[dan_reflex]

Hello folks, I've just signed up and i have a few questions about creating a media centre which integrates all of my appliances.

Basically i have an iPad mini (my sons) & a MacBook Pro and what im looking to achieve is create a media centre so i can stream movies to the iPad mini from a designated box but would also want the box to be plugged into my tv (via hdmi) with the ability to stream channels and play movies from a portable hard drive.

I have had some experience with XBMC before as i have an old PC i installed it on plugged into my tv upstairs and i like it alot, but for downstairs i want a low-power comsuming quiet box (possibily a raspberry pi) but it must be able to stream to (and possibly from) the ipad mini

Some folks are saying RaspBMC and some are saying Plex and PMS on the macbook and stream to the TV with a NOW TV Box from Sky...

What do you guys think?

[dan_reflex]

Maybe also worth noting we have an Xbox 360 and most of the media is stored on a portable hard disk drive (usb3)

[rodalpho]

XBMC probably isn't the best solution for your whole home.

- Plug the USB drive into your upstairs HTPC. Share it via SMB on your network.
- Get an amazon kindle fire for your downstairs TV. Buy the plex client for a buck.
- Install the plex server on your upstairs HTPC, and use that to stream to your ipad and downstairs TV with plex.

You could alternatively install XBMC on that kindle fire, then install MySQL on the HTPC and use that to sync up your library. But that wouldn't stream to the iPad; you would need a network-enabled media player for that. XBMC would work if the ipad is jailbroken, otherwise you'll need to purchase something like Its Playing.