I was talking this morning with a co-worker on having more than one computer in the home. Now, I realize I’m not the average ‘home user’ but it struck me as funny on just how many machines I have running in the house just for media distribution.

Here’s my current setup:

• My central ’server’ is an Asus Pundit w/ a 2ghz processor that runs Windows 2003. On that box I have file shares set up for all of my MP3’s, Videos, Photos and any other files I want to have available throughout the house (or just as a storage depot). My entire house is hooked up with gigabit Ethernet.


• The ‘whole house audio’ system gets audio out right from the server and can distribute it to 6 different rooms.


• The home theater runs Windows Media Center Edition. It gets MP3’s, Photos and some stored video from the server (I put things like ‘previews’, etc up there). I also use it to backup recorded shows.


• The living room has a Tivo, with the Home Media Option. It also gets it’s MP3’s and Photos from the server.


• The bedroom has a Go-Video Networked DVD player that is also connected to the server. The DVD player can stream the same MP3’s and photos as well as video. This works out really well, because I can stream recorded content from Media Center to upstairs.

This provides me with an incredibly flexible (and cool) setup. I can grab photos from the camera, drop them on the server, and I can instantly get to them from a variety of places in the house.