Hello! I am interested in purchasing a HD media player that will allow me to view our home movies on our HDTV. The HD media player will be connected to an external hard drive that stores my video projects.

I have read many positive reviews of the PBO, including on this site, but the PBO is apparently is going away; many vendors don't offer it anymore.

I'm not interested in streaming Netflix or anything else; I just want to watch my home movies that are recorded on an external HDD (USB connected).

Is there a "better" choice than PBO that anyone is aware of?

Thanks a bunch!

http://www.synology.com/products/produc ... j&lang=enu

I use one of these fitted with two WD20FAEX drives configured as JBOD. The primary reason for the purchase was for it to act as a backup for all the photos, music, home videos, commercial DVDs etc that we have. So it acts as a 'media centre' allowing me to stream music, videos, films etc. around the house.

For music I stream from the Synology to a Logitech Squeezebox Touch connected to my (existing) stereo system. The Squeezebox could also be connected to a TV surround sound system - Onkyo and the like.

Videos are streamed to TVs in the house (all Samsung LCD or LED TVs) which are networked using Belkin AV200 Powerline adaptors.

The PCs are connected to the Synology box with Cat5e cable via a gigabit switch, so the Synology box acts as a 'communal' back up device rather than a NAS per se.

The gigabit switch is connected to a wireless modem router to provide an internet gateway. This modem router also acts as the switch for the AV200 Powerline network as 100Mb/s is perfectly adequate for video etc streaming.

Previously I had gone with an HDX1000 media player but the company supplying that device 'went away' (to use your terminology). Couldn't be happier with my Synology box but if I was starting again I would go fro the DS212+ rather than the DS212j.