Such a device exists

[wolf_bluejay]

As I've been doing this kind of thing for a really, really long time --- I had a computer hooked up to my crappy tv, then DVD with USB, and an original Xbox with XBMC (Xbox Media Center).

Bang for buck -- a small zotac box (tiny computer with low power CPU and almost no fan noise at all), and download a copy of XMBC live (open source and free) and install it on a $150 box or an extra PC you have

Then buy a simple "Windows Media Center" remote and plug it in. XBMC has a easy to read at a distance interface, can play every movie format I've thrown at it, 1080p no problem, You simply connect it over you home network (or wireless) to you PC and play the movies directly from it without having to do the "copy to usb, move usb, playback movie
" for everything -- just go through the files on you PC directly, it even downloads cover art and movie info automatically.

It also does music, photos, facebook, youtube, etc. It doesn't do netflix yet.

It's polished, and clean and my daughter has been using it since she was 5, so it's really really easy to use. You can even try it out without installing it by running it directly from the CD. On my system it is up and running in under 20 seconds from the time I hit the power button.

An for those who want to get extra fancy -- if you have more than 1 of these, you can set them up to "sync" the video/audio on multiple TV's so you can move from room to room and have the same thing playing......

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by lastlight

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.

Well, pulled the Xbox out of the closet and spent almost all of Sunday afternoon getting it to work on my Win 7 computer. Took awhile but seems to work ok. Having some issues with getting sufficient bandwidth, but that is another story.

Some limitations I see, using the xbox remote is painful for navigating the media center. Media center and xbox do NOT support *.srt subtitles. Workaround is to embed the subtitles into the AVI's using Freemake Video converter.

Not too bad, still pondering whether to purchase a Patriot, perhaps not and invest in a Logitech harmony remote instead.

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by MarkoD

look up a device called "popcorn hour"

it can stream 1080p from usb to your tv

Not cheap though !!

[MKLKT]

Originally Posted by Bryan

Not cheap though !!

At least you know you had workable supplies at home, though.