Such a device exists

[Lampshade]

I picked up a $50 dvd player that has hdmi out and reads DiVX/MKV with aUSB port. works great, plays lots of stuff that my xbox say's I can't. Also, you can set up an xbox as a media extender, so it plays movies from your computer. I found it too much work to scroll through them, so just use a USB for most, or plug in the laptop to my TV.

[MarkoD]

Originally Posted by lastlight

We run macs otherwise that would have worked too.

One thing to note is you have to CRANK movies to hear them over your xbox's fan

i stream movies from my mac to my xbox no problem. you just need a utility called connect360. works perfectly

[Nano]

I just stream wirelessly to our tv from our computer, or else hook up the laptop with the HDMI and you can view your files from there, I think all tvs have HDMI now days. ours is like 3 years old and it does

[lastlight]

Originally Posted by MarkoD

i stream movies from my mac to my xbox no problem. you just need a utility called connect360. works perfectly

I already had Vuze installed so I've just been streaming with that.

[mike31154]

Depending on what inputs your TV has & how close your computer is to it, you may be able to simply use the TV as your computer monitor & play the movie on your computer while watching the TV/monitor. I have a an LCD TV that's a few years old now but it has a VGA input for computer. I've often hooked my notebook to this input & played videos/movies on the computer while viewing them on the TV. Essentially your TV becomes the computer monitor and you'll see your Windows OS on the TV. If you can do that, simply run whatever software on your computer that shows the media you wish to watch & it should display on your TV. Bottom line, connect your computer's video output directly to your TV if that's possible. No extra hardware or software required, except a VGA extension cable. If your computer & TV both have HDMI IN/OUTPUTS, Bob's your uncle & you'll get full HD.

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by lastlight

If you have an xbox 360 simply install vuze on your computer. It's a torrent download application but it allows you to stream movie files to your xbox. We watch all of our downloaded content this way and it will cost you nothing.

Could do that, but then don't I have to use the computer to pause, stop fwd etc as opposed to something dedicated like the patriot that has a remote.

[lastlight]

Originally Posted by Bryan

Could do that, but then don't I have to use the computer to pause, stop fwd etc as opposed to something dedicated like the patriot that has a remote.

No you control it with your xbox controller. Click on videos and you can browse all the titles you have in your Vuze library. It's not terribly fun scrolling through the list but we prune the library as we watch things. There are certainly more elegant solutions but it works for us. Watch a season of whatever show, replace with next season. So we're only scrolling through a short list.

If you're looking to organize a big collection of movies etc this is not for you. Using window media center might be I'm not sure.

[reefme]

search for media players or dvd/blu ray player support usb. example o!play, LG blu ray player.

[bignose]

If you have a ps3 or xbox360 download a program called Vuze it's a torrent program which includes streaming software. It's free and it streams video pics music seamlessly to your gaming device and smartphones.

[pinhead]

Lots of devices will stream video and connect to a computer, console, or server to share pictures, music and video.

However, you will need a real media player to do the real-time conversion of the video through hardware.

If you are building your own media library by ripping your DVD's & Blu-rays, you will have to transcode (convert) the files before hand to stream them. If you don't do this, the amount of data trying to be streamed will make everything choke. Depending on how fast your computer is, transcoding can take all night.

With a hardware media player, you can just pull off the .vob files from DVD or .m2ts files from Blu-rays or make an .iso if you have ripping software. You will still have to use something like Any-DVD HD to remove the copy protection but this takes minutes.

You should be aware that backing up your purchased, music, movies and games and will be illegal once Bill C-11 is passed by the Conservatives.

Fines for downloading content over the internet could be $20,000 per file. If you are streaming video or music over your own network/ devices, that will technically be breaking the law because you cannot convert it into a format to be streamed without removing the copy protection. That will leave us with Netflix (crap in Canada compared to the USA), Hulu (not available in Canada) or iTunes (Apple - big supporters of locking up their content)

Better rip your disks now while it is still legal because the bill is already in Parliament