As of right now I only have a few thousand songs on my PC and about 100 DVDs and blu-rays that I would like to back up on some type of a storage device. I would like to eventually be able to to stream the movies to my HDTV without loss of picture or sound quality (if thats even possible) I think popcorn hour or some similar device has that capability but I'm not entirely sure. What kind of storage device would I need and what should its capacity be, keeping in mind that I would like some room for my collection to grow.
I've been reading a lot on this forum, but if you can't already tell I'm kinda new to all this so you may have to dumb down some of the tech lingo.

Qnap Ts-209 or Qnap Ts-409 Pro versions offer NFS file sharing, which is critical for connecting to something such as a TVIX network device. They have RAID capability for data redundancy. The 209 holds 2 SATA drives, while the 409 holds 4 SATA drives. These would be my suggestion.

I am in the middle of reviewing a Thecus 5200B Pro with 5 drive bays. If this is more than you need Thecus has a ton of other options that support UPnP and are made for this purpose. Highly recommended.

Please help a non-technofile trying to create a video storage and display platform that doesn't require a 2nd mortgage to purchase (such as Kaleidescape). Am I understanding this correctly that the Qnap Ts-409 stores the data and outputs to the TVIX device, the TVIX device then outputs to the pre-pro and this then outputs to display device and audio? Is there additional software that is needed to run the system or is this software included with the Qnap Ts-409 and TVIX? Is there any loss of video or audio fidelity compared with standard DVD resolution? What format do the video files need to be in for this to function?

Sorry for the cookbook questions but I'm trying to find a step by step guide to put this together in a relatively simple fashion for someone who doesn't make his living as a computer or home theater guru. Thanks.

I am in the middle of reviewing a Thecus 5200B Pro with 5 drive bays. If this is more than you need Thecus has a ton of other options that support UPnP and are made for this purpose. Highly recommended.

I've had the n5200B Pro for a few weeks now and had no problems(knock on wood). The documentation is fairly week but I know a bunch of other people who own them so setup/support wasn't an issue. There's also a fairly large community of people developing mods for the 5200, so there's lots of upgrades that can be put on there.
To date I would recommend it, its definitely not the cheapest solution, but its fast and w/ 5 drives bays, should have a long future in my house.