Help pick a home media server

[bevo]

I'm wanting to get a very simple home media server and storage device. I'm not wanting to use a PC. I'm wanting it to be super simple so my 3 year old could use it and not have to deal with windows.

I'm wanting it to have plenty if storage and to be able to download and store anything connected on my home network and then be able to stream it to any device I own no matter where I am as long as I have an Internet connection. It needs to be able to do blue rays but 3d is not important.

The #1 priority is being able to download and store all of my music and movies from my PC and play them over my home theater.

Again I know the easiest way to do this is with a PC but I don't want to do that.

If this can be done with an all in one AVR that would be even better. I would like to stay as cheap as possible. Maybe $300 for a server but around $1000 if it's an all in one AVR solution.

 

[DQuaN]

You could get something like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005NYOKC2/?tag=gtplanetuk-20

Or you could set up a NAS to store the data and then a Raspberry Pi running XBMC. That's what I do.

 

[Sprite]

A few people use a Mac Mini as the sever with Plex installed. You can even set it so that anything on your server can be streamed to a phone or tablet over 3G/4G network.

 

[hogger129]

I just got a WDTV Live. If you have a way to make the movies into .mkv or .iso files, then it will play them.