MediaPortal vs MPlayer

MediaPortal is free, open-source software for turning a Windows PC into a multimedia center or home theater PC. It can show and record live TV, display a TV guide, and play or record TV across networked PCs. Its media library covers videos, DVDs, music, pictures, and home videos, with support for network playback, subtitles, and hardware acceleration. Listed formats include MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MOV, H.264, VC-1, DivX, Xvid, AC3, DTS, MP3, AAC, Matroska, DVD, and Blu-ray. MediaPortal can also tune radio through a TV card or web stations and stream it to PCs connected to its TV Server. Remote access is available through a web browser, Android, and iOS devices, which can also serve as Wi-Fi remote controls. The project offers community plugins and skins. Its download page offers MediaPortal 1 and 2: MP1 is described as maintained with more plugins, while MP2 has fewer plugins. The software is free, with a free plan and no free trial listed.

MPlayer is a movie player for Linux, macOS and Windows, with additional listed support for BSD, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and QNX. It plays formats including MPEG, AVI, Ogg/OGM, ASF/WMV, MOV/MP4, RealMedia, Matroska and DVD, and accepts streams over protocols such as HTTP/FTP, RTP/RTSP, MMS/MMST, MPST and SDP. Subtitle support covers 12 formats, as well as DVD subtitles and closed captions. The player includes playback-speed control, an on-screen status display and multiple video output drivers; hardware acceleration is listed. Its MEncoder component can create MPEG program stream files. MPlayer is free under GNU General Public License version 2. The download page lists version 1.5, created on 2022-02-27, as the latest release and recommends current Subversion source for newer features and fixes. The graphical interface is not under further development and receives limited bug fixing. A complete installation requires source code and binary codecs; the GUI also needs a skin.