So I found this Program called Boxee. Boxee is a media center application kind of like front row for your Mac. The advantage that Boxee has is that you can not only watch and listen to your media on your local machine but watch videos and movies from online websites like Hulu and Netfix. You can also listen to online radio stations as well. The navigation is setup so you can use your front row controler or just the arrow keys.
This application can do everything that an apple TV can do plus you can watch thousands of hours of free TV shows and Movies from several websites. You can sync your Netflix queue to your Boxee account and veiw and play your instant watch movies right from your couch. You can also make friends on Boxee and recommend video clips and movies to eachother. You can rate content and have Boxee automaticly tweet your rating and recomendations.
Now you might be saying, "But Will I have an Xbox that can do all this" No you don't because your Xbox can't play media right from Hulu, WB, CNN, comedy central, ect. I don't believe that XBox does online radio either. So yeah.
Ubuntu Version
Boxee also solves a couple of problems for the Ubuntu users. I don't know about you guys but I can't seem to get the new version of flash installed properly on my ubuntu 8.10 . With Boxee you can still watch your Youtube and hulu movies and videos sorry still no Netflix support for Ubuntu. Over all this is a great application for ubuntu especially if your using you machine as a media center.
This software would make a great media center software for a computer connected to a TV. If you have a Mac mini you could use it to record shows and then watch them with Boxee.
Currently Boxee is being released as an Alpha so it's still trying to work out the bugs. I downloaded it and it seems to be a great application and has worked famously.
Website: Boxee.tv
Apple TV Owners Read This
You can install Boxee and load it onto your Apple TV and have all the advantages that Boxee can offer. There is a website that shows you how to make a bootable USB drive that installs the application to your apple tv. It's a great option that allows all kinds of stuff.
You need this link to make the USB patch stick that he has in the video.
http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/
instructional videos on how to do it.