DVD ISO Server

Question - if I host DVD ISOs on a remote Linux machine (still in my house)
can I play the DVD's using Xine with the DVD decoder from Videolan site
anywhere in my house?

Will 100 base T network be sufficient for spooling, or will I need gigabit
ethernet? (I'm leaning towards gigabit anyway, especially since there are
intelligent switches which are tolerant of 100 Mb/sec connections)

You see, now that 500 GB drives are reasonably priced I want to make a Raid
5 array of 5 of them and put them in a Linux server to have 2 TB storage for
media. This much room is useless though, if I am not able to put videos on
it. Even FLAC audio would take thousands of CDs to fill it up.

I realize it is off topic, but I'm also curious if a Windows Box can play a
mounted DVD ISO.

What kind of memory, CPU would I require in a box (conservative - I don't
want any fool ups) to support up to 4 DVD streams, and 4 Flac streams. Are
we talking Dual core opteron 2.6 Ghz with 4 Gb of ram, or am I blowing this
out of proportion? (Or - scary thought, am I underestimating the need) I
wish to use hardware which takes as much strain off the processor as
possible for Disk and Network I/O.

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ALEX TAYLOR


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