Media Player - Where to start?

[paddyhasneeds]

OK so just got this new X20 in and up and running and so far so good (need to sort out a Sky HD box).

I have quite a lot of video on my iMac. Some is good quality MP4 and some is WMV/DIVX of variable quality. I tend to use VLC to play it partly because of the interface and partly because QuickTime isn't that great IMO.

Let's say that I wanted to view it on the TV and possibly look at streaming TV and the likes. Where do I begin?

Apple TV seems a bit too geared up toward the iTune store and renting stuff.

[Bullett]

The PS3 is a good media player, especially when you have something like ps3mediaserver/twonky/tversity running on your PC to transcode anything to a format the ps3 can cope with.
Popcorn hour is a good box as well.
Or a dedicated media-centre pc will play anything. You can run loads of different front ends not just windows, XBMC for example.
Then there are lots of media-centre/nas type boxes.

Depends on your budget really.

[PlaneFan]

I use the Apple TV mk2 for streaming. UseHandbrake to change format for AppleTV then point iTunes at the folder with all the programmes in it. It's dead easy, quality is great, bugger all buffering. Yes you can rent and buy stuff on the tele as well using the interface, and we've rented a couple so far....instant playback in HD so it's great. But for me the main use is streaming the video and music collections. It's a complete doddle, and at £100 it's peanuts relatively speaking.

IMHO

[HellDiver]

Go to EBuyer and buy one of the Acer Revo machines. I got the D525/ION2 based one with Linux on it and installed Win7 instead. I have a cheap MCE remote, and running XBMC hooked up to the 42" FullHD TV is works fine. Outputs 1080p no problems, and can cope with a 1080p rip of Avatar with no stuttering - something the old PC (Dell Core2Duo 2.33GHz with ATI 4550 video) couldn't do.

I had an AppleTV before as well, but really it was pants. Couldn't even cope with some 720p rips.

[paddyhasneeds]

Thanks all. From doing some digging it seems something like one of the AC Ryan boxes might be a reasonably low cost option?

Small and silent and wireless and can stream or I could chuck a USB stick in it if I wanted to keep some stuff locally.

Has anyone got anything similar?