Advice needed for HTPC or Media Player thingie

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cagenuts

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Ok so I've spent the last two months googling this very topic and I'm now even more confused than before.

I've just bought a new AVR from goneten and I would like to hook up everything through that.

I would like to achieve the following;

1. Stream audio (mp3, m4a, wav, flac etc) through the Onkyo NR708
2. Stream up to 1080p video (mkv, avi, iso) through the Onkyo and then obviously to the TV.
3. Play Bu-Rays on my Samsung BD player (easy, already doing this)
4. Watch DSTV on my TV (already doing this)

I don't need to record off DSTV.

I have the following hardware;

1. XBOX 360 S
2. TV, AVR and BD with NICs
3. FreeNAS box as a backup for media
4. At least three computers running XP or Windows 7 but none of these can be used for storing media
5. Gig and Wireless network
6. Full HD Plasma (1080p)

This is what I've tried so far.

1. TV or BD linking to the media on the FreeNAS via DLNA.
Doesnt' work properly because for some reason Samsung doesn't read the DLNA profiles properly so I can only play avi and not mp3 or mkv.

2. Windows Media Center on one of the computers, linked this to the TV/BD via DLNA but the above limitations apply

3. Hooked up an external USB drive to the BD and this plays everything but is a pain to update the media and catalogue it.

4. Hooked up Xbox to the Windows Media Center but it also won't play mkv or iso

5. Loaded Tversity on the computer running WMC. This is supposed to transcode everything but I still can't play any video that has audio channels greater than stereo. So a 5.1 surround channel won't play. I haven't just spent a fortune on a fancy sound system to listen to two channel movies surely?

6. Tried using a Netgear Digital Entertainer Live (EVA2000) but this doesn't support mkv.


So, what do I do?

1. Just go out and buy a Popcorn hour/Squeezebox/Mede8ter  and get on with it?
2. Build up a HTPC (I have accounts at the like of Axiz, Rectron etc) but if so what software do I run it?
3. Try XBMC on a HTPC?
4. Convert my videos from mkv to a lossy format the Netgear EVA2000 will recognise?
5. Sell everything and take up bird watching.

As you can see I'm pretty confused. Bottom line I want to stream high quality movies to my TV.

Anyone willing to throw some advice my way please?
 
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