One of the interesting features of Windows Vista and its successor is the media centre that makes watching movies, listening to music and videos on the Web fun. But those who have Windows XP, Ubuntu or any other Linux installed on their system, there are some open source options available for having a media centre installed on their computers.

MediaPortal

MediaPortal will turn your Windows computer into an advanced Media Center. It can be used to listen to your favorite music and radio, and watch and store videos and DVDs. It also allows you to view, schedule and record live TV as a digital video recorder. It will also serve as your personal weatherman and keep you updated with temperature, wind and humidity, among others, of several important cities. It require .net framework and Windows Media Player 11 to be installed on the computer, which it can install for you.
MediaPortal

Elisa

Elisa is an open source media centre for Windows and Linux systems such as Ubuntu and Debian. It does not only organize and play your music and video collection but also keeps you connected with the vast repositories of media on the Web. It can connect to vidoe-sharing sites such as YouTube, and also allows you to view and share pictures on sites such as Flick and Deviantart. You can also listen to the radio streams being broadcast on ShoutCast. Elisa automatically detects USB drives, cameras and iPods.
Elisa Media Centre