Access network drive, media streamer?

I was just gifted an iPad 2. I also have an iPhone 4S. I want to acces my network storage on my home network when I am at home.

My setup is a solid 7mb cable connection, linksys e4200 v1 router, with a WD mybook essential 600 gig hard drive hooked up to the router in the USB port.

What I want are recommendations on two types of apps; one for uploading and downloading from the network drive and also making/deleting folders, renaming stuff ect. The other is a solid media managing app for streaming videos ect from the network drive. Preferably one that can transcode non-mov files on the fly and "throw" the video to my Apple TV? Preferably in the background while multitasking?

The e4200 v1 router is pretty robust. Solid dual n band signal, it can def handle streaming high def. samba, upnp, dlna compliant. Also has FTP option.

Also something I noticed in my studies is that the v1 is coveted because it has a Broadcom chipset so it can run wrt or tomato firmware. Any cool tricks I can pull with aftermarket firmware?

I turned on the FTP option and played around with it. It seems like files buffer faster over FTP.

Since my router storage option can do upnp, FTP, and smb, basically all the protocols one could ever need, do you have a suggestion for a media player that's better than all the others? I can use any one I want 'cause like I said my router does all protocols. Feature so I want are ac3 audio, hd playback, background airplay, and I also would like album art cause I noticed some of them don't do album art.

Did you ever do a roundup of media players with FTP streaming?

I don't care if its FTP or smb or upnp, just want the best, most versatile media player.

Seems like I'm going to be deciding between avplayerHD or mplayer.

What if I want something with more muscle for when I eventually upgrade to an a6 device?