Guys, I've been looking for media players for awhile because of my large movie collection and what I feel is a waste burning dvd's every time I want to watch something.

I first bought this Chinese product which is just an enclosure where you cram your own hard drive, hook it up to the tv and voila. Well, it never worked, it was IDE only and I had all kinds of problems. Final result, I never used it.

I then bought the Iomega Screenplay and after having received 2-3 replacement units WITHOUT getting it to work properly, I gave up on them too (this unlike the chinese unit was 200 bucks).

I have now found other units that intrigue me but now I'm scared to buy one.

The chinese tend to have all kinds of poor software and poor implementation and user interfaces, BUT, they definitely offer the most features AND support the most formats.

Here is one unit that I find intriguing http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

I like the idea because I already have several similar hard drive docks and they work fairly well. This would allow me to put a drive in one of my docks, put virtually all my stuff on the drive and then pop it into this unit.
It also has a memory card slot in front.

Then I found this kind which basically lets you hook up a hard drive to the unit and it connects to the tv http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Since I have little or no cash but plenty of credit on my amazon account, I looked there and found this. What I like mostly about it is the fact that it takes CF cards (unlike the other units) and has an HDMI port but, in a review, they had lots of problems with the hdmi port AND the interface was sucky to say the least http://www.amazon.com/Hi-Den-Vision-...2002216&sr=1-2
This unit also allows you to connect an external hard drive to it. Also, the seller says it'll support up to 500gb drives, 16gb SD cards. CF cards can be bigger as I understood it and 12 month warranty and 30 day return I think. Seller was very good on communication (haven't bought it yet but presales IS very important I think).

Now, who here has bought what and what is your experience and please be detailed and provide links.

My main concerns are:

Support for many formats and mainly video formats like avi, mov, mpeg, vob and other formats you might get when downloading something. Since I'm mostly going to use it for movies, I would like more features/formats supported there.

I do have lots of music but they're all mp3's so that should be ok.

A decent interface and NO software bugs like the unit locking up and so on.

I would also like something that shows more than a few characters in the filename. If not, handling it is going to be a pain in the a**

Something that preferably supports 1TB drives or more.

Under say 120 bucks or so.

Ability to connect HD or put one inside but if the drive goes inside, I would like to be able to have it hooked up to the computer and the tv at the same time which you can with the ones that I've shown you.

If it supports memory cards, I would PREFER that it support CF cards but not a deal breaker and also, it would be nice if it supported LARGE cards. Some of my CF cards are 32 gigs.

Hi Def is NOT a requirement but nice to have in the future.

SATA support
Subtitle support and
FAT32 or NTFS support

By the way, I finally got a computer with a graphics card that lets me connect directly to the tv but because of junky products/drivers, I still haven't been able to get this to work. Thanks ASUS for the really shi*ty support (I never managed to get hold of their support)

Thanks

George

If your not concerned with networking capabilities. The WDTV seems to be the most popular. It would not play my native VOB files corectly so I had to convert all my stuff but AVS Video Remaker does that pretty quick and gives you the ability to edit them. I think the U/I on the WDTV is good, just turn off the thumbnails and go folder view....

Thanks, I just looked at it and the firmware that the french guy did and it looks great. :)

George