Ongoing Dual Mediaportal Machine Setup (1 Viewer)

[Wizard_TPG]

Hey guys

I have been using mediaportal for nearly a year now on what was my old gaming machine. This was done as a test machine to see if I would use it and if it was really a complete system. I have since found my answers to be yes and yes and have found that I want to expand my system to have two clients.

To this end I decided I would purchase a totally new mediacentre as the main server/client and use my old gaming machine as the client in the bedroom. Specs of these machines will be:

Main
ThermalTake DH101 Case (includes imon remote)
Antec Truepower 550W Trio PSU
Intel Core2Duo E6750 CPU
Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H Motherboard
2Gb Ram
Linksys WDGL300 Draft-N Wifi
DigitalNow DNTV Live Dual Tuner
320Gb SATA2 HDD
1Tb SATA2 HDD
Liteon SATA DVDRW

Bedroom
Coolermaster Wavemaster Case
Antec Truepower 550W PSU
AMD64 3500+ CPU
Asus A8N-E Motherboard
2Gb Ram
XFX 6800GT Vid Card
Linksys WDGL300 Draft-N Wifi
120Gb SATA2 HDD
Liteon SATA DVDRW
Imon inside remote

The main machine will be set up so that two user sessions are running by default at any one time. One for my torrenting and one for mediaportal. The torrenting area will be accessed by remote desktop only and then mediaportal area will be shown on the screen. This machine will be running almost constantly. All mediaportal databases and media files will be stored on this machine.

The bedroom client will be a basic client only and will connect to the database and files stored on the main machine. This machine will be shutdown into standby mode when not in use and will only be running when it is going to be used.

Both machines will be running on XP Pro


Hopefully that gives an overview of what I am hoping to achieve. Now for the questions:
1) I want to run these systems as lean as possible in order to ensure the best performance is obtained. What windows services can be safely removed without affecting the operation of MediaPortal?
2) I have been told that a draft-n wifi network "should" be able to provide enough bandwidth to steam H256 and TV recordings. Does anyone have any experience with this? (Yes my router is Draft-N as well)
3) What firewall / virus scanner do people generally run on their mediacentres? Do you run one?

Any feedback or suggestions in relation to the above would be appreciated as well

 

[Kingfisher]

2) I have been told that a draft-n wifi network "should" be able to provide enough bandwidth to steam H256 and TV recordings. Does anyone have any experience with this? (Yes my router is Draft-N as well)

I used to run my setup over a Draft-N network and I have "streamed" (ie. played back across the network) 1080P x264 MKV files with no problems at all. In fact, mine worked fine even when "only" connected at around 160Mbps. Can't say with any certainty about the TV recordings as my TV card is in my MP machine, but I can't see them using more bandwidth than 1080P x264.

However, for convenience reasons I have now moved all my media onto the MP machine itself, so I no longer play across the network.