I am going to be highlighting the entries for the 2009 Windows Media Center Ultimate Enthusiast Entry. Go to the thread on the forums and checkout the pictures in the Flickr stream and them go to the vote page and select the winner. The winner will be featured on a future edition of The Media Center Show

 

. My system comprises of four individual "zones" or "systems" if you want to call it that. My main system/zone, my Home Theteater room, my second zone my family room, and my third zone my bedroom. Each Zone is tied together via media center extenders, tied into my WHS box, and connected to my structured wireing through out the home.

Zone 1: Home Theater

Full detailed list of Home Theater Equipment: http://www.mnmaven.com/home-theater/

The main backbone to my home theater is my media center pc, full details/specs of my htpc: http://www.mnmaven.com/2009/02/16/main-htpcmedia-center-specs/

Comm Closet info: http://www.mnmaven.com/home-theater/comm-closet/

Plugins used with my HTPC:

  • heat wave
  • VMCPlayit w/ playon server
  • Lifextender w/ show analyzer
  • media browser
  • Arcsoft TMT 3 for Blu Ray playback

I spend most of my time in my home theater to watch movies, tv shows, play video games, ect… it is the main digital media room for my home.

Zone 2: Family Room

32" Insignia 720p Plasma hdtv w/ Linksys dma-2100 media center extender we use this extender via 802.11N 5ghz wireless via a linksys WRT600N router, I didn’t have any direct way of hard wireing this extender so I have N wifi a try and so far it has been working out flawlessly.

We use this setup for watching tv in the morning and at the dinner table, we also use it to stream music and other audio sources via the VMC playit plugin. And also to check the weather with the heat wave plugin.

Zone 3: Bedroom

In this setup I have a 32" Syntax Olevia LCD 720p hdtv. I also have a linksys dma-2100 media center extender but I also have a spare/test htpc that I have setup to play around with windows 7 that I also use to stream hd movies and my backed up dvd collection. I use the built in DVD Library which for me works flawlessly and gets the job done.

Zone 4: Whs setup

My Whs Build: http://www.mnmaven.com/whs/

I have my WHs located in my basement located in the same closet with the furnace and all that, it is out of the way, seperate from my home theater. Prior to the currentl location my WHS box used to be located in the same closet as my main htpc but it was getting too loud and I wanted a quieter enviornment for movie watching.

Whs has probably been the best investment I have made to date, it is absolutely the heart of my digital media experience in my home.

Enjoy, I know I do 😉

– Josh

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