Anyone who has amassed a large library of music, movies, and television shows on a combination of CDs, DVDs, and hard drives has at some point come to the realization that it’s very difficult to keep track of all of it. Fortunately, there are two fantastic (and essentially free) ways to not only organize all of your media, but also access it from any networked location in your house…

XBMC and Boxee

While there are quite a lot of media center “solutions” out there, including Microsoft’s “Media Center” version of Windows, Apple’s AppleTV/Front Row software, and the XBox 360, none give you the flexibility of XBMC and Boxee. These two free, open-source pieces of software can allow you to access not only your own digital content from any device running them, but also streaming content online.

In fact, there are so many features for each, I couldn’t possibly discuss them all here without this post turning into an essay, so I’ll just highlight a few of my favorites below.

 

XBMC

 

 XBMC got its name from its beginnings as the XBox Media Center. That is, it was an open-source project that transformed the original XBox into a networked media center, allowing users to watch movies, listen to music, view pictures, check the weather, and still play their XBox games as well. While XBMC has been a fantastic piece of software for several years now, it never had a shot of becoming mainstream due to its difficult installation onto the XBox. Even with many tutorials online, installing XBMC onto an XBox involved a bit of “hacking.” In addition, binaries of XBMC could not legally be distributed due to the proprietary Microsoft libraries needed to compile them.

So if that was the state of XBMC when you last checked it out, now is the time to revisit it.  

XBMC has since been ported to nearly every Intel-based platform available, enabling it to run in Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and yes, still XBox. The Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X versions are completely free to download and easy to install. No compiling or hacking necessary.

If you have a spare computer that you can hook up to a television, XBMC may be the best interface for you to use to finally enjoy all of your digital content in one place.

 

Boxee

Notice that I wrote “XBMC may be the best interface for you” above. That’s because of a spin-off project named Boxee.

Watch this video for a summary:

quick intro to boxee from boxee on Vimeo.

Boxee takes XBMC’s back-end and turns it in a different direction. It still allows you to enjoy your local digital content but that’s not its main focus. Its intent is to bring the world of online digital media easily to your television where you can sit back and enjoy it as if it were cable. Sites like NBC’s Hulu, CNN, Comedy Central, MTV, and YouTube are no longer locked to your computer screen.

Now, Boxee won’t run on your XBox but it will on Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, and even a “hacked” AppleTV. Unfortunately, the software is still in the early stages of development, especially for Windows where it is only in an Alpha (very early) private release.

But there is a big future for Boxee. They plan to release a separate set-top box that runs Boxee and license the software to be used in other companies’ set-top boxes.

 

Unlike Microsoft’s Windows Media Center or Apple’s AppleTV device, XBMC and Boxee aren’t locked in by any particular branding or business plan. They’re constantly changing and being improved upon to allow for maximum flexibility, ultimately giving users the choice of what they want to watch and how they want to watch it, rather than having that choice made for them by big companies.

If you use XBMC, Boxee, or other free media center software, post in the comments!

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