There are a few options around for playing different media types, but the field narrows quickly if you want to control it with an IR Remote, have a TV Tuner, Play Video / Pics / Music etc. The three that seem cover these requirements I've tried so far are Nero Home on XP, Micosoft Media Centre on Vista, Media Portal on XP and Vista.
I'm still searching for the "perfect" soln as each has a drawback for me. Your best to try the them as see how they work with your setup - all I can say is that it takes a lot of time, effort and teaking to get most of them to a half way decent setup.
FYI - I currently use Nero Home outputing Sound over S/PDIF, and Video @ 1080i from a NVIDIA 6200TC using DVI to a Yami V2600 to my Axioms & a Hitachi Plasma on HDMI.
"Fun" stuff has been the trial and error with:
- Support / Codecs / Demuxers for the different media you want (both Audio & Video)
- Drivers for your Sound & Video card (this makes a big difference eg. my system still gets a BSOD if I try to set my audio output to 96/24 bit then play a DTS track)
- Deinterlacing & Scaling: should you do this in the SW, the Amp, or the TV or all three! You can get some bizare looking results that can change with the format of your original video. Currently I've got the 6200TC video card set to the default
1920x1080i@60hz, the Yami as Pass Through, and then the TV has to scale it down to 1024x1024. Considering tha many of my files are
720x576i@50hz you can start to see waaaay to much overprocessing - Yet HDTV for us is 1080i....and you can not set your TV card to "pass through" or "original". Best option I think will be (but only just becoming avail and still big $$$$) is a HDMI Graphics card with a great scaler that supports 1080p, pass through 1080p on the Receiver, and a true 1080p Display.....so it just scales it once.
Someone has the sig of "enjoy the music not the technology", HTPC are really for those that enjoy the technology as I've spent waaaayyy longer on the system than listening to any of the media on it.
