Hi all, I am looking into building a home media system/network and I'm attracted to the HP MediaSmart product family. I would like to pose my design thoughts and see if the MediaSmart system is the way to go:

Our TV feed is from DirecTV.

We have several substantial iTunes libraries.

We have many DVDs.

And quite a few photos and downloaded video files.

We'd like to be able to access this material from multiple locations in the house, and perhaps remotely.

Ultimately it may be stored centrally, but I doubt it. It will probably always be located on multiple systems.

We would like to establish a central media server/manager that contains at least our DVDs "burned" to the hard drive(s) and maybe other media such as photos, our primary iTunes library etc.

We'd like to be able to control and manage the recordings, settings, etc of DirecTV as well as control live TV including pausing, etc, even for multiple tuners (so that different people can have their own recording preferences, show list, etc.).

We'd like to have access to other iTunes and image libraries on other computers located on the network.

We'd like the interface to be consistent, whether on a PC or a TV.

We'd like high quality playback at all locations, including 1080p and at least 5.1 surround if coded.

There's probably more, but I'm basically looking for advice on whether I should build my network out of HP MediaSmart components or look elsewhere...

Thanks

Chris