Media PC's - links on getting started

Design spec; mini PC + capable of blue ray + fanless = insanely expensve. If I were you, I'd pick any two (like the old Bontrager addage).
Something powerful enough to run blueray will need a decent graphics card which will have quite a high power draw, so a good power supply too. Both of these will generate a lot of heat.
I don't know much about microPCs but I assume they'd run onboard graphics and not have a dedicated graphics card. If you have want to run blueray, I assume you have a nice TV too? Onboard graphics can rarely push out an image big enough to fill the screen meaning the TVs processor will have to do a lot of upscaling which never looks good. Images get pixellated easily. My rents have this problem with a huge TV and standard definition Sky.
I'd think more about getting a microATX size motherboardboard which is minitower sized - so not huge - get a proper graphics card so it isn't underpowered, a roomy case and put lots of fans in. More fans mean they can turn slower and sit quieter. Yes it'll be bigger, but not much more so than a standard amp.

As for places to start, overclockers forum everytime. They recommended me a motherboard and CPU, and couldn't be happier with my system.

jairaj wrote:

thanks for tips. the projects been put on hold for a bit due to house and car repair costs.

But I've also been think about putting a PS3 slim in to the mix as well. Its small enough, has a blue ray player and can browse the internet too. Although as it is firstly a games console im not sure how well it does these things?

i'll see what the guys over at overlclockers say.

I've never used a PS3 so dunno about it's competances as a media centre. I didn't prioritise gaming so the PC was the way forward for me but still wanted it to be able to play (I use an xbox 360 controller), it is perfectly capable of playing third gen games. It cost less to build but PS3s have come down in price since. The other advantage is all our movies, photos and music is digitised and the PC with it's ability to stream to my phone via DLNA is the best option for us. The only other thing that would improve it for our use is if the media database was on an external router-mounted hub so we could access everything without the HTPC being turned on (Em likes to stream one of our movies to her laptop whilst working upstairs).

Aside from using PS3s for streaming, sounds like a similar system to mine - we only have the one TV but use laptops to watch things from the HTPC around the home.
One thing you could do is have a main arterial HTPC and then pick up some old refurbished Dell desktops to sit under the kitchen telly. You could access the sharing folder and stream movies, playing them at lower res to a smaller screen.

Word of warning, XP does not mesh very well with Win7. There's no reason why it shouldn't and should be an easy collaboration but there are dozens of threads around the web discussing this same issue with no resolve. Another Windows consipracy maybe?