Movies on my laptop

[NikBrooks]

Ok, so I think my hard drive at the moment is 90% movies. I didn't intend on it getting this clogged up but anyway...

I'm looking to free up the space on my hard drive, while still being able to access my movies. I've got an Xbox 360 to stream most of them, but some of them have codecs that the 360 doesn't support.

Currently I'm using the 360 if and when I can, but sometimes I have to use the TV as my laptop monitor and watch the movie like that when the codecs aren't supported.

So my question is, which is the best way to tackle both problems? How easy is it to set up a server to use with my TV or something like that? I've never really looked into this so any advice is good advice!

Thanks in advance :)

[Guest]

Get an old pc, stick in a large HDD, connect it to your home network and install PS3 media server. Don't let the name confuse you, it works fine on the xbox 360 also.

This streams all your movies and transcodes movies on the fly if the format is not supported.

http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/

[NikBrooks]

Thats what I was thinking. The only thing stopping me is the noise and the fact my old pc is shockingly bad!

It crashes for no reason after 5minutes of start up, then after a restart is fine. The fan is also the loudest thing I've ever heard. I would put it in a cupboard or something downstairs, but the routers in my room with the Xbox connected directly.

[Guest]

Yea, thats always the problem with using an old machine. If you're really serious about building up a media library you could build a new PC specifically for this purpose (doesn't have to be too expensive).

[NikBrooks]

I might just have to take it to someone to take a look at it, see if they can sort out the strange start up problem (many forums cant identify it). Then buy a quiet fan and see how it goes.

Thanks!