Technology, video, phone & computer questions

[Angrboda]

This thread is for them that have not (technology answers) to reach out to thems that have, to get everyday technology questions answered without having to devote a lot of time to research, trial & error, or simply doing without. Post your questions by using the preface "Q:".

Q: I'm building a media server / media center for my sister so that she can watch her netflix, amazon, hulu, pre-recorded tv shows and such on multiple devices about the house (PC, ROKU, cell phone, Nook HD). I am new to this technology, so any advice on media servers and HTPCs is welcome, but specifically, I note in the description of server platforms like Playon and Plex, that it says they do on-the-fly transcoding. I had expected the server I'm building to not need to do any encoding / transcoding tasks, so the hardware chosen is rather modest, a Northwood Pentium 4 2.0 ghz on a lower end chipset. That does not sound adequate. However, I have a Radeon 7200 and a Radeon 9000 video card I can add. Both feature a hardware engine for calculating 'discrete cosine transforms' (DCTs) which are supposedly heavily used in decoding video. If I include one of these cards, a) will it be enough to offset the meager hardware capabilities for transcoding, and b) will it even use the video card's DCT engine in transcoding.

Q: Followup questions. Because she likes old TV shows, Playon has already been chosen (though we have 30 days to decide). I understand this runs on Windows platforms. From what I recall, XBMC can also be hosted on Windows. Can I do both? What is the least expensive MS Windows license that's a good fit for this application? (I'm thinking Windows Home Server 2011 or Windows Vista Media Center.)

I have more powerful hardware, including a couple of core 2 duo systems (an E2180, 2.0 ghz dual-core Conroe Pentium, and an E7400 midrange core 2 duo). Unfortunately, both are problematic. The E2180 is targeted to be my bedroom HTPC. The E7400 *was* going to be my main HTPC, but that can change; the main problem there is that the motherboard in it is less than completely stable, and might hard reset one or more times each week. I can live with that; I'd rather not give her a solution with known defects. (Though since it would be headless, she'd probably never notice.)

Q: Should I include a wifi router for access by her Nook HD and phone, or should I just route everything through her current LAN with wifi router? Are there any good sites explaining how to do file sharing and inter-pc / inter-device communication - I've never brought myself up to speed on these topics because everything here is wired. Any good pages to read on the subject of wifi, routing between wired and wifi, and file sharing between wired and wifi?