Media Center question

[kiddingguy]

I hope you guys can help me out.

I would like to play contact out of my computer's HDD on my 1080p TV (instead of using USB sticks or alike)

TV and computer are in different rooms in my house.

I have a router configured.

Which device is the best to stream contact of my HDD to my TV (preferably wireless, but via cable can be done)?

Files are in MPEG4, DivX etc

I have looked into Apple TV, AC Ryan, Western Digital but there are too many options.

Do I have to map files and folders? Or can other configurations be thought of.

What device do you recommend?

[Roger H. Veteran]

Just get the WD TV - it plays everything and you can stream over wireless or LAN :) It also does the typical netflix and those kinda things too.

Moving this to Hardware Hangout

[kiddingguy]

How does this work?

Do I need to have a Wireless USB attached to my PC and then stream - wirelessly - to the WD TV?

Or can the WD TV stream the contect on my PC cabled via my router

And how do I do the mapping stuff and all...?

[contriver87]

I hope you guys can help me out.

[...]

Do you have a Xbox? If you do you could set it up as a media center extender and do most or all of what you described. As long as the files are organized into your video library on your computer you should have no issues browsing for the files on your TV. I have mine set up using a Wireless N bridge and it works well as long as the signal is decent.

The only catch might be Divx support. I'm not sure if the Xbox/Media center has support for that.

If you don't already have an Xbox or have a desire to get one I would suggest something like the WD TV that SHoTTa35 suggested above. I would imagine the bandwidth requirements would be the same and you could use a bridge if the device doesn't have built-in Wireless N.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Media centre struggles with some MKV support too :/

[patseguin Global Moderator]

I just did this very thing. Get a mini PC with HDMI out and install XBMC on it for playing your media. I recommend ripping all your Blu Rays to MKV format using Make MKV or DVD Fab, provided that you own the discs of course. Not sure what the legal ramifications of that are.

[briangw]

Media centre struggles with some MKV support too :/

Once the codecs are loaded on the host system, MKV works. It used to with my MCE setup.