So I've been on these forums for a while but not really been into networking the system. Will be moving into a new house though and thought I'd get it all hooked up.

House - 3 bed, 3 bath rambler with kitchen, living room and dining room in an open-plan space. Living room will serve as the main "media room" as well. The house already has a Leviton distribution box which looks like it has just Cat5 and coax going into each room.

Equipment owened at the moment
Emotiva LPA-1 amp
Media-PC currently running XP but will most likely be upgraded to Vista of some flavor
Rotel RSP-1068 Pre/Pro
Toshiba A3 HD-DVD
NHT Classic 4 and Classic 3 center (no surrounds at the moment)
Various ipods, iphone etc

What would be a "typical" AV distribution system consist of and who are the major players in this field? I'm really not sure about budget, first time i've looked into this. I guess I'd be willing to put say, up to $3k in it on top of what I already have.

What I think I'd like to be able to achieve is at least distributed audio around the 3 beds and kitchen, living room and dining room. Being able to get distributed video would be a bonus but probably not an option with my budget.

I hope I don't get flamed for being so vague, just a complete newb and not been able to find any kind of all-in-one basics guide on here.

Thanks in advance!

I'm afraid that you are going to have to run a lot of wires to do what you want to do. Usually those Leviton distribution systems are already being used to distribute cable tv signal, telephone, and computer ethernet around the house. Unless you want to give something up, that probably won't be very helpful for what you want to do. Also, they typically aren't located where you really need them. To use it for a av distribution system, it really wants to be in your media room closet. Also, they typically don't have speaker wiring.

If what you want is a whole house audio system, start by learning about that. I've installed a couple by Niles and am happy with them. Google "Whole house audio" and read. The Niles system is a box that would sit in your media room closet. From that box you need to run speaker wires to the speaker locations in each room. Then in each room you need to put a control panel (to control volume, source, etc). From each of those control panels you need to run cat5 back to the Niles box. Once you understand how whole house audio works, you may have some more specific questions.