Win 7 HTPC Server First timer/Newbie, How to setup a Media Server?

[Crash1976]

So what i want to do is setup a computer as a media server to service the whole house. I have never attempted anything like this but i do have some experience building PCs. However I am not familiar with some of the acronyms you guys use yet, so bear with me please.

Goal:
Store and serve entire DVD and BluRay collection to televisions within the home as well as record programming content from over the air broadcasts and digital cable as a DVR system and archive them for playback on TVs throught the home network.

The system basics:
AMD Turion tripple core CPU
ATI or Nvidia HD graphics (unimportant as playback will be on external TVs)
4GB RAM
8 TB HD space (Divided into 4 2TB drives on a RAID system for data protection)
Dual Digital PCI tuner card(records 2 sources simultaneously,may expand to 4 souces with 2 cards)
BluRay disc Burner/player internal

All run on Windows 7 with media content managed by Windows Media Center.

All this seems fairly straight forward and simple. The fly in the ointment so to speak has been how to get the content from the server to the TVs in the various rooms in a way that is easy to navigate from the couch or lying in bed with a remote.

So far the best soloution seems to be the Xbox 360. I am hearing that the gaming console being a microsoft product integrates into a Windows Media Center environment easily and allows navigation via the Xbox wireless controllers. Anyone tried this or have any experience with it? Thoughts? I figured this was the place to start asking Q's... My applogies if i've posted in the wrong forum.

not sure what would be the best Tuner card/cards to use for over the air digital and digital cable etc. also not sure if the AMD Turion 3-core is fast enough. I imagine the video card just being a decent graphics card would be fine since playback would be on the Xboxes?

[keith_h]

If you are planning such a thing you might be looking at it the wrong way round.

Try this: http://www.synology.com/products/product.p...DS112j&lang=enu

Its a tiny linux box, you just put in a hard drive and go. Uses 35W of power flat out, is small, cool and quiet. That's your server taken care of.

Then, use these clients: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330 << use the latest embedded N version. Proper HD support and a remote control that works as well for about $100-00.

If you have a wireless N network which you should if your planning to stream, theres the glue for putting it all together.

Way cheaper and more reliable that messing about with Win home server and so on and it just works. And one server and client all up under $400-00 brand new I expect and about $100-00 for each additional client depending on prices in your area.