http://xbmc.org/

XBMC is an award winning media center application for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and XBox. The ultimate hub for all your media, XBMC is easy to use, looks slick, and has a large helpful community. Try it now!

what is it? well it started off as a media centre built only for XBOX but it seems now that they have ported the software over to run on any OS you can throw at it. Linux, Mac OS, windows, apple TV and of course X-Box ( which is there bread and butter ) but you cant get the XBox version through there website due to 'legal reasons'. Oh yeah theres the last option which is to download the live CD and run the whole application live from disc. which sounds interesting enough for a tester .

downloads : http://xbmc.org/download/

if your looking for options that arent apple TV or windows media centre, then this could be a start. Ive also used Media Portal ( freeware and pretty complete ), even people like Nero are onto this type of thing now. Tivo is looking to extend to the PC soon with a helping hand from Nero. This market is seeing some rapid movement of late. Time for EVERYONE to get onboard with the whole HTPC thing or at least realise that a computer connected to the TV is not a bad idea.