The term Media Center may be defined either as a dedicated computer appliance or a specialized application software designed to run on standard personal computer hardware which then becomes a so called “HTPC” (“Home Theater PC”, also sometimes referred to as a “Media PC”), both of which are adapted for playing various kinds of media (music, movies,photos etc.), and it usually has a GUI (Graphical User Interface) . A Media Center typically allows watching movies (DVD, BluRay, and other digital video formats) and watching and recording television broadcasts, playing audio (CD as well as MP3,WMA, and other audio formats) & watching pictures and making galleries to manage them properly.

For Ubuntu , we have three awesome Media Centers lined up namely – XBMC, Enna Media Center and MOOVIDA .

1) XBMC :- XBMC Media Center (formerly named Xbox Media Center) is an award winning free and open source cross-platform media player and home entertainment software . XBMC is available for Linux, OSX, Windows, and the original Xbox. Created in 2003 , XBMC is a non-profit project run and developed by volunteers from different parts of the world. XBMC is available in more than 30 languages. Isn’t it great ! Its graphical user interface allows the user to easily manage video, photos, podcasts, and music from a computer, optical disk, local network, and the internet using a remote control/mouse.
It is a popular alternative to Microsoft’s Windows Media Center and Apple’s Front Row, & has a skinnable and user-configurable interface and plugin support.

Howto install :-

For Ubuntu 9.10 :- Open the terminal and type :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc xbmc-standalone
sudo apt-get update

and done.

For Ubuntu 9.04 :-

Add the following key in the terminal :

sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys 9317790E

In the terminal, type :

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and add these lines and save it .

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Now run :

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt0-get install xbmc

Enjoy the best Media Center solution from Applications > Sound & Video > XBMC Media Center.

2)Enna Media Center :-Enna is a Media Center application that features a simple user interface. Enna is based on the powerful Enlightenment Foundations Libraries (EFL) as for its graphical user interface and GeeXboX libraries as for multimedia playback and information retrieval. The Enna project, as many Open Source projects, is in constant development and new features are regularly added.So, just watch out for regular updates . On the whole , all we can say is that its a must try.

Howto Install :-

For Ubuntu Karmic Users:-
Edit the apt-sources.list file with

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following lines & save it

deb http://packages.geexbox.org/ karmic main

Update the source list

sudo apt-get update

Install Enna using the following command:

sudo apt-get install enna

Access Enna from Applications >Sound&Video >Enna Media Center .

3)MOOVIDA :-Moovida is a media center “bringing the best of the internet to your TV/computer screen. The elegant and easy to use interface automatically displays artwork and fan art throughtout and gives you access to movie synopsis and artist info.” Moovida is a project to create an open source cross platform media center solution, with a 10-foot user interface design for the living-room TV, to be used with a remote control. Primary development and deployment platform is Linux and Unix operating systems; it also currently supports Microsoft Windows and also hope to support Mac OS X in the future. It runs on top of the GStreamer multimedia framework.

Howto Install :-

Open the terminal and type

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to it and save.

For Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic) -

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/moovida-packagers/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/moovida-packagers/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

For Ubuntu 9.04 (jaunty)-

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/moovida-packagers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/moovida-packagers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Now type in

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install moovida

You can start Moovida from Applications > Sound&Video>MOOVIDA.

Njoy !!!

Source: Wiki