I’ve been playing with video streaming for years and I thought I should document a few of the solutions I’ve found. I have four known ideas that work fairly well.
Use a real computer
The most powerful solution is to have a real computer hooked up to the TV. Though, this is the hardest thing to get working well in a living room setting. Finding a remote control that works well is a pain unless you’re just using a wireless keyboard and mouse.
Pros
- Very powerful since it can do anything a PC can.
- Windows Media Center is built into Windows 7.
Cons
- Best apps for playing all content usually means using keyboard and mouse.
Original X-Box with XBMC
I have a modded X-Box from the original era. A great piece of software called X-Box Media Center was created for playing music, movies, etc on the X-Box.
Pros
- Great interface.
- Very reliable.
- Uses file shares to get at your video content.
Cons
- Doesn’t play any HD content
WDTV – Live
I had an original WDTV box which was a nice device that lets you connect up to two portable hard drives. The WDTV Live version adds Ethernet to the mix so you can get at your video content over your network. It also supports Pandora, Youtube, (I think Netflix).
Pros
- Dedicated hardware.
- HDMI connection to your TV. The old version also included composite.
- Plays HD content
- Can attach up to two physical drives, thumb drives, SD cards (with connector). Or you can also connect a USB hub with many drives.
- Can stream content from a DLNA source. (See below)
- Can act as a content server when drives are attached.
Cons
- The remote is puny and stupid. Though, the Shaw remote can be reprogrammed for the task.
- Playing content from a file share is horrible. It drops all the time and loses the connection to the server.
Sony Playstation 3
I’ve had a playstation now for a few years. I originally setup streaming with TVersity on my computer and it streamed the content to the PS3 over DLNA. The problem was that it occasionally dropped while in the middle of playing a show, or it had problems playing some files.
I’ve since switched to PS3 Media Server which surprisingly is a Java based application that works on Windows, Linux, and the Mac. It seems to work with the PS3 much more reliably and between the two, it even appears to up-convert the video to near HD when playing SD content.
Another nice thing about the PS3 Media Server is that it also streams to the WDTV Live device and seems pretty reliable there too. The picture quality is better though on the PS3.
The other advantage of the PS3 is that I can also throw in DVD’s or Bluray disks at any time. The remote is also over Bluetooth so that works very nicely.
Assuming no issues with the DLNA server, the PS3 is the nicest choice.