I got this little micro computer called a Raspberry Pi about month or so ago and got it all up in running and built a media center with it.

This one I have actually done and it works pretty darn good for a 35 dollar computer. I loaded it with Raspbmc (an operating system version of XBMC) if you are not familiar with XBMC it is an awesome way to stream media on your computer or in my case the tv. The adafruit link is fairly complete on getting it all together and up and running except for its instructions on remotely getting into the raspberry pi from another computer to do some file loading is wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi


http://learn.adafruit.com/category/raspberry-pi

The above link has the instructions on pi projects including the media center and adding an IR remote (both I have up and running right now).

http://www.raspbmc.com/wiki/user/using-ssh/

The above has good instruction on SSH remote login to aid in the IR remote configuration.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5TafdPPwnc

The video shows off the raspberry pi running raspbmc this is what got me to dive in.



On a side note adding a IR remote may not be needed if your tv is CEC HDMI capable this would allow you to just use your own remote to control the pi board. My tv did not have this feature but alot of them do from my understanding.