Ben at Engadget HD is being told that there might be a second Media Center release coming this year.  This is based on his source which has been leaking stuff directly from the beta (except this rumor, which has no meaningful info to back it up).  Based on various things I would be rather shocked if Microsoft pulled out a second Media Center release this year.

The concept behind the said release would be to add DIRECTV and H.264 support, the two main features said to be absent from Fiji’s final release.  I can’t comment too much on what is included and what’s not, but Ben’s source doesn’t have anything that would tell him/her that Microsoft has even thought about a second release this year.

There are several reasons I wouldn’t expect such a release, from the beta timeline to other major implications that I’ll cover later.  While I would love to see another release no matter what it adds, I wouldn’t get your hopes up about this rumor.