Just spend a bundle on a home-theater and want to make it even cooler? You should look into a media-distribution server, which will give you the ability to collect all of your DVD’s, downloaded TV series, and music onto one easily accessible box.

While there are many options out there, XBMC, an Xbox hack seems to be the best choice right now. This software will play any type of movie you throw at it (Divx, Xvid, x264), is available for many different operating systems, and to top it all off XBMC has an excellent user interface which has prevented the average technophobe from jumping into the game thus far.

The TV interface allows you to download the episode guides of your favorite shows and seperate them by season and genre.  

XBMC is also easily skinned allowing you to change the look and feel of the system. One of my favorite skins is Mediastream, shown below.

All in all, a very sleek system. The folks over at Lifehacker have a great tutorial on putting it on your Xbox, or you can head over to the official site at Xbmc.org. Go check it out!