Media Player Purchase Advice

[esadb]

Looking at purchasing a media player for my dad. I have looked at the WD series ones, also the Asus O!play as well as the Patriot Box one..

What I really want is to be able to access shares on the network through wireless. I believe they all support that as long as I get a USB wifi adapter. What I was hoping to hear is any experiences/reviews if you guys purchased any of those and what you have to say about them? Or different brands.

I want him to be able to watch concerts and what else he downloads instead of having to burn dvds and then hoping the format is supported by our XVID dvd player.

Hooking up a external drive to the media player is one thing, but another "sweet" option would be; if perhaps he could transfer a file from his laptop to the external hdd that's plugged into the media player through the network. I am not sure if any of them are capable of doing that?

 

[xboxer75010]

I have a popcorn hour and its great.

http://www.popcornhour.com/

I saw that the apple tv is $80 on ebay might have to pick one up and jailbreak it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-TV-MC572LL-A/190496072403

 

[Abyssgh0st]

WD devices are good; assuming you get one that works. I've been through a few that have needed to be returned/replaced (remote issues mostly). Their performance is stellar, though.

 

[esadb]

I have a popcorn hour and its great.

http://www.popcornhour.com/

I saw that the apple tv is $80 on ebay might have to pick one up and jailbreak it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-TV-MC572LL-A/190496072403

Yah and now you can JB the Apple TV and also just install XBMC on it. Question is, is the apple tv wireless?

WD devices are good; assuming you get one that works. I've been through a few that have needed to be returned/replaced (remote issues mostly). Their performance is stellar, though.

Yah ive been looking at the WD models, and i found the basic model but i dont supports wifi. And i guess the next model up which does it quite a bit more in price..

 

[Fliesen]

i thought i'd just use the search function and bump this thread, since it seemed fitting.

As of April, PCH Mediaplayers can run an AirPlay server and therefore be used similarly to an AppleTV.
Of course it's not as flawless as you'd expect it to be from an iPad / iPhone to an AppleTV (videos of 720p and above have nasty stuttering; also, longer videos need some buffering time ... about 10-15 seconds for an entire movie ... that's with the PCH running via WiFi btw), yet it's still a very nice workaround for, say, streaming youtube video clips, photos, etc.