Media player

[never_retreat]

Anyone have experience with media players?
I'm looking for something that can play most file formats and retrieve them from a networked computer.
I was looking at this one. But I'm just not sure what they are all about.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6448464&CatId=3675

It would be helpful if it was wifi and also has to have some sort of low def output. My current tube does not do hdmi but I want the option. Hopefully that will be fixed this spring.

[GigaBuist]

I'm looking around for similar devices right now.  I've also got friends and family that are into it.

One friend has a Boxee install going on Windows 7 w/ HDMI output to his TV.  He's also got a device that streams over the air TV signals through his network which Windows Media Center picks up and he uses that as a DVR.  Then he's got a custom remote (like $150) that drives everything.  It's pretty slick but he's got darned near $1k into it all I think.

My brother grabbed a D-Link Boxee Box (which runs Linux) for about $200 a while ago.  It works, I guess, but it doesn't have Netflix streaming yet and it was supposed to ship with that.  My brother is not happy with it.

I'm starting to lean toward getting a Blu-Ray player that'll do NetFlix, Hulu, and play media files off network attached storage.  I figure I'm going to have to get a Blu-Ray player eventually, and it'll have to have a network connection anyway, so if I can get one device to do it all that's probably best.  I'm seeing one from Toshiba out there that's only $110 or so and does everything except play off network storage.  I'd have to manually download videos to an SD card for it to play them.  Workable.

[Harold Tuttle]

apple TV

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/apple_tv?afid=p219%7CGOUS&cid=OAS-US-KWG-AppleTV-US

100bucks

H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

[never_retreat]

apple TV

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/apple_tv?afid=p219%7CGOUS&cid=OAS-US-KWG-AppleTV-US

100bucks

H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

I don't think I keen on anything from apple. I would rather not deal with the incompatibility problems. I remember waisting about 8 hours of my life screwing with one of those airport things.