Linux Home Server/Media Center

I want to set up a Server on my home network that would act like a cross between the new Windows Home Server and Windows Media Center. The network will be a Linux/Windows hybrid on a 100/1000BaseT Network and i was wondering what distros would be the best to use as well as what servers to actually install to keep install size down to a minimum (would Gnome or KDE be better). I know I need a Samba server, as far as distros go i was thinking of using Fedora 9 or openSUSE 10.3 but if there is a better distro to use i would appreciate it if you let me know. I'm not going to use Ubuntu or Kubuntu though.

I personally use Fedora 8 with MythTV Backend and Samba.

For ease of setup I would recommend OpenSuSE.

I'm going to be building a media storage device soon which I plan to use Fedora 9 with MythTV Backend and Samb+NFS. It would basically be a stripped down version of my current desktop PC but with a lot of storage and storage redundancy. This would probably have no GUI (gnome/kde) and use web packages to manage.