newbie, advice please on set-up and my options

[byngo]

Hi, First post here.

I have just installed WIN 7 ultimate 32 bit. I have come from XPsp3.

In XP I had quite successfully been using MediaPortal, virtual clone drive, AnyDVD HD and TMT3 to rip and playback dvd and Bluray in ISO format. Both MediaPortal and TMT3 were controlled via a Hauppage IR remote that came with my Hauppage NovaS2 HD satellite TV tuner card with remote commands going through a program called Eventghost.

Now to my quandry,
I know its best to start with a clean install with mediaportal and codecs required etc but having seen WIN7 MC demos I'm not sure I want to go down the route of setting up everything how I had it before. I'm thinking 7MC and TMT3 (for Bluray) will be fine for me and I never used most of the stuff Media Portal could do anyway. I may also be under the false impresssion that setting up 7MC for what i want might be more straight forward.

So i need some advice please before I move on such as: -
1) General 7MC set-up advice (pluggins, Codecs (video and 5.1 audio), external player benefit, remote control advice).
2) 7MC handling my Bluray iso files and mounting / de-mounting iso's.
3) I heard TMT3 incorportaes nicely with 7MC as a player for my Bluray? How does that work out then? Is that a good scenario? (I also have PDVD 8 but found TMT3 just played all my bluray without grumbling or failing)
4) I don't know whether to try to use my hauppage remote again with eventghost
or to get a dedicated USB 7MC remote for simplicity. (i dont want to spend too much). Will an 7MC remote be able to control playback via TMT3 when its used by 7MC as a player?
5) My main use of 7MC would be for movies (particularly Bluray & DVD iso files) so i would like the movie thumbnails, backdrops, metadata etc to be displayed. What is the summary of the best way to do this. I've been reading about "Yammm", "My Movies", "Media Browser", "mount Image Plugin" and basically my head is spinning now.
P.S I don't bother with MKV files. Just strip and rip to main movie iso with Clown_BD (tsmuxer & eac3to GUI)

I can't remember most of the learning curve i went through installing the stuff I was using on XP and have never used windows Media Centres before so either way i am prepared to go through learning again but I can't decide which way to go and some thoughts and facts from users on the above points would help.
Thanks.

 

[byngo]

Well,
No one offered any advice but I made an image of my almost bare set-up so far and have gone with trying to keep things simple but still have some nice features and "Eye candy" i suppose you'd call it. I went with the 7MC / media Browser / TMT3 route.

1st impressions are good. My Hauppage remote works well without any configuration or faffing about too.

Christ, i even think her in doors could figure how to watch a movie with it now. Not that she has the enthusiasm.

Time will tell if I prefer this over Media Portal which did more than i needed anyway.