Have gotten the ok from the wife on a media server. Have no idea who makes them, or what to look for.

My main use will be cataloging dvd's. I do not have much of a music collection so CD's will be minor at best.

We enjoy concert videos the most and would like a system that could let us select favorite songs from all my disc.

Minimum of a blu-ray if not both hd formats.

My tv service is Dishnetwork.

Budget is under 4k.

Help? Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks

I Jst posted this in anothe thread but it will work with your question also.

I have the Buffalo Linktheater DVD/Media Player and it has HDMI out and will do I believe up to 1080I. I keep many DVD titles on my NAS drive and stream to it. It works nice because it's also connected as a modulated channel in my house cable so at any TV I can pull up home videos or movies that I have ripped and downloaded to the NAS. I have a 2 TB Buffalo NAS drive on the network. It also will do jpeg and podcast but I really enjoy the ability to go to the NAS drive and watch anything. It's so nice to go to the year of the home movie and watch them. I also use it to reference all the discovery channel programs I've saved over the years from my TIVO.

The downside to this player is audio and I've since purchased a Helios 5000 Network Player which has the flac lossless codec so I will now have lossless audio also. Both of these players are wireless b/g but my experience is that you have to wire them and the network has to be fast. I've heard of others loosing the streams but I have not and I think this has to do with network configuration. I didn't like playing a high bit rate MP3 and switching between that and the original CD and realizing how different the audio was. Now with flac and the Helios 5000 I shouldn't be able to tell the difference.


BTW. the Helios 5000 has HDMI and will do 1080P and with my new Hidef video camera I should enjoy the better home movies with it.

2nd. BTW, I did not receive the Helios yet but purchased it about two weeks ago.

3rd BTW, although these players will play Hid Def material they are not Hd/Blu ray players so they won't play hi def from the DVD player but will play Hi def streaming from the network.

It seems at least to me that the future is most likely not in disc type machines but rather streaming video anyway. These are still new but they do work pretty well.

I've found some neat things to do with mine. Access files from any other computer in the house.

Place all xmas somgs in one directory on the NAS and simply hit random play in that directory and you're done for the whole day on xmas. Works with dinner music also.

Put my kids birthday videos in one directory and hit play all and he will laugh and smile for quite awhile when sick.

Put all your favorite music videos on it.

You can set these up to access files in certain places on any drive on any computer anwhere on the network and so it just gives you a world of options.

John

Which Buffalo has HDMI out? Mine only has component.

My Buffalo Linktheater DVD player has HDMI out, component, S, and composite outputs.

Update: I received the Helios player and when you plug these things in you expect some setup, well not with this Helios. As it turns out the Helios is exactly the same as the Buffalo Linktheater and except for the names being different and some colors of screens I think every option is exactly the same. When I turned the unit on it recognized my two NAS drives and the Laptop and everything worked the same as the Linktheater. I didn't check the DVD player because I got stuck on one point which by the way is about the only reason I upgraded, it would not play any flac lossless audio files. I am very mad and am not able to get an answer from the company. They have no phone and they initially told me to upgrade the firmware by email. I've not heard back from then since I upgraded the firmware and it still does not work as advertised.

It's so rude for them to advertise flac compatibility on their web site and then to send me a unit in which even the manual doesn't say it can play flac files.

I've had my Linktheater for more than a year and Buffalo has answered the phone for me 24/7 and has always had an answer even when I complained about the fact that the unit wouldn't play lossless audio they at least said sorry it will not. I am really sold on Buffalo as a company and I sure wish they would have upgraded the LinkTheater.

Plug for Buffalo NAS drives: I have the older Terastation 1TB NAS and the newer Terastation-Live 2TB NAS drive and having had one from another company I have to say I love these drives. They never make a noise and they never skip a beat. They get along well with everything and the newer T-Live unit that will allow me to use http internet as well as ftp makes life real easy. I like having access accross the web as well as the property and these units have camera servers saving data to them as well as having computers backing up to them and me trying to stream from them. They are just easy and in this day of nothing works like the box says I have my hat off to Buffalo for having something in the box that does what the box on the outside says.

Just in the last weekend:

Helios X5000, thumbs down (flac doesn't work).
Pinnacle Studio 11.1 with 710-USB capture hardware, thumbs down (drops frames).
Sony DCR-SR300, Not sure yet but when you call Sony and they don't have a clue things are not looking good.

I really need to find a different hobby.

john