Sharing resources between htpc and my desktop

[Haopengyou]

I live in a studio apt and have an htpc for entertainment purposes and use my desktop for work - especially downloading, editing, rendering. They are about 22 feet apart. I am going to spring for a dual core very soon so that I can play blue ray disks as well as do some tasks that require more than a p4. My problem is that the htpc is where I watch blue rays and dvd, while the desktop pc is where I need the dual core for my work - I need the same resources available to both computers but don't have enough $$ to buy duplicates. How can I share? I am considering putting the blueray and my dual core in my desktop and then using a kvm to connect it to my htpc. as mentioned the cable would be able 22 feet long to do that. I have read that vga cables can be much longer than that and not have a reduction in video quality but I am not sure if that is true with BR. that is one option.

Do I have other options? One thing i am hoping to do is to minimize the number of wires and cables I have in my home. Both mobo's have 10/100/1000 network cards. I am going to do a peer to peer with the 1000 speed. Is it possible to play the br on my desktop and stream the video output through the network to the htpc? What options do I have for sound? I will have a 5.1 sound system in a couple of weeks, after I buy my dual core.

[jagabo]

You can share the root of the Blu-ray drive but that will be a file level share. You won't be able to watch encrypted Blu-ray discs (maybe if you use DVDFab's Passkey), or write Blu-ray discs, via the share. The simplest solution is just to get a Blu-ray drive in your new computer. What else are you looking to share between the two computers?

[aedipuss]

rip the blurays to the htpc's hard drive as mkv or even full folders if you have the space. then use dlna software so you can easily share any content over a network.

Serviio might work for you and it's free.

[jagabo]

Since it's computer to computer I wouldn't bother with DLNA. Just use normal network shares.