New to networking - setup home media server

Hi all, looking for some expert advice here guys (i'm a programmer / data guy...no real network knowledge)

I have a Speedtouch ADSL modem/wifi box. Everything in the house connects to this at present by wifi

I have just built a cheap home theatre PC with all my media on (Core 2 Duo E6750 + 2gb RAM + 500gb Hard drive). I would like everybody using the wifi network to be able to access the media stored on this machine...

How do I go about doing this?

Connect the machine to the speedtouch by wifi and setup some mapped drive? Connect it using ethernet to the speedtouch? Use the new PC as the home wifi network so everything connects to that and shares it's internet connection?

Really new to this so any help would be great. At work you type in an IP address and boom, a virtual/mapped drive pops up for anyone connected to the wifi

Also going to installing a wifi IP camera that i want to be able to access from anywhere over the internet so how should I connect this - ethernet to PC or wifi to speedtouch etc? Need to keep an eye on my new bike!

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/sto [...] t-port-too

TVersity is good http://tversity.com/

Also Windows Media Center will work, but it's best if all of the computers are the same Windows version for that. You set up one computer as the Server, and then can configure media Center on the other PCs as clients. It will create a shared database on the main PC and the others will connect to it automatically.

You want to connect the computers to the modem/router, using a PC to share network connections is not the ideal solution if you don't need to use it.

Yes, share a folder (don't suggest you share the full drive), then connect the other computers to it. What I did is setup a drive just for media, shared out that drive, and left the system drive alone. I then used Media Center with My Movies to index my media so the kids have a nice interface to browse though. Great thing about My Movies, is that it will connect to the internet and download DVD box art and ratings for the movies, even if the kids can't read yet, they can tell what movie is what, and you can sort by rating, title, artist, etc...

How are you planning on conecting to your home computer from work? You have VPN or a server setup that can be accessed from outside your home network?

When you map a shared drive it will come up as a regular drive letter on the computer.

WiFi will be too slow to send media to several devices, you want to use wired network for as many of them as possible. If you use Wireless N devices, should work pretty well just on wireless but not as good as wired.

To share files.. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp [...] share.mspx

Once you share the folder, you can enter the name or IP of the computer and you will see the shared folders on that computer. You need to setup rights on the files and share though, the link I put in should have info to do that.

Hmmm....signal not great.

This is a wifi/modem. But I now have a belkin wirless bgn twin aerial wifi router. Do I simply plug the modem into this and use this as the wifi?

Only problem is will then have 2 networks....the one from the belkin, and the existing wifi from the router?