I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but please bear with me.
I have had a Windows Home Server V1 for a couple of years and I use it to back-up the family PC's and as a central store for the family's photos, homework, etc. The server is located in a store room next to a room I am hoping to convert into a home cinema.
I have never done any media streaming from the server, so I don't know what is required to enable / do that in the first place.
On top of that, I am in the early stages of putting together a home cinema. My ambition is to transfer all our household DVDs and Bluerays onto the home server video library and then be able to select them via a remote control sitting in the home cinema. My house has been wired with Cat 6 cabling and a 1Gb network, so speed should not be a limiting factor.
Can this be done directly from the home server to the home cinema, or will I need to get a separate Windows Media Center PC to drive the home cinema, and access the video library on the server via the PC?
Does WHS V1 support streaming, particularly of HD (possibly 3D) content, or do I need to upgrade the server to V2?
Is it practical to store 80-ish DVDs and Bluerays (say 70 DVDs and 10 Bluerays, and growing) on WHS?
Apologies if any of these questions appear daft, but I have never looked into this aspect of home networking / server before and I am just at the opening stages of getting my head around it.
Thank you.