I have been using my PS3 as media player, it's pretty good, upscales videos and DVDs, has no problem talking to my NAS.

Lately though most avi files I have tried to play does not work. I have done some searching and come to the conclusion that adding the required codecs to the PS3 is a no-go.

Re encoding a lot of gear isn't much of an option either.

I need to buy a new media player. I don't know what to get, can you recommend one?

It has to have/be able to

* HDMI output
* wifi connectivity
* talk to my samba shares
* Have a nice remote control
* Upscale SD content
* Most importantly - play everything

The cheaper the better, what I'm between at the moment is the new popcorn hour or an apple tv. I'm hoping for better options though.

I don't need a big media server computer, small footprint and low power consumption. Builtin storage is not necessary at all.

If anyone have the above mentioned devices please post your experience with them as well please

Popcorn hour is great. TBH though, it's really a proof-of-concept for the motherboard inside it. If you look at a product like the HDX-1000 then that's the same guts in a much better heat dispersing case. http://www.hdx1080.com/ remote controls (on both - as they're the same) are *VERY* directional, and a little annoying. They both run Networked Media Tank, and are really quite nice and customizable, and (best for me) can run usenet and bittorrent clients on box, which is so so so useful if that's what you do.

I'd REALLY suggest you ditch wireless though. you want to stream H.264 media content over wireless?? no thanks... Sometimes cables are the right way to go, even if it's a tougher job, especially as you suggest you don't want a hard drive in it. And if you do want use "sexy" features like the usenet client on an NMT box, you do need a local internal drive to run it from. Personally I moved my ADSL router next to the TV, so I just have a short LAN cable to that, but then that's kida irrelevant as i don't stream to it anyway. Also note that if you do want to stream wirelessly FROM a wifi device, e.g. a laptop, your connection will suck even more.

I was looking at a tvix box for £400 (from kj global) but found the popcorn a-110 at much less, with an equivalent feature set (more of some, less of others)

It's called TV.

GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Useful. Thanks for that.

Good old God. Always there when you need him. If only it wasn't a farcical concept from start to finish... Ho hum.

So it's actually called television, but thanks anyway.

acid_kewpie,
I agree with you on the wireless suggestion. At the moment everything I have is SD content and that's no problem streaming over wireless. Going forward a proper cable is inevitable though. For the time being I consider it to be a bit too much work. But yeah, preaching to the choir on that one...

The HDX 1000 looks nice, when I mentioned the popcorn hour I was more thinking of the c-200 though. In short I need to do a bit more research really. I'm torn between one of these proper solutions and just one of those mediaplayer/upscalers from ebay at 25 quid. Thing is I have a NAS running a torrent client and all those nifty things already set up.

For the time being, before I get wise, I'll just scour ebay for some handy solution.

dilema dilema dilema

I have reached a conclusion.

I have an old xbox running xbmc already. I have gone ahead and ordered a component cable for that one. With that the xbox will be able to upscale my regular SD content. And a few software updates required as well I imagine, that one hasn't been used for years!

I've also ordered a roll of cat5, in a magnolia colour that won't look too bad running along the skirting board - all for the WAF (wife acceptance factor)

This setup I'm sure will do until we start watching HD content - I think that's still a good while away though, most SD videos look really spanking good when upscaled so the incentive isn't really there just yet.

does your xbmc crash when using apple-movie-trailer or youtube or some watch-x-online stuff ?