The MCE community has been asking for a client/server peice for a long time. There are some hacks you can try to have the MCE PC without the tuners look to the other box to play back what it recorded. Also to have one machine save it's recorded TV to a network share. None of it is optimal and I can't speak to how well it works because I haven't tried.
My friend tells me his 360 looks good enough while playing DVDs, he says the only time he can tell the difference is it he pauses it and compares, and nobody watches DVD's paused ;-)
But if you put the HTPC in your HT room, just get a 360 for the other room? Is DVD playback as critical in this other room? You'd be able to do all the TV recording on the HTPC and play it back in both locations.
Oh and any XP SP2 machine can playback the recorded TV of a MCE box. The only exception is the new cablecard HTPC's which isn't being considered here I believe.
