anyone tried this software before? i saw it mentioned recently and thought i might give it a shot.

I've heard about it, but never got around to trying it.

It's made by the same people who made the homebrew Xbox Media Center for the original Xbox. I've used that and it's worked really well for me. Not sure about MediaPortal though - always wanted to try it out if I ever made myself a media PC.

I haven't - I'm currently running MythTV. But I'm having some stability problems with multiple tuners (mythbackend crashes), so I might have to give it a try sometime.

Hmmm... I'm not sure if my PCHDTV HD-5500 tuner cards are supported. I don't see it in the list (only the older HD-3000 card).

Ugh, just read that it only supports a single digital tuner, so that won't be any better for me.

I don't see any information about networking in the FAQ. Does anybody know if you can network two Media Portal machines together, so that you can record on one, then watch that recorded show on another one?

Looks interesting. I'd love to find the time to check it out.

Garsh, it looks like they have an active forum: http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/
I searched a bit but didn't find anything relating to your question, but I'll admit that I didn't try all that hard though.

I read a little further. It's limited to one digital tuner due to a bug in XP. This bug is not present in 2005 MCE & Vista, and there is a workaround available for XP.

Still looking to see if there's any networking ability. If they have it, I *may* give it a try. I'm about ready to try upgrading my mythtv boxes anyway.

Ok, now I've read a couple of posts stating that MediaPortal does not support QAM (digital channels over cable). That's a pretty big showstopper for me.

I guess I'll stick to Mythtv for now.