Home Streaming Media Server

[BrianG]

Yes, I will be using Win7 Pro and Windows Media Server for the main app. The plugins necessary for Netflix, automatic DVD iso mounting, etc are all free, and they work seamlessly with MC. The prime goal for the main system is simplicity and ease of use for any non-techie member of the family.

I'm not sure what I'll be using for the "TV Guide" service, but I did some quick searches for free solutions and there are a few. It'll take some playing around to find the one that works the best. My wife has a Tivo in the bedroom and I hate it to be honest. The UI sucks and it's expensive.

For a basic media server, the hardware requirements aren't very high. A dual core CPU of any brand, integrated video, and 4GB of RAM would be more than sufficient (as long as the integrated video supports the native resolution of the HDTV you are using). The biggest expense is probably DVD storage at this point until drive prices drop. However, if you go with lower-end processing hardware, I would recommend getting a TV card with built-in hardware encoding so that recording TV shows won't hit the CPU nearly as much.

Unfortunately for me, adding the ability to play PC games on the HTPC, and transcoding video in the background in real-time over the LAN requires quite a bit more power. This is the part that is going to require the custom web application, database, etc.

When I get it all together, I plan to do it in stages and outline in simple terms how to do each depending on the user's goal. Then, once I get a workable transcoding method in place, I can even provide webserver/database installation instructions along with any scripts required for installing the database tables, stored procedures, etc.

I don't plan on ever exposing this system to the public web (being able to stream a video to my phone while at work isn't one of my goals), so there won't be any special router configurations or dynamic IP mapping (allows a home DHCP machine to be mapped to a externally available domain name) to do.