just saw this thread and thought i'd give you some advice.. I have a MCE machine and it is the dogs but has limitations in the PAL \ European circuit that the US with their HDTVs don't have.
For Divx \ MP3s photos etc the best bet is to copy the data onto the machine and then watch it hooked up to the TV rather than trying to stream this. I transferred all my data onto the MCE machine and it worked fine onto the TV..
Not the MCE machine doesn't have a scart connection so you have to convert the scart RGB signal into an s-video signal and feed that into MCE. This downgrades the picture quality and was at a standard i wasn't happy with so gave up with the pvr stuff ( i./e pasuing live TV, setting up schedules etc)
Also not the NTL boxes use IrDR for the remote and the MCE remote uses RC5 which aren't compatable.. You will need to get a convertor from
www.redremote.co.uk.
I've built my own system with a MSDN download.. Not sure if this is still available.. i've got 1GB of ram and a Athon Xp 2800+ chip and 200 GB HDD.. with a hauppage 250 TV card and a Geforce FX 5200 graphics card..
mce is XP with the MCE added on... it is great but found in the EU with our TV setup the input of the TV signal was dissappointing..
you can checkout
www.thegreenbutton.com and
www.xpmce.com for more info..
if you want any more info let me know..