Media stream device.
 

trying to find ideas and see what people are using.

I Want a device in my living room that plugs hdmi into tv and plays movies and music over wifi / ethernet from my server in the other room.

In my theatre room i already have a ps3 and computer which do this.
but these devices are to big and over kill for what i want in the living room.

problem is the nice ones i have seen all seem to be geared to online stuff like rentals and getting movies from online only.

Like apple tv doesnt play avi or dvix, Boxee from dlink looks good, though it seems geared to online movies doesnt talk about streaming from network.

just wondering any other ideas out there, somthing with simple guided menu system remote control, click movies it brings up icons of movies from the pc, music etc etc.

WD Live?

+1 WD Live

We have it... plugged into TV via HDMI, and hooked up to network via ethernet.

Very simple menu system with remote, and file type playback is pretty good.

We plug external USB HDDs into it and play off them - which it can also share over the network. Can also search through and play files on the computers on our home network.


Very handy, would recommend it!

I've got an ASTONE 110 with the usb dongle and it plays ALL formats unlike the WD TV ones, awesome bit of equipment as you can access all the movies etc from your PC/HARD DRIVE that's in another room via the USB Dongle. :D

Also takes the usual usb sticks and HD's plugged directly into the unit.

These sell for around $120 with the dongle on ebay.

Do any of these units stream the files off a server over wifi though?

I'm always looking for a small unit that can stream rar packaged 1080p x264's over wifi.

Tim, boxee is a fork of XBMC so it should be able to stream files over wifi. It's advertising is more for the online stuff though so it can compete with AppleTV. You could install the files to a laptop to test first too.

I use a PS3 connected to my network, and then have the free software, PS3 Media Server krunning on my server, which can encoded and play every file I have come across. Haven't found a file it couldn't play!

+1 for WD Live.

Great little device, streams over the network, plays everything I can think of. You can buy wireless dongles/adapters for them but i'm running mine over ehternet.

Cheers,

Wrxpc

Two choices

WD live $137 ethernet only

some other brand forget now $199 wifi.

to be honest Hardwired is always better than wifi anyway, better more solid connection.,

though im going to hn now to see what they are like and buy one.


and just to confirm with every one who has one they play all formats yeah ? codecs are not a problem ?

WD TV won't play RMVB and a few other formats and that's why I chose the Astone instead.

$98 at Office Works

[url]http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail/products/Technology/Data-Storage/Media-Players/WDBAAP0NBK[/url]