I am not new to the media center/media streaming world. I've owned an HP DEC for several years. I am now ready to upgrade. I have not explored the world of streaming videos but i am interested. For now i am looking for a unit that can do very well with music and photos as well as video. From everything i've seen around here i've decided to get the TVIX 4100 SH. I have a couple of questions.

1) Should I go with a one with a hard drive? (i will be using wireless for LAN and I don't have a dedicated media PC)
2) What is the main gain for video streaming? I own about 80 DVDs and I've never gotten into renting DVDs and ripping them. is that the main thing?

I would get one with a hard disk if your using wireless. It will make for a much better viewing experience.

On the video streaming side of things, I would say its a matter of personal preference. I dont want a dvd player in my setup so I rip my dvds to a NAS and stream them over a wired network connection. If you want to keep your dvd player, then personally i would not bother ripping.

Any other input?

Personally I go down the HDD in-built with no streaming.

A lot my DVD's have been ripped into Xvid / ISO / MKV and I have a 500Gb HDD which I am looking to increase to 1TB shortly.

I may switch to a NAS device for streaming later but at the moment I have nowhere else apart from my front room where we watch movies etc. and I currently do not have any cabling through the house (tho that may change unbe known to the missus!!)

For me, the built in HDD means I only have to have one device on etc too

I think really it is horses for courses, if you intend to watch things in multiple location then maybe streaming is for you, if not save yourself some pennies and buy a bigger HDD instead!!

Dom

If you are looking at M4100SH, please wait
M4100SH still have bugs:

1st
The firmware to play - MKV and H264 files is still in beta, and the picture blockage with 5.1 audio stream
2nd
Wireless does not work

Unless you don't mind those bug then it's a very good unit.

There is a rumor DATOptic will have a unit will play MKV without a problem.

If i was you i would wait just a little bit.