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[rpalmer68]

I run MC in my main living room for all my TV, music and video needs but want to be able to play music and recorded videos and also watch live TV in other rooms in the house.

I could put a PC in each room and run MC, but was considering using a media extender instead as they are smaller and less compliacted.

Can anybody suggest a good one that works well with the MC uPnP server and will play back my music and video files and ideally have a DVD drive and DVB-T TV tuner in it too.  (I know BIG ask!)

I assume I can't play live TV back through my MC server from a uPnP device, I know MS MEdia center extenders are doing this, but I assume MC doesn't as yet?

My music are all APE or MP3 files, but the uPnP server will convert these, video is mainly DVR-MS or DVDs ripped to the hard drive in native .vob format.

The only other requirement would be a decent user interface on the unit, something similar to Theater View so I can browse the same view structure I have on my main system (so the family don't get confused!)

So, any suggestions of units I could look into?

Cheers
Richard

[horse]

Richard,

Popcorn hour (standalone appliance, no DVB or DVD) or you could try using a HTPC with XBMC on it as they are in the final stages of porting this over to Linus and Windows
I used XBMC and it work with MC12, have not tried the Popcorn hour

BTW you are not asking too much, I've been after that and more along with many friend of mine.

[rpalmer68]

BTW you are not asking too much, I've been after that and more along with many friend of mine.

I'm starting to think a small footprint PC might be a better way to go, then I can run MC/TheaterView and do everything I need.   I just don't want a large noisy PC in each room.

These new Dell Hybrids look interesting as an option, but are just a little pricey at this point.

http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-studio-hybrid?c=au&cs=audhs1&l=en&s=dhs

Richard

[Peter_T]

Yeah - those new Dells look perfect for a living room PC... they even have an HDMI connection.  Let us know how it turns out if you get one.