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I've run the gamut of various linux distros and am currently transitioning off an OS X server for home. I've come to realize that just because I CAN do something doesn't mean that's the best solution. I've hooked up external drives to a Mac Mini (win7 / Media Browser) that drives our main TV. Shared my media folders to the network and mapped those to libraries on Windows, shares in the dock on the Mac. Why windows for a file server?
1) I own the TV machine already. Broken down by cost, it takes a LOT of electricity to equal the cost of a NAS+drives.
2) it never turns off and
3) windows clients get all bitchy when they can't find the windows indexing service on the share and you try to mount to a library.
Setup is as easy as right click on the folder and choose "share with...specific people...". Backups done via SyncToy to an external disk give you fair redundancy (backup) and let you take your entire movie/music/picture store with you off the network. I don't have an android but for IOS I'd strongly recommend filebrowser to stream movies and music over your local network.

Streaming over the NAS is excellent if you're OK with building the collection. For about two years I've been using an old Mac Mini running Win7 automatically booting into Windows Media Center running the Media Browser addon. Add in this remote and everyone that comes over automatically wants the same setup. I've found that by far the most difficult parts of this setup are ripping your movie collection and finding an inexpensive way to back up your movies.

Having set all that up, I'm currently looking at XBMC because it has more options for customization and better control over what database is used to identify your movies for cover art, summary, ratings etc.

Primarily it's format agnosticism and skin capabilities. 99% of my library is in MKV format, which WMC does not care for

Not quite. If you install Media Browser and the Shark007 codec pack then MKVs - as well as a number of other formats and containers - will play just fine in Windows 7 Media Center.

Both are free and Media Browser is released under the GPL.

It even handles downloading of subtitles for the current title from the Internet, something I haven't seen any media player do.

I use the Mediabrowser plugin for WMC7. Mediabrowser has some excellent plugins available, one downloads subtitles for you.

http://www.mediabrowser.tv/

I love my Win7 Media Center solution. The PC is located in my living room, and I have a linksys DMA-2100 Media Center Extender in the bedroom. Using a Hauppauge dual cablecard tuner it replaced my ($20 a month) DVR and a cable box ($10 a month) from my house. It isn't 100% perfect, there's a very occasional issue with the Tuning Adapter (for SDV channels) which is being ironed out, but all in all it's wonderful. The media center PC is just a cheap small form factor Dell with a low end C2D in it. Using onboard video, it plays 1080P content without issue.

I have all of the DVR functionality I had before, but with practically unlimited storage. I can pause recorded shows and resume from my bedroom. The Media Center interface meets my household's requirement (high Wife Acceptance Factor is a necessity,) and I have Parental Controls that I require.

That takes care of my cable TV options - which I require because I watch live Premier League soccer games on Fox Soccer Channel.

The rest of the setup is MediaBrowser for movies and all other content, and Remote Potato for remote connectivity, scheduling and streaming. I have a better solution than I was paying Time Warner for, and it will have paid for itself after 5 months.

It's astonishing to me that Microsoft didn't throw their weight behind this solution. I know you can use xbox 360s as extenders, but I like my silent, tiny Linksys. This is the start of a completely integrated home media solution.

-Simon

So I have completely gotten rid of cable/satellite by going the Pirate way (arrr...). I've got a subscription to Usenet, coupled with sabnzbd, Sick Beard, Couch Potato and Media Browser on Windows Media Center. It takes a while to setup and get working, but it's really the best solution I've found. A nice bonus is that there are no commercials...

I'm using and loving WMC, but sounds like you have installed some cool options. Could you post/list what you have extended it with? Thanks!

Certainly! Here you go:

• MediaBrowser - an XBMC like interface for managing all your ripped movies and TV shows.
• Remote Potato - installs a web-server on your HTPC which will allow you to view what shows you have recorded, manage your recordings (including delete and schedule new shows) and stream recorded TV to your screen.
• MediaControl - a plugin that enables FFWD and RWD for non-WTV and DVR-MS files.
• MoveRecordedTVMovies - a simple command line app which looks for movies stored in your "Recorded TV" folder and moves them elsewhere (complete with correct folder structure). Handy if you don't want TV movies to clutter up your other recordings.
• Shark007 codec pack - the only codec pack you need. Install, select default/recommended settings and you'll be set up with all the major codec support (including MKV with DTS audio).
• TunerFreeMCE (or) NeverMiss.TV - Allows you to watch catchup shows from BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

You should also check out The Green Button forums as they have lots of useful information and links to third party software. Also the people on it are extremely friendly if you have questions or issues.

I also have a script which removes duplicate recorded TV shows (when series link glitches) and I'm in the process of cleaning it up to release. I'll post the link to the forum above when it is completed.

Media Browser solves a lot of the problems with playing downloaded video, providing a far better interface for browsing things then the default Media Centre one. I had the same problem with the almost unusable video browser in MCE 7, but now that I'm using Media Browser I'm a lot happier.

I've still not found anything to do music nicely, but I'm not really bothered about that personally, since I stream that to an AirTunes base station from iTunes.

WMC is "good enough" but you really want something like MediaBrowser is you have a lot of ripped DVDs or saved videos.

It is currently free and open sourced.
Although the authors want to move to a pay but open source model, mostly due to the popularity of it and how that eats into their time. They seem a bit slow to move onto that model however.

MB will automatically pull metadata info from the TVDB and Movie DB (open APIs) for your movies and videos (assuming they are named in a way MB understands).
Based upon that metadata it'll do genre/studio/release date sorting, and keeps track of your watch & partly-watched videos.
Has about 3-4 themes (supported by the respective authors) and within those themes a series of views (poster, banner, coverflow, thumbnail, etc.).

Also MB had a Music plug-in in the works (haven't tried it).
And it can handle VMC and W7MC recorded videos. (also haven't tried personally)
You can also look towards MyMovies but that is really DVD-centric. Although it is a great source for movie metadata.

WMC is "good enough" but you really want something like MediaBrowser is you have a lot of ripped DVDs or saved videos.

It is currently free and open sourced.
Although the authors want to move to a pay but open source model, mostly due to the popularity of it and how that eats into their time. They seem a bit slow to move onto that model however.

MB will automatically pull metadata info from the TVDB and Movie DB (open APIs) for your movies and videos (assuming they are named in a way MB understands).
Based upon that metadata it'll do genre/studio/release date sorting, and keeps track of your watch & partly-watched videos.
Has about 3-4 themes (supported by the respective authors) and within those themes a series of views (poster, banner, coverflow, thumbnail, etc.).

You can also look towards MyMovies but that is really DVD-centric. Although it is a great source for movie metadata.

Are these stand alone apps or WMC plugins? I have a windows vista (I know, I know, but I've had a ton of issues getting mythbuntu to work and work well) box running the Media Browser plugin, and it's a really awesome set up. It automatically adds my new media to its library (this is a basic WMC feature), it pulls movie posters, cast information, and all relevant metadata from IMDB... it's just all in all fantastic. I'm not looking to add another standalone program to my HTPC box, but I would be fine with adding hulu TV if it was a plugin and worked without stepping on the toes of Media Browser. The hulu site says it's optimized for WMC, but seems to indicate it is a standalone program. Does anyone have experience with it?