Equinux has announced the version 2.5 release of MediaCentral, their media center software for Mac OS X. A free update for registered 2.x users, Media Central costs $29.95.
Devised to turn the Mac into a home theater system, MediaCentral provides a centralized way of managing everything from movies to IP TV to online video clips, games, music, music videos, Internet radio, pictures and other peripheral devices.
New to the 2.5 release is support for Dolby Digital Surround and enhanced performance for DVD playback. MediaCentral has now been localized into 13 languages, as well. The Dolby Digital Surround feature works with thusly encoded DVDs; if you have a digital receiver hooked up to your Mac, you can now watch DVDs played on the Mac using surround sound.
A new DVD Options menu provides settings for sound, audio tracks, subtitles and angles, as well as keyboard shortcuts that you can customize. And new to this release is localization in Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Spanish, Dutch and Czech.
System requirements call for a G4/1GHz or faster, Mac OS X v10.4 or later and an active Internet connection.