Building Home Media Network

[Mister K]

Hey peeps,

So after cancelling our TV service due to it being totally worthless I decided to setup a family media network where we will store all our movies, music and pictures to view on either our PC's or TV. But I don't know where to start.

I was looking at WD TV Live 1TB but thats kind of expensive and if there is anything cheaper out there with 1TB space id be great! On the other hand I was thinking of getting a external 1TB WD HDD WD:E 1TB and hooking it up to a Sumvision Cyclo or a Xenta HDMI ... but not sure which one would be "best" .. Iv read some reviews and the Xenta as well as the Sumvision + E:HDD look pretty sweet for only £70-£80 in total ex. shipping.

This is mainly for my parents but also if someone comes over to our house and watch it in our screen room. As said price isn't an issue but there is no need for something super expensive unless it has severe benefits in quality.

What are your thoughts guys?

[Chronius]

Personally I would a buy a NAS or build one yourself. Instead of multiple spread out harddrives, you fill that up with them instead. Nearly all of the newer NAS's have streaming capability to modern tv's and tv streamers.
QNAP, does some nice NAS's in varying sizes and they have a ton of extra features I think you and your family would come to appreciate.

[Deleted]

i have a sumvision cyclone and have to say they are great for the money tho the bad thing is it doesnt play some formats and frame rates so u have to make sure u stick with the formats it will play i have it hooked up to my hd tv and a 1tb external hdd and i find it great

[taekvideo]

They also make a version that's much cheaper and doesn't come with storage built in.
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digita.../dp/B003MVZ60I
With this one there's 2 usb slots to attach external HDD's (a couple of cheap 2tb external's would be a ton of storage)... or it can connect to your network and stream files from other computers... I've been thinking about getting something like this and then setting up a ~10TB NAS to stream from xD (maybe someday..)