H.264 media streamer - WD TV HD

Hi

Im looking for a media streamer that handles H.264 files (other than the AppleTV).

The Western Digital player looked good but has no ethernet connection.

My Mac isnt far from my TV, could I plug the WD TV HD into the mac directly, see my external drives and send a long HDMI cable to my LCD TV?

Anyway, any ideas would be appreciated

Thanks

Dave

The WD TV HD isn't a streaming device. It's intended solely for video playback from external USB media (hard drives or flash drives). So if you want a streaming device you'll have to look elsewhere.

However, it wouldn't be hard to have an external hard drive that you just move from the Mac Mini to the WD TV HD, especially if it's bus-powered or at least close enough that you don't have to unplug the power cord to move it. The WD TV HD can even read from Mac OS Extended volumes so you don't have to compromise by using FAT32 or anything. However, it cannot read from journaled volumes so if you get an external, make sure you format it as plain "Mac OS Extended."

I guess the only option for the WD TV HD is a Hard Drice with network capabilities so I could plug it directly into the WD TV HD (needs a catchier name) and transfer files from my iMac to the HD across the network.

Any recommend a better media streamer???

Thanks
Dave

I had another idea. Why not just connect a cable directly from your iMac to your TV? You'd need:

- A mini-DVI to DVI adapter
- A long enough DVI to HDMI cable (monoprice.com has these)
- A long enough audio cable (exactly what kind depends on your TV's inputs)
- Some means of controlling the iMac (wireless mouse or remote control)

This will work if your TV and iMac are fairly close to each other.

good idea, cheap to set up. Our apartment is small so that it is possible

just means my wife couldnt surf the net while I was using it.

possibly could be run from another mac used as a server,

small investment in cables only

Dave

I think what would be the ultimate way of using my LCD TV as a second screen would be if you could set it to automatically open front row on the second screen (LCD TV) leaving the iMac able to do other things on the main screen.

For sound, if you could connect to my AV receiver from the imac and have it so that all sound relating to the second screen (front row) comes out of the AV receiver through the connected cable and any sound from the main screen, e.g. if at the same time someone was playing a video on youtube on the main screen it came out of the iMac speakers.

dont think its at all possible

Dave

I think you could just set the TV to extended desktop, then open the videos in VLC or QuickTime on the TV and fullscreen them . At that point your wife could probably continue to use the Mac on the built-in screen.

As far as I know, Front Row can only play movies that you have in your ~/user/Movies folder (so forget it if you have an external hard drive). I'm also not sure if Front Row would allow you to use it on the secondary monitor while continuing to let you use the primary monitor normally. That's why I recommend VLC or QuickTime. Although QuickTime might require Pro to play it fullscreen on a secondary monitor (I believe it requires use of the "Present Movie" function).