Getting started on your connected home can seem daunting but you can easily get up and running with a few key pieces of equipment. You may have even made a start and already have some of the products that you'll need. For example you may already own a TV which has basic facilities built in to allow photo viewing from your photo collection via Flickr or giving you the ability to view catchup TV using BBC iPlayer. Some of the newer TVs have the Lovefilm DVD subscription service built-in to allow streaming of full films.
The one thing that all the streaming services rely on is a broadband connection (the faster, the better) and a way of connecting your Media Player to the internet (wireless or wired). If you have an older TV which doesn't have media streamer capabilities built-in then you'll need to buy a seperate media streamer. The Asus O!Play range will play most file formats either from internal drives, external USB or NAS attached storage. If however you don't yet have a lot of stored video content, then you'll need a box that allows you to access on-line content. The most versatile device for on-line content is the Boxee Box by D-Link, which has access to BBC iPlayer and a vast collection of youtube videos and catch-up TV, all accessible from the simple Boxee remote control.
If however you are looking for something which is more sophisticated and feature rich then by far the most advanced add-on box has to be Windows Media Centre. There's nothing else that has the flexibility to replace a video recorder, DVD player, Blu-Ray Player and PVR (personal video recorder) allowing you to record all your TV and movies for free, often in HD. This flexibility is because Windows Media Centre is built in to Windows 7 Home Premium and above, giving access to thousands of applications, if you need it to do something, someone, somewhere has written an application to do it. The other unique feature of a Windows Media Centre PC is that all of its live TV channels, recorded TV and films, Pictures and TV guide can be simply "extended" to another room with an Xbox 360.
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