I was wondering what everybody's application of choice is on their media PCs. I'll be building a small box that will be situated somewhere near or on my component rack that will be acting as my source which will run through a DACmagic (future purchase) into my receiver. Odds are since I want to keep this guy small and quiet I'll be hosting the actual FLAC, MP3, and video files on a larger NAS box somewhere else in my house to be accessed wirelessly by the media player.

I've read up a lot on XBMC and have prior experience with MythTV (w/ MythMusic), but I know there are others out there that I probably have never heard of. What's everybody using these days and are there any particular pros or cons? I'd prefer to run it on Linux, but if I have to go Windows that's no big deal.

Jet Audio for my Windoze PC and VLC, Totum, and XMMS on my linux media server. Been playing with DJ Jack a little bit too..

Thanks for the heads up on Jet Audio - I've never seen that before. I'll have to start playing with that on one of the Windows boxes. I'm a sucker for all-in-one interfaces (video, audio, picture, internet) that can be operated 100% by remote control so I'll probably end up with XBMC, Boxee (which is based off of XBMC), or maybe even Elisa (http://elisa.fluendo.com) which I've been playing with lately. It's not quite there yet, but it's definitely promising.

At least with XBMC and Boxee they've brought back a workaround to get Hulu working again and I've got a soft spot for watching Hulu on the big TV.

I like mediamonkey...

jetAudio is similar to WinAmp. Both are good. However for networking and fast RTS (realtime search) WMP still works best on an index'd box. (it pains me to admit that)

WMC also is nice for a fullscreen gui with a remote control. But more functional access tends to come from WinAmp (plus the most extreme file compatibility chart is with nullsoft, and let's not even get into shoutcasting...).

It also depends on what type of network you are running in the house. Here, with an AD server, windows really is the best bet and winds up being the easiest to use for all (again, I choke on saying that since I still am old school with remote CLI via any *nix).

What do you use for a FLAC plugin for WMC? The couple I've come across so far seem to have their quirks, i.e. this works, but not this, etc. I've also read up TVersity, but that reads like it'll be a whole seperate server app that transcodes the FLAC to WAV in realtime to make it Xbox and WMC compatible. The current setup is an XP MCE PC sitting up stairs with an Xbox 360 downstairs running into the receiver. Wireless-N network with the Xbox hardwired into the access point. Everything is getting a makeover though.

The 360 will most likely be taken out of the picture and be delegated strictly to gaming.

...

While I love XBMC it as of yet can not play bit perfect audio :< nor does wmp or wmc. I use MediaMonkey with Kernel Streaming. Tried Jet and did not like the interface same with JRiver although I really dont like the interface on the monkey either BUT I am used to it

I like JRiver Media Center. Very powerful with many features and highly customizable. It also does images and video. It is the only player I know of that has the power to do a good job with classical music. Good support on their forum, but depending on how you want to customize it, it can be complicated.

Version 9.04 of XBMC has bit perfect audio. It's currently a beta. http://trac.xbmc.org/milestone/9.04