I've been reading through these pages for the past few nights & I'm a bit overwhelmed by all of the information here so I need a bit of direction. I would like to stream content to different TVs in the house, but I do have different quality expectations for each area, so I'm not sure if I should be looking at the same solutions for each TV

Majority of the time I'll be streaming to a dedicated home theater. The room is in its early stages of construction of the theater but once it is complete, this is where 95% of our movies will be watched. Sound quality & picture quality is very important.... projector will be a 1080p (Most likely an Epson Pro Cinema 1080), 100" screen, 7.1 THX certified, I would like as many connections as possible to be HDMI. I think I'll get some strong recommendations to go the XBMC route, but I'm not clear as to whether a modded xbox will meet my audio and video expectations? If I stream a ripped lossless format DVD using a XBMC will the audio/video quality be the equivalent to playing that DVD on an upscaling DVD player (or through a BluRay player) connected with HDMI? Are there any solutions that will allow my to stream HD content? Since this room is in early construction I'm not in a rush for the solution here.... should I hold off and wait until something else comes out, or until someone figures out how to mod a 360? As much as I would like to have a kaleidoscope or escient type server for the movies I need to cap the budget somewhere so I need an option that's easier on the pocket book.

I use my Vista Media Center PC to record TV, so I would like the ability to stream the recorded TV to the TVs as well.

I also utilize the photo tagging system in Photo Gallery and really like the way I can use Vista Media Center to view slide shows, etc based on this tagging system. I have 1000s of photos tagged so it is pretty critial to have the devices to recognize these tags to maintain the 'heirarchy tree' (ie. on my computer I can go to Media Center --> My Photos --> View By Tag and then select my daugher to see a slide show of any pictures that are tagged with her name. I want the streaming device to be able to do the same thing on my computer).

I have no need to stream music files. I already have a sonos system that I use to stream music to several different zones in the house.

As mentioned, audio & video quality in the DHT is very important, but I would also like to stream to our bedroom TV and Family room TV. Neither of these TVs are HD tvs, or hooked up to recievers so basically I just need a device that will stream with a good interface... again, maybe a modded xbox is the best option, but not sure if I should consider other things instead... popcorn hour, dlink or linksys extenders, others???

A bit more information...
I have a 2TB NAS drive that is my 'media drive'. All of my photos, music & eventually all of my DVDs will be on this drive. I use a NAS drive so my sonos system can access my music without my Vista PC needing to be on all of the time. I will add another 2TB (or larger) NAS drive to my network, if necessary but I'm not sure if I should go the NAS route or if I should be getting something like a media server/HP media vault instead.

All network connections will be 'hard wired' to the network. I have extensive CAT5 throughout my house with connections at every TV & computer location.

Thanks in advance for the guidance.
Bonnie.

Hi,

I currently use a media center pc to stream media (movies + pictures mainly).
I am using xbox 360 connected to my samsung LE46M87. You mentioned XBMC but from what i have read it is good as long as you are streaming standard def.

I would suggest using xbox 360 for the following reasons:
* can use VGA or HDMI to get full 1080p upscaling (its decent upscaling)
* you can use media center extender to view movies and photos through media center interface.
* it plays xvids and divxs just fine.
* if i rip something, i rip it into full dvd resolution (mostly 1024 x 576) and multi channel audio (though not loss-less) though there is nothing stopping you from doing that. Use TMPGenc XPress 4 as it is very handy.

Regards,

Hermit

OK... using a 360 as an extender was my initial though, but once I started reading through this forum I saw lots of posts stearing people away from a 360 leading them towards a xbmc... that's when my confusion started. I guess part of my decision needs to be whether I need/want to stream SD only or have HD ability to.

How does the xbox360 interface compare to the xbmc interface. Is there a way to change the skin/appearance on the 360? Look like there are a few skins available for xbmc... I'm not looking for anything too fancy, just want something that looks relatively slick and has the ability to scroll through DVD artwork/titlepages.

Bonnie

exactly you need to know whether you will permanently stay on SD or might have HD streaming needs too. I haven't used XBMC but i know that it can't handle anything more than SD content - it just doesn't have the spec to support anything in High Def.

I have just used standard xbox 360 interface. I am sure doing a quick google search will tell you whether you can skin 360 or not.
As for as streaming is concerned, xbox 360 can handle wmv, avi using both xvid and divx and also standard mpegs. you can even play them through usb plug in. no mods not installs... just plug it and and play.