Last year, I set up an HTPC or sorts using a Dune HD Duo (http://dune-hd.com/eng/products/full_hd_media_players/12) as the core. To play music, audio books and movies/documentaries, I use a few of 'green' 3.5" drives from WD, Seagate and Hitachi. What I like about Dune is:

• its ability to play most file formats,
• the nice Zappiti media wall (http://zappiti.com/zappiti-skin.html)
• the clean video up-scaling

The Duo has now been discontinued by Dune, although firmware updates continue to be available. You could however look at the currently available models, which should fit your budget.

Hello,

I have tried a few of these, including Keynote, OneNote, TreeDBNotes, Rightnote, Cintanotes, Evernote, and Simplenote. My work primarily revolves around design and journalism. So, I have always felt the need for a software that would be a good mix of  collecting abilities, hierarchical categorization, live search and lately 'anywhere access'. Am yet to find one that provides a good mix. Righnote and Simplenote is what I use now.

I find viewers that create a database a less than optimal solution. The vast majority of the quicker viewers create a cache or database file. While some of them have an option to turn off caching, display speeds take a hit.

The only one that doesn't cache is Irfanview.