You can make awesome media centre using Raspberry Pi. I have been using it since the launch of RPi 1. With RPi 3 the spcification of the tiny computer has changed and it is able to play full BD without any glitch. At the core it is Kodi that runs the show.
This is how I built my home surveillance system using raspberry pi. I use RPi-Cam-Web-Interface to build the system and the author deserves the due credit for his wonderful work. I did add few bits and bobs to tune it to my requirement and I thinks it has shaped up quite well.