Entertainment center console

I couldnt find any good examples for an interface for a multimedia console system and I was wondering if anybody here could point me in the right direction. In my opinion, it is relatively easy to put together some commodity hardware to have a reasonable PC and hard drive with TV output, connected to your stereo, and controlled by a wireless remote (ok, wireless keyboard if necessary). The hardware is the easy part, but a usable interface is a little more difficult. Nevertheless, I think a solution based on standard hardware should still be a little cheaper than the specialized products currently on the market. I have been looking for anything that will provide this functionality, including (blasphemy on this site!) open source alternatives. I have found nothing that quite fits the bill and I have decided that if I am going to try to work on some kind of interface for myself, I will do it with Desktop X and DX Friends. Just to be clear, the functionality I am talking about:

-Play mp3 files and playlists off of local drive and network shares
- Dynamically build playslists off of local drives and network shares
- Play video files off of local drives and network shares
- Play Shoutcast stations off of the internet
- All kinds of other usefrul things for an entertainment center PC

Well thats it, just looking for some advice/examples from somebody who has already done this before. Thanks,

Jay