC developer’s conference we hosted in Amsterdam back in June). We feel like most of the TV shows people watch will be streaming from the Internet soon so live TV and PVRs won’t matter as much in the future. However, we know it’s a large part of current media centers so we’re working to incorporate it into boxee.