Can a home theater system have everything plus kitchen sink?

[bereid]

I have a respectable library of DVD/Blu-Ray movies, and am tired of storing, sorting, searching for, and handling disks every time I want to watch a movie (we watch our favorites again and again, more than new material that usually disappoints).

Almost a year ago, I embarked on a plan to rip all my media from optical discs, and store in some form for streaming playback. Though it seems like a simple enough goal, my first attempts have quickly shown me that there's more to it than meets the eye.

I purchased a 2TB NAS box on which to store the files, and invested time to research and money to purchase applications to rip and convert/transcode my DVD and Blu-Ray content. For streaming playback, I purchased a WD HDTV Live Plus, and though it might suffice for some, its limitations have mostly frustrated me and left me wanting a lot more.

So I resumed research, comparing applications like Plex, Windows Media Center, etc., and began to think I knew enough to proceed. I have built a decent HTPC, using a recent ASUS ATX motherboard with PCIe 3.0 capability, Intel Z68 chipset, Core I7 CPU, 8GB DDR3, 600 Watt PSU; I am fairly happy with the hardware, as a framework to start from. I have installed Windows 7 Pro, thinking that I would use Win Media Center, but now that the time has come to decide what format I should use to produce video files that will afford the features I'm hoping for, I'm not sure I am on the right path, or that I know enough to chose a 'right path'.

I have come here to describe what limitations/disappointments I have encountered, and what pie-in-the-sky dreams I have, confident that there are folks in the community who have the experience that I do not, and the generosity/willingness to share that treasure with someone like me, who needs it. With that, here are the things that I have discovered to be important goals to me:

- I have two rooms where I would like to watch movies, or listen to music. The family room serves as the primary point of focus, where I plan to house the main HTPC, while the bedroom will be used mostly to continue watching movies/TV after we have retired from the family room.

- I would prefer not to invest the same money to build HTPCs for both viewing locations, but rather use the family room setup for the duties of ripping/transcoding/viewing material, while the bedroom setup should be simpler/cheaper for viewing/listening only.

- When viewing at EITHER location, the experience should be as complete as if watching the movie from the original disc, the most important features of which are:
- Ability to navigate menus
- Ability to view scene selection with artwork to identify each scene, rather than just minutes/seconds
- Ability to enable/disable subtitles
- Ability to perform fast forward/reverse search
- Ability to view in slow motion
- Ability to pause and advance frame by frame
- Ability to browse available movies by seeing artwork on the screen, rather than just text

My research has left me with these impressions:

- If I use Windows Media Center for the main PC, Xbox 360 is the only choice as an extender at the secondary viewing location (the bedroom), and it may not offer all the viewing options I'm hoping for (from above). If it can do what I'm hoping for, it may only do so if I chose the correct format for ripping/converting my videos, and I'm not sure about what that format should be (what should it be, anyway, depending on which platform I chose?)

- Plex server runs on Windows or Mac OS (but I suspect it probably prefers Mac OS), and the client ONLY runs on Mac OS. Some reviewers have rated other software solutions higher than Plex, but I have no experience with which to judge those conclusions.

- Linux may offer opportunities that I haven't considered, but my prowess with Linux is weaker than with Windows or Mac OS. However, if that platform should prove more promising than the others, I'm certainly willing to invest the time and effort to come up to speed.

I will likely want to add a TV tuner card to my HTPC eventually, to replace the two Tivo boxes I have now; I'm currently a cable subscriber, and each of my two Tivo boxes has two cable cards that allow me to do without any of the lame Motorola DVRs offered by Cox. I have seen a product claiming to accommodate a multi-channel (4 stream) cable card; it is the Ceton InfiniTV4 device, but it appears to require Windows 7, so if one of the other platforms is recommended, I'm not sure what product(s) might replace that one.

One last feature that comes to mind when describing the pie-in-the-sky dream is that we sometimes purchase Amazon video on demand, and chose to download the material to one of the Tivo boxes for later viewing. It would be nice if whatever solution I end up with could accommodate that capability.

I could (perhaps should) have broken this plea into multiple posts, but I'm hoping that its length will be tolerable enough for someone to endure, and offer an informed and helpful response.

My deep and sincere thanks to anyone who might offer advice to help me decide whether to chose Windows, Mac OS, or Linux, and what applications and video format(s) to use for my files in order to realize all (or most) of the features I have described. Should I expect to wait until 2050 to have them all?

Sincerely,
Bruce Reid

[johns0]

Please do not cross post,one thread is enough.