The developers at Fluendo have been working on an open-source, cross-platform media center application called Elisa. Version 0.3.3, which was released last week, includes a complete user interface overhaul that dramatically improves usability.
Elisa offers all of the basic features one would expect from a media center application, including support for video and audio playback as well as image slide shows. Elisa allows users to browse and load content from local drives, but also provides support for remote content—like videos from YouTube, audio from local network DAAP shares or Shoutcast streams, and images from Flickr.
I've kept a close eye on Elisa since the earliest public releases, and I consider this the first release that is actually ready for general usage. When I tested the 0.1.3 release exactly one year ago, I felt that it had potential, but I got frustrated with configuration challenges and usability issues. Much has changed in one year, and those problems appear to have been resolved. The new user interface is much more functional and includes really impressive visual effects like animations, reflections, gradients, and translucency. The new grid and list thumbnail views for images and video content are more practical than the simple row view that was used in previous versions.
Input devices are also handled better in this release. Mouse support is now present throughout the entire user interface and the program was able to automatically detect and support my StreamZap IR remote without needing any additional configuration beyond what LIRC already requires. This version also supports kinetic scrolling, a feature that is particularly useful on touch-screens (Elisa is quite resource intensive, though, so don't expect to see it on a Nokia Internet Tablet in the near future).
Elisa is starting to look pretty hot, but there are still a few minor issues that I encountered while testing 0.3.3. I experienced a few crashes while navigating through the program's menus, and I also noticed a few minor rendering glitches in the path bar. Some widescreen movies don't stretch horizontally to fill the screen and only play in a block in the very center. I also found that the Folders option, which allows you to browse your home directory, is only available for Elisa's movie player and not for the audio player or image viewer. 
