United Kingdom
KoktGrus, if you want something that simply works then why not try SageTV. For $99 you can have a media server and then seperate clients. It does tv (all the usual features) videos, dvds, pictures etc. It may not be as feature rich as media portal but it does have some nice tricks up its sleeve such as you can buy a HD set-top box to use as a client with your TV (if you wish) or run the client on your media pc (as I do) and although I've only been using it for short time myself it has run rock solid steady.
You will need to check the hardware requirments.
You will need to check the hardware requirments.