WebGuide 4.1 hasn't officially been released yet, but it keeps getting cool new features. The first beta let you stream DVD video from your media center PC over the web.

The latest beta adds two juicy new features:

1. A Media Center add-in that connects to a WebGuide server and lets you stream your recorded television programs, videos, and DVDs within a media center interface at up to 720p resolution. In other words, you can access your media remotely using an MCE computer or Xbox 360.
2. A new feature called WebGuide Prism that lets you view content from several machines running MCE. If you've got two or three PCs in the house recording programs, you can see them all in one menu using Webguide Prism. This also works if you want to share content over the internet with friends who are also running Windows Media Center.
   

[via the placeshift]

Mike Garcen of Missing Remote has written up a detailed comparison of three programs that leverage your PC to let you watch live TV from any internet-connected PC.

Orb, WebGuide4 and SageTV Placeshifter are all programs that let you access your home computer to watch and record live TV over the internet. SageTV Placeshifter is designed to work with SageTV, and has an interface that looks just like the desktop application. WebGuide4 works with Windows Media Center, and Orb works with pretty much anything.

Remember that little web interface for Media Portal we told you about the other day? Yeah, turns out it was largely ripped off from Doug Berrett's WebGuide4 for Windows Media Center.

Chris Lanier noticed how similar the graphics were on the two products, and after a little snooping, Barrett and others noticed that those similarities seem to extend to the program's code.

Media Portal has posted an apology of sorts, stating that the team borrowed some graphics to use during the testing phase of the project. And then they forgot to remove those graphics before issuing a release. The web guide is no longer available for download.

While it would be nice to see a web interface for Media Portal, there's no real excuse for stealing code. Hopefully the team will be able to remove all the code and issue an update in the future. And hopefully they'll post a more sincere apology to Barrett than "sorry for ripping off your graphics, we meant to clean it up before sending it out to the public. Whoops."

Everyone's favorite remote management tool for Windows Media Center, WebGuide4, has been updated to version 4.016. The newest version is now completely compatible with Vista (including the x64 release), which is good news for early adopters of the new OS.

If you run Windows MCE 2005 or a version of Vista with Media Center included, this application is well worth taking the time to check out. The concept behind the application is simple: allow users to view their Media Center content from any web browser or PocketPC / Smarthphone enabled device.

Other features include remote management of recorded shows, scheduling recordings via a web browser and the ability to create different user accounts to restrict access to your Media Center PC.

For a complete list of updates in this release, you can check out eHomeUpgrage's post on this. If you are interested in trying out WebGuide, you can find it here.