Watered down media center box apps, need advice

Im working on my new project with the few bits and pieces of time I have. Im building a new media center rig for my living room. We're canceling the cable cause we just cant afford it and I dont want sattalite because buidling a myth box for that is a pain and more time then what I have.

First off I dont want a myth box or PVR box. It's no use to me as I dont or am not going to have cable to use it. My friend has a myth server and it's great but not very applicable for me. I also dont want to use an OS my fiance cant understand, shes not computer literate at all.

I have a whole host of media from music, movies and tv shows on my computer. Im going to slowly as I have time rebuild a database for them and update all the ID3 tags for all of them. I want a simple app that will catalog the music and movies for me in an easy to use interface based on a waterd down XP install. Id hate to say it but I think I might go with a highly tweaked windows medai player 10 at this point because it offers everything I need to and will be easy for my fiance and her 10 years old sister to use.

Id like to have suggestions of apps that will do this besides media player and winamp. Skin reccomendations would be nice for these though. I need an app that will catalog my music by genre and by artists and catalog my movies and visual media by genre and alphabetical order. It would be nice for it to be very easy to use and just look pretty. Also it would be nice for it to be a full screen app to help hide the windows interface. Im basically looking for something like a myth type app or a media center extension without the whole PVR stuff. Any suggestions for apps would be great, also any suggestions on implementing would be nice. Im pretty sure I know how Im going to implement it but other suggestions would be nice as it might change something or make my life easier that I havnt thought of already. Also it must be able to use a map networked drive as Im goinging to be streaming almost all of the media from my main rig to the media rig in my living room.

If you can get your hands on an ATi All-In-Wonder card, you can record over the air (the AIW9600 lets you record FM, too.) AIW cards come with their own suite of applications.. DVD player, file manager, etc., with a remote. They're great for HTPCs, and you have the option of outputting to your HDTV if you have one.

I found an App that fits perfectly fo me. It's called media engine and runs off the winamp engine. It has everything except the PVR functions. It's really awsome too for the fact that it's really meant for an in-car computer and has GPS and fm/xm intigration built in also. Just thought Id let you all know in case your interested. If anyone is interested I can give links and give a more in depth description.