Best media player streaming UPnP from NAS for downloaded files like .mkv / .avi etc..

[BigColz]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to all this streaming malarky.. I'm basically using an external harddrive for all my music into my music streamer and I love it! The third bedroom in my house and will become my Listening/Movie/xBox room in a couple months and in that time i plan to save some dollar and get a serious NAS setup going.. I will have a mac mini in my bedroom where the downloading and file tidying etc on the NAS will take place and plan on rigging my whole house with CAT5..

I just want to know what is a great movie streamer that accepts as many formats as possible (pref as many as my mac does with 'perian' for quicktime) and good with picture quality and HD recordings.. This will be for the 2nd bedroom, living room and listening room.. I really only need it to play movies but if it does music too and if it has a iPhone/pod/pad app that can control it that would be even better.. I know sonos is good for music but just seems crazy expensive to me for what it is and would only do half the job.. I may get a Blu Ray player in the Listening/movie room to exploit proper 1080p but thats a maybe.. So good Blu-ray players that support many formats would be helpfull too

Any advise would be much much appreciated..

Sorry for rambling.. Cheers :cheers:

 

[bigboss]

I would recommend Boxee box. Plays all media, imports metadata from IMDB for beautiful artwork & is also AirPlay compatible, if you want to stream videos or music from your iThingy directly.

What's your budget for the blu ray player? What's the rest of your AV system like?

 

[Anonymous]

If you're serious about media playing/streaming then check out a Mede8er. I've got one. It plays everything i've thrown at it. The sound and picture quality is superb. They've got their own forum with regular updates. The layout and menu system are also top notch. I looked and read up about all sorts of media players then read about the Mede8er. I'm really happy with it.

 

[bigboss]

If you're serious about media playing/streaming then check out a Mede8er. I've got one. It plays everything i've thrown at it. The sound and picture quality is superb. They've got their own forum with regular updates. The layout and menu system are also top notch. I looked and read up about all sorts of media players then read about the Mede8er. I'm really happy with it.

Interesting....why is it so expensive though, considering wifi is optional?

 

[Anonymous]

I've got mine attached to my Devolo power adaptors so i can either stream or load the Mede8er's internal hard drive from my upstairs pc. It works really well, is really stable and i'm glad i found out about it. As for the price, i really don't know. Personally, i think it's well worth it.

 

[BigColz]

Cheers guys.. I'm mainly looking at a box for the living room and want it to play all the akward formats from a NAS when i get it setup eventually.. It would be good if i could use it to control music too.. I have my old HiFi which is a Cambridge Audio 540a through some big JBL floorstanders and my hopuse mates 40'' Samsung LCD.. It's a pretty basic setup i know but it will work for having people round and just chilling out, i'll have a dedicated Listening/movie room with my set up below and eventually 2.1 with a sub.. A mate of mine recommended WD TV for the living room and is cheap with a iphone app and has very good variety of file compatibility but apparently the sound quality isn't great.. I'll probably have a 200hz smart LED TV in the listening room thats WLAN ready and should play most files.. If it annoys me i'd consider another box for streaming movies.. I'll look into the mede8er cheers.. Seems there's a million options :/

 

[bigboss]

You could add a DAC to WD TV (or any media player for that matter) for superior sound. If you want a combined blu ray player & media streamer, the 2 popular options are Popcorn Hour C200 & Dune HD Max.

 

[BigColz]

Yeah I was thinkin external DAC could be an idea.. Thinking I might do Apple TV and get my nerd mate to jailbreak it so I can run iTunes with apple remote and play movies in all the formats I have aswell.. If not the WDTV seems decent value

 

[bigboss]

Bear in mind the latest version of Apple TV has not been jail broken yet. That's why Apple TV2 (the previous version) is being sold at ridiculous prices.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=Apple%20TV%202&_sop=16

 

[bigboss]

http://www.imore.com/apple-tv-3-jailbreak-far-being-complete-fact-no-one-seems-be-even-working-it