Advice on Streamer and a few other questions

Apple TV is very picky for playing and streaming ripped movies. In my personal opinion a waste of money. You can't have a reliable and stable media player that can do both Netflix and playing ripped movies. I would recommend for you to either get a roku or Apple TV for Netflix and get a stand alone media player for ripped movie.

Apple TV is very limited in format support, MP4/M4V is the only choice unless jailbroken. The current generation can not yet be jailbroken. It also requires iTunes so you're server or another computer would need to have this running with the movies linked in order to see them. No HD audio either.

You can decrypt using AnyDVD or DVDFab and then encode to MP4 with DTS-MA audio, burning in the subtitles, using Handbrake. This is just one way, it is time consuming and has a learning curve. If the player supports .m2ts then you won't need to encode but forced subs can be an issue for alot of players.

PCH-A400 is very new and very full of bugs so I would avoid it, the PCH-A300 is no better from what I read. I don't believe Dune has Netflix but they are well regarded for the the most part, they don't come cheap however. There's also the Mede8er players but they don't support Netflix either.

You can take a look at the WD TV Live, it supports Netflix along with more format support...not sure about .m2ts but I think it can. I believe it will pass TrueHD but not DTS-MA, just the DTS core for DTS-MA. At least the WD TV Live Hub did so I would expect the same. Not sure how well it supports forced subs. The WD forum would be a good place to start to get as much info as possible.

I believe 50 feet is the max. on an HDMI cable.

I don't know about the A200, I know GusGus has the A210 which he said is a good player. I think the A200 & A210 were the same except the case? They're both old players now though so you'll likely only find them used on places like eBay. Since you crossed Netflix off you're list then personally I'd consider one of the Mede8er players. If you only want 2D then the MED450X2 or MED500X2 will do, they pass HD (lossless) audio and the company supports them well up to this point. They do have issues with forced subs, but you can get around that if you don't need regular subtitles.. You can go the encoding route and burn them in but like I said previously it's time consuming, mostly for your PC as it takes several hours to encode. It really depends on what you want to spend and what's really important to you. You've got lots of reading ahead of you.

I haven't read anything on HDMI to CAT5 so I'm no help there.

HDMI will run that distance just make sure to get an Active HDMI cable like this http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1025503&p_id=9431&seq=1&format=2 and it will give you full potential

Top media player right now:

2D
1) Dune (expensive, but it works)
2) Mede8er (a good media player, but I think their jukebox is lacking)
3) PCH A200 / A210 (older model, but works good, lots of different jukeboxes to choose from)

Force subs is something that the Mede8er 1185 base chip has problems with. You will have to turn them on manually. I am not sure about their new 1186 chip based player.

I would suggest the Dune Smart H1. However, Mede8er came out with a new media player. Med600x3D, which is half the price of the Dune. If you want to save some money, I would suggest the Mede8er instead. The only thing I didn't like about the Mede8er is their YAMJ hybrid jukebox, and it doesn't recognize forced subs. Other than that it is an awesome media player, and their customer service and support is 100% better than Dune.

Is the med600x3d better at music and/or photos? Can it play back BD-J based disks? Full Blu-ray menus? What about it is better than dune other than customer support and 3d?

Neither is good at music or photos. I don't think there is a media player out there that is good at music or photos. Most are build for playing movies mainly. Dune is an excellent 2D media player, and jukebox for movie and TV Shows is probably the best. Mede8er is an excellent media, but its jukebox isn't as good as Dune's. However, Mede8er's jukebox is supposed to work for Movies, TV Shows and music. However, I never tried TV Shows or Music with the Meder8er because at the time I owned one (MED500X2) it didn't support TV Shows or music. You should read the Mede8er review Damian did here's the link:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2012/10/24/review-mede8er-med1000x3d/

The NMJv2 jukebox for music is not bad, it can take a bit to scan your collection into it, but works pretty decent I will setup a test and show it off later. I tested mlknez samples he sent me and all of them played but a track from HD-tracks which the 300 series had problems with them as well so I posted it up as a bug for the powers that be, and it did not play his DSF files everything else worked that he sent. Im not any audio junkie so cant comment on what all I tested. As for pictures never tried NMJ pictures at all, never had the need to.