I am going to leave the 'server in the basement angle' out as it confused me on first read and I dont see it as relevant (where the media files live) re playback... am I right in thinking that the player PC is aheadless (no monitor or keyboard) and in the living room space attached to a stereo ??
If so there are a few very nice headless control options for MC but the LCD solution is currently lacking (could be built with girder / DVDSpy / OSD / Serial control plug ins but would be hard work)...
I found some touchpad PC's (fujitsu stylistic) pretty cheap and use these running Glissando over 802.11 to provide a very nice wireless interface that can be used anywhere to control the MC 'server' in my rack... The added bonus is I can websurf (great to hit IMDB during a flick to settle those bets
) with them etc... I am thinking about selling the 2 I have and going with a Progear tablet PC (about $500 or a hair more) for the XGA TFT screen and more Mhz CPU... Very sweet option like this for color control pad... Equals multi thousand crestron controllers IMHO...
You could use a 802.11 PDA and Netremote for a small form factor plam of hand controller for MC... This is not something I have done but the proponents of this solution seem to love it...
Another glissando hack I did was buy a Virgin Webplayer Internet appliance and hack it into a small LCD screened (SVGA DSTN) PC... Due to its small form factor and black / silver looks it fits right at home on top of my rack and with allows glissando control of the same server (all clients update as MC has tracks added to the playlist etc...) plus as it comes with an IR keyboard you can use Girder to capture keypresses (or learn the keypresses into a learning remote) and have IR control from a Pronto or similar of glissando...
loads of options in the cheap end that really look impressive...
none of these solve your wish for LCD controll I am afraid they are just how I tacked the same issue in a more graphical way...