[callumz]

hey guys, been having a look around here today, what a wonderful source of information!
Anyways, at the moment I store my movies on a laptop and wirelessly stream them to my xbox 360. This is fine for standard def rips etc. However, I am now looking at wanting to watch high def content (my tv is only 720p atm but could be upgraded soon.) I was wondering if there was a cheap-ish device where I could have an extrernal or internal hardrive on it that I could transfer movies to from my laptop wirelessly (im assuming I couldn't stream them wireless as the hd movies are much bigger). Another reason for replacing the xbox 360 is that I think the menus in xbmc are stunning and it would help me keep track of my ever expanding collection. Anyways I'm open to all suggestions guys.
P.s im not scared of any 'technical' things, infact, i'd rather enjoy trying to solve a few problems along the way!

[coastal]

Well a cheap htpc is what you want I guess. I've just bought a eMachines 1401 for £130. Does 1080 apparently - not that I've needed to try. Stick a few external drives in it and that should keep you happy. There's plenty of other options in that price bracket - or go second hand.

[callumz]

so, I could keep the external drives plugged into the e-machine and transfer wirelessly the files from my laptop to the drives? Is it hard to setup xbmc on the machine?
EDIT: Or would there be an option to buy some sort of storage device which I could have the files on, though how would networking it go? atm I have a wireless router could I just plug the device into the emachine then if i got another emachine for a different tv, run the cable to it? im assuming id also need to run a cable to the router? (which happens to be downstairs) could I make use of those homeplug ethernet devices for such a task?