Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question and also not sure if media center is the right term. Anyways I was just watching MTV Cribs and saw a home theater on there that had all there DVD's stored on a streamer or something like that. They said they have over 10,000 movies that they can pick from. Also I was at Magnolia home theater one time and they also had something similar where all the movie covers showed up on the screen and they were able to scroll through and pick a movie they wanted to watch. Is that a media center? Or is it something else? Can someone guide me in the right direction I am interested in maybe getting this for my home theater.

How much does it cost?

Do you have the same quality as watching a blu-ray movie?

What equipment do I need?

How would you guys recommend getting something like this for my HT?

Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question and also not sure if media center is the right term. Anyways I was just watching MTV Cribs and saw a home theater on there that had all there DVD's stored on a streamer or something like that. They said they have over 10,000 movies that they can pick from. Also I was at Magnolia home theater one time and they also had something similar where all the movie covers showed up on the screen and they were able to scroll through and pick a movie they wanted to watch. Is that a media center? Or is it something else? Can someone guide me in the right direction I am interested in maybe getting this for my home theater.

How much does it cost?

Do you have the same quality as watching a blu-ray movie?

What equipment do I need?

How would you guys recommend getting something like this for my HT?

Chris, I'm sure it doesn't come as any surprise to you that your question is very broad. To answer in its entirety, would take a long time. You're in the right forum...in fact, that's just about all this forum is dedicated to. So I guess you haven't looked around on your own too much.

The reason it would take so long to answer your question, is there is a lot to learn and more than one way to accomplish what you want. But here's a quick pass: IMO, there are 4 steps to master in streaming...you have to rip your files, store your files, stream your files, and play your files.

Ripping is taking the content off a CD, DVD, or BD, and getting it into its digital form. You then have to store these files somewhere; some just keep them on their personal PC, but the files...especially if you want to do BD...can get to be quite large, so you'll probably want to keep them off the machine you use all the time. That's where you can either get a file-server, like an NAS or dedicated Server, or you might want to keep those files on like an external hard drive close to where you'll use them.

Streaming has to do with how you move the files from one place to another. If you plan to just get an external hard drive, you don't need to worry about that, but it has its limitations; what if you want to play a file in the Living Room and Bedroom? You either have to pick that hard drive up and move it, or you'd want a file-server that would allow you to move a file wherever you like. For that you need a network, and don't plan on going wireless...you can't really stream HD over wireless yet.

That leaves the player, and they come in all flavors. That's what you'll see people talk most about here; the Popcorn Hour, the HDTV, the TViX, the Dune...these are all players, that will play the digital files, once you've got everything else done.

Trust me when I tell you I could write entire sections on each of these 4 steps, but that'll get you started. If you're completely new to all this, and it sounds like you are, I have to warn you, it isn't easy. It's not hard like Calculus, like you have to be a math whiz or anything to do it, but it would certainly help if you knew a little something about ripping, digital files, codecs, networking, etc. If you know almost nothing about any of those, well...it'll be that much harder. It can still be done, but it'll be a journey; you'll learn about one thing at a time, make mistakes, read a lot, ask a lot of silly questions...maybe have people give you smart-ass answers.

Or, what you might have seen on Cribs is the Kaleidascape system; it's a system where you simply put in a disc, it rips it for you, tags the file with Cover Art for browsing, stores it on its own hard drive, and is ready for playback. Of course, at this time, it only does DVD, not BD...oh, and it costs like a minimum of $10,000 and can only be installed by a professional.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

CD