Home Media Center

[danhodkinson]

Since i came back from university my dad has been going on at me to set up a media center so we can have one main center (ie the lounge) and then be able to pick up all of the hard drive content in the other rooms (3 bedrooms, 2 reception rooms)
would i need 5 different media extenders or are there other ways of achieving it? it doesnt necessarily need to be wireless, we can run wires behind the walls etc.

let me know any help or information that i would find useful.
Thank You
Daniel Hodkinson

[PhilEnfield]

A simple and cheap way would be to set up a Network for all the PCs ... this could be wired or wireless or a combination of the two.
You could then create shortcuts on the Lounge PC to access the shared files on all the PCs in the Network.
I have a wireless setup like this for mine and it works quite well. If you can run wires, all the better.

[Nacimroc]

I have mine wired up through network and use mediaportal as main software.

Another thing you could do during set up, would be to set up a NAS (network attached storage) and store all files on that. All rooms access that for files so your main PC could be turned off without affecting others.

This would let you run all cables to somewhere more convenient (e.g. attic) instead of 5 cables to main lounge. (assuming you will hard wire it as opposed to wireless)

Just an idea. may be corrected on this.

[mmace]

I think some cheap XBox 360's in the additional rooms would be the best bet using Windows Media Center on the main PC (using the 360s as a media center extender), the 360's will be the cheapest way to get a decent media playing computer in those rooms without paying for a decent CPU and graphics card in 5 individual PCs

[msr]

Can xbox 360 play all files, including hd files, now then?

[mmace]

it can play MOST files (but not mkv, same as PS3 can't)