Hey guys, so i just bought a new TV and xbox 250GB. Windows Media Center sucks big time on the xbox and decided to hook up my PC to the TV via VGA (i have no HDMI out on my PC). I love the way it all looks and functions but of course i now have no sound, no HD and am looking into buying a home media server.

All it'll be oing is steaming music to a few other devices in the house, and have W7MC running at all times for the TV hookup.
I'm looking for a bare bones server, with enough RAM to run the OS and churn out HD, a processor to match. Plenty of HDD bays (i have 3 3.5" drives i will be using), plenty of USB ports and a cheap graphics card that has HDMI output. (No monitor, keyboard, mouse, OS required), wireless would be nice though not totally necessary.

Anyone have any thoughts/ideas on an affordable solution to this?

TIA

Try to find a cheap HTPC case... that way it will blend into your media setup and it will have plenty of HDD space.

Good idea with the setup. I'm almost done wiring my house with mine, and there really is no substitute for an awesome WMC setup with DVR and Hulu plugins. My Nvidia GeForce 9800GT HD works great with my AverMedia Duet TV card recording HD shows from our TV sources (and it has two tuners, one for watching, one for recording... or both for recording ) and the graphics card has an HDMI output to our TV. Or you could spring for a newer Core i3/i5 mobo with integrated HD graphics on the processor... you can cut out the GPU completely.

An alternative is to buy a barebones PC (I like these a lot BTW) and use network storage through a router. The newer barebones have dual-core Atoms and Nvidia ION graphics.

Advice on hardware Mike? i'd like a dedicated GPU and TV tuner. No NAS.
The places i were looking were quite expensive for HTPC cases, just a run-of-the-mill box (as it'll be sitting in a cupboard) will suffice for this build.
Advice on which ethernet and HDMI cable are best would be sweet too!

Cheers

I have an nVidia 9800GT HD 512MB and absolutely love it. They are dirt cheap now as well, and as long as all you're doing is watching HD content (and not playing Modern Warfare 2 on 1080p) it will work great, be quiet, and not cost a lot.

The TV tuner I'm not so sure about in the UK, because I don't know what format they use or what provider you have for your content. I have an AverMedia Duet I snagged from NewEgg, but I'm not sure if they ship to your over the pond or whether the ATSC or Clear QAM tuner will pick up anything at all. Do you know what signal type you have to acquire? If this tuner works for you but you can't get them to ship or can't find a European dealer, I'd love to help you get one

Some food for thought, thank you Mike

A little late to the party here so let us know how it goes. I just re-setup my Media Center PC and ditched my $75/month cable for Netflix and over the air broadcasts. If I ever get round to it, I'll share my setup here.

That's sweet Rich, let us know, as well as RSVR85..