It's getting more and more common to have a multimedia center on your PC from which to play videos and music using a nice and easy-to-use interface which comes with an elegant browsing system to use with your TV. Kodi (previously known as XBMC) is a free, open source, and multiplatform media center, which lets you play all of your multimedia content.
The program can also play all types of video, audio, and image files, with the added bonus of automatically cataloging your libraries so that every movie or TV series has its own cover, duration, and other relevant information extracted from different specialized websites such as IMDB or Filmaffinity.
The player's true potential comes from the ability to install all kinds of plugins which add all sorts of additional functions, from automatic subtitle downloads, to extra modules for viewing YouTube videos, even external programs such as Torrent clients to download files, or streaming services.