much respect goes to you MR Stringfellow. I have been creating my home media network over the past year and have a very similar set-up to yours: lots of apples, a few MyBooks and a PS3. the last item on my list is now the WD-SS. do you recall where you purchased it in Melbourne? i am in Melbourne and have only seen them from as low as $899. $100 may not be so much but i'd rather spend that $100 on something else than just give it to officeworks for nothing

regarding the appleTV, i had hacked it a couple of times to enjoy the extra features but right now it is back to factory settings. i found boxee and xbmc to be finiky and slow. plus now that Handbrake has finally provided me with a compressed MPEG file that plays 5.1 sound on BOTH the ps3 and appleTV, iTunes is more than adequate server. and like you, i am perfectionist when it comes to metadata. it is very distressing not seeing the posters etc on the ps3. does anybody know how to make this happen? i have (tried) medialink, ps3mediaserver, eyeconnect, toast streamer and another one that i can't remember but none make the ps3 look as good as the aTV. they are all boring trees and folder icons. i was thinking to use the RAID back-up of movies formatted FAT32 and link that to the ps3 to achieve proper imagery of posters etc. what are your thoughts? is this, or something similar possible?

the only features that i really miss on the hacked aTV are bluetooth keyboard and EyeTV. applying the EyeTV app turns the aTV into a PVR and gives a real use to the 160gb on board memory. the picture could be a choppy or slow but i found when i trimmed down the number of fr/apps, the EyeTV performed better. do you record terrestrial TV at all or only iTunes/ Torrent? i see you point re tv shows being available ONE day later, but i don;t always think the answer is to simply buy it. i also enjoy searching for torrents etc. just personal choice. and of course with a bluetooth keyboard, web-surfing/ emailing/ etc is sooooo much easier/ better.

anyway, you have detailed your experience and set-up very thoroughly. thanks for taking the time. i notice you have also been very generous with your responses to all queries. i hope i can also call on you for advice? and maybe i offer you a trick or two!

regards,

hi, i'm not TS but i can answer your questions:
1) no. iTunes is the conduit to the appleTV and iTunes works equally as well via PC.
2) the appleTV can play any file type if it is hacked. if you are a novice user and can afford USD50, try atvflash. it is very easy to use and has every available fr/app for the aTV. if you would prefer not to spend $50 or are a competent user, hacking is very easy. iClarified has many how-to's and includes links to any required dl's. the atv-loader on google is also very easy to follow and install.

personally, i have hacked the atv and found most fr/app's useless or too much maintenance. may i suggest converting all your files to h264/mpg instead. in the end you will find this to be a better decision.
i have used Handbrake as it converts any file type to H264 or you can convert direct from a DVD. now all the files are H264 and play in 5.1 on atv and ps3. And they are all stored in iTunes.

hope this helps,