A 20-page downloadable whitepaper compares 10 free media center applications, including Boxee, Elisa, Entertainer, Freevo, MediaPortal, My Media System, MythTV, Neuros OSD, Plex, and XBMC.

The latest v0.9.0.21 release of Plex, simply referred to as Plex/Nine, is an almost complete, "from-scratch rewrite" of the library and features the inclusion of a support for hardware-accelerated video decoding

XBMC has definetely got reasons to get popular these days.XBMC (Formely Known as Xbox Media Center) is basically a free and open source cross platform media centre to suit all your media needs. It is written in C and using some python. Comes with a large codec support so that you can play all your media files with ease. It outperforms the default media center.

The Boxee developers have released a new beta – version 0.9.22.13692 – of their popular part-open-source cross-platform media centre, adding a new Movie Library to complement the TV Show Library

XBMC Media Center (formerly XBox Media Center) is a free and open source application for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Xbox, that can turn your Ubuntu 8.04 LTS or 8.10 into a veritable media center platform, with video playback, streaming videos, audio, images, playlist playback, slideshows and more.

The MythTV developers have announced the first release candidate for version 0.23 of their open source Linux media centre. New features include a new event system, a new theme and an official Internet Video plug-in

The XBMC project has released version 9.04 of the popular open source media center application. Ars takes the new version for a test ride to see how it compares to Boxee.

The Songbird developers have announced the release of version 1.2 of their open source media player. The update to the Mozilla-based media player includes several bug fixes, performance improvements and new features.

KDE is proud to announce the first release (1.0.0) of Plasma Media Center. Built on Plasma and KDE technologies. Designed to offer a rich experience to media enthusiasts. KDE's Plasma Media Center (PMC) is aimed towards a unified media experience on PCs, Tablets, Netbooks, TVs and other devices. Plasma Media Center can be used to view images, play music or watch videos.