I pulled a jack and it is indeed network cable. Trouble is I can't find a central location that they all lead to. Unless it's outside beside my cable box. Where in your house did you find yours? (So I can get an idea of where to look.)

Mine is in a closet. I live in a condo. It could be at the side of the house. If you check there, you should see a number of cables corresponding to the number of jacks you have in your house. If that's not the case, then they'll be a place inside your house. Check for any panels or plates that you can open.

Hmm, another thought, if you're intent on using a spare PC for this... Windows Server is not really necessary. Standard XP Pro or even Win2K will do nicely.

Yeah I know, I figured that since I'm not too familiar with Windows Server OS, I should fiddle around with its "advanced" disk management and active directory features.

Could be interesting for experimenting with... could also be frustrating. All that stuff is really only relevant once you start using the machine as a domain controller. Unless you want your other machines fully reliant on it, I wouldn't suggest it for a simple home file server.

Using Win2K will also let you build your server on a lot less powerful machine, since it uses significantly less resources than XP/W2K3S. If you want to play with AD and other server features, find a copy of Win2K Server and get the best of both worlds :)

I've got 2 desktops, a laptop and my PS3 hooked up to my NAS. There hasn't been any issues in streaming audio and video to my PS3 but I'm not sure about Xbox 360. Have you tried looking into other NAS devices?

Wireless G or 100Mb wired should be just fine for streaming anything, up to 1080p.

Look at it this way, take a 1080p movie, which say on average is 8GB. Figure that it's 2 hours long, so 7200 seconds. That's a bit over 1MB/sec to stream it over the network. Even if my figures are conservative, I don't think you'd even be going over 1.5MB/s to stream 1080p. That might be a bit of strain on an 802.11g network, but it should still work just fine. Doing it over copper at 100MB will be no problem whatsoever. 720p files are about half the size, which is even easier on a network.

Thanks for that suggestion. I'll look into it.

Yes I have, but most other NAS devices are over $200, which is out of my price range. At that price, I might as well use my spare PC.

Well, it seems like you're having no problems streaming 1080p content over Wireless "G". Mind taking a look at my other PC technical issue? I'm getting sluggish speeds streaming a regular divx file.

http://www.revscene.net/forums/showthread.php?t=561814

My dual-bay NAS enclosure cost me less than $100, and I stuffed two 1TB drives in it running RAID1.

where u get that NAS enclosure for that price!?!?!

I second that! model number of the unit and place of purchase!

IDE? LoL, eww.

I got this one:
http://www.bestdirect.ca/products/14...ic/HUR1_SU2LA/

Dual bay, SATA, RAID1 (that actually works, apparently, unlike some other units that advertise RAID1 but can't rebuild it if one disk dies!)

Got it through NCIX pricematch.

Running just fine for about half year now with 2 x 1TB drives.

Alright so I'm gonna go with my old Tower that's kicking around for the File Server cause I want to use it as a File Server/Media Centre now.

My objective is to be able to stream/record 1080P or less quality content to/from my LCD TV via. Notebook/Shaw HD/PS3. I plan to do this with the following gears. A 1080P LCD TV, file server/media centre, notebook, PS3, Shaw HD Box, and possibly a TiVo (If I cannot record programs onto the File Server directly from the TV).

What's the best way to achieve this using the following gear?
I looked into getting a Shaw HD PVR, but the problem with that is, it lacks HD upgradeability. Is it possible to record HD content from my TV to my file server? How can I do this?

i dont think u can capture HD signal from Shaw HD box in a Media Center machine.

Yeah, I just read about that cause the data are encrypted and it only works within the Shaw box.

Fuckin gay.

and I believe TiVoHD doesn't work in Canada, so I can't go with that solution.

Their PVR sucks ass. 30 hours of HD capacity without upgradeability sucks.

Sorry for venting..

Are there any other ways to capture HD content off of Shaw HD without using their PVR?

You'd need something on the computer that can record an HD signal, from component or HDMI input. Pretty sure they exist, but I couldn't point to anything in particular for you.

So far, I've only been able to find HDTV capture cards that can record only from ATSC, none that can capture from a HDTV STB.

and even if I can find one..

It might not even work for Shaw HD as the signals are encrypted, unless someone can prove me otherwise.

there are HDMI capture cards, they are close to a grand each and there is no consumer software to act as a PVR.

there were ways to use firewire to capture HD broadcast, but the amount of hacking involve is not even funny.

That's why you'd need one that can record from the plain ol' analog component signal out of the digital box. Lot harder to encrypt that :)

Actually, my Hauppauge HVR-1600 can record unencrypted QAM signals from digital cable... unfortunately all of Shaw's HD channels are encrypted. The card can tune the channels, but they just display black.

Too bad they haven't picked up on CableCard up here yet. I'm sure it's just a matter of time. When they do, you can pick up one of these to record cable TV

Wouldn't it NOT be HD if it's an analog signal?

EDIT: Nevermind

Where can I find a card that can record from an analog component signal?

capture cards are not supported by media center, so there is no way to setup recording using media center

Sure they are... it's just limited to certain ones. There's was an "MCE" version available of the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR card I put in my wife's computer.