Everybody has a hard drive filled with video these days. Why not give the gift of being able to watch it on the big screen this year?
Best
Boxee Box, $299
The Boxee Box has been a long time coming, but thanks to its history it’s as strong a solution you could hope for in terms of getting content from your PC to your big screen.
[DLink]
WDTV Live, $300
Capable of Full HD playback and sporting a 1TB hard drive inside, WD wants you to move all your content to this device in the loungeroom. It’s Mac and PC friendly, and has a slick UI even your nanna could control.
[WD]
Asus O!Play HD2, $279
With DLNA support, USB 3.0 and iPhone support all working out of the box, plus iTunes, Samba and FTP server capabilities, the O!Play is a great option for the slightly more demanding media streaming connoisseur…
[Asus]
Budget
Seagate GoFlex HD, $179
Plug in a Seagate GoFlex hard drive, and you can watch your content on the big screen. Or use this to access all your videos stored on your local network. Either’s fine, so long as you enjoy the experience…
[Seagate]
Apple TV, $129
If your gift recipient is already a part of the whole Apple ecosystem, Apple TV is an obvious choice. Thanks to Airplay, you can now stream music or video content to an Apple TV from any other Apple device – like an Apple TV. Convenience FTW.
[Apple]
Netgear EVA2000, $179
Netgear’s No Frills home media streamer is as basic a streamer as you can get without sacrificing usability. As a DLNA server, the EVA 2000 lets you connect to your home network to bring content to the big screen, plus watch YouTube from your lounge.
[Netgear]
Nate Koelmeyer
Monday, November 29, 2010 at 3:33 PMhands down best media streamers:
PS3 with PS3 media server.
Apple TV with ATV Flash.
Chris Lowery
Monday, November 29, 2010 at 7:54 PMDoesn’t play MKV – not the best media streamer.
CyberTech
Monday, November 29, 2010 at 4:29 PMHow can you include the Boxee Box in the “Best” list when it has been reviewed and shown to be inferior to almost all other media players.
About the only thing in its favour is its incredible remote control.
ozoneocean
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 12:06 AMFrom what I’ve read, the Boxee apparently plays all the different codecs of all the different content fine, what it has trouble with is working with some mdeia streaming sites- mainly because the sites themselves are trying to block it.
I’ve also read that the Apple TV system has extremely limited usefulness in that most content is stuck at a max of 720p and you’re limited to very few sources (doesn’t play many codecs), mainly stuff from itunes.
I could be wrong, but that’s just what I’ve read. Don’t know about the rest.
Buckaroo Banzai
Monday, November 29, 2010 at 7:46 PMPopcorn hour? One of the pioneers.
Astone’s neat little AP-110D? Best budget network streamer by a long shot.
or are we talking strictly internet TV type devices? (which those two aren’t so good at)
PJ
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 6:39 AMAnyone tried TVersity?