What is the best player? Boxee Box, PCH A-300, Dune, WDTV2, AIOS, or NeoTV550?

I don't care about connecting it to a hdd. I don't care about streaming services other than Hulu Plus and Netflix.

All I care about is being able to play downloaded movies off of a uPnP aka DLNA server running on my PC upstairs.

All I want is the fastest most responsive player of movies over DLNA available for $200 or less.

I have a WD Live player that plays everything I have on my 9 tb server over dlna, but lags like crazy when I am browsing through my massive video list, so I need to replace it with something that won't lag. So something with a cutting edge cpu and lots of ram would be ideal.

And no I absolutely do not want to build my own HTPC. I would much rather buy something that comes working out of the box with minimal set up.

Which do you recommend and why? The PCH A-300?

Thank you very much in advance.

Bonus: If the correct answer is the PCH A-300, what is the cheapest way for me to get it as I live in the US and it's not in stores.

Unfortunately when you say cutting edge CPU and a lot of RAM the only thing that fits that criteria is an HTPC. There are no media players currently that fit either of these....

As far as the players on the market currently, none of then are lightning fast when navigating around. The Dunes are by far the most stable, but the A300, Mede8er, and Boxee Box have more responsive UIs. You can read my review on all the players on the blog here.

FYI - you would buy the PCH A300 either directly from popcornhour (www.popcornhour.com) or from Diamond Home Design (http://www.diamondhomedesign.com/store/ ... egoryID=97)

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Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

The Boxee Box gets my emphatic nod of approval. Been using it for 18 months now without issue. Plays EVERY single format I've thrown at it with aplomb. No lag, buffering issues over GbE but some slight buffering/stuttering on the one hooked up via MOCA when playing 10GB+ high bitrate files. I've got 4.25TB of video goodness on my server and the Boxee UI never hiccups when browsing. I always browse using the existing alphabetized folder structure on my server versus just letting the Boxee show me EVERYthing (cover art, year, synopsis) in one huge list.

Boxee is a GREAT network media player...all it's other "features" are bunk...the apps/plugins are crap and browsing the web is more painful than a week camping with the in-laws. But just for slinging every format known to geekdom across my network without stuttering, buffering or transcoding it is all win for me.

What is MOCA?

Do you use it for watching movies on Netflix? If so, how does that work out?

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HP MSS EX490, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, 1TB System drive, 6TB Storage pool managed by StableBit DrivePool

I'm using an Apple TV2 (not the latest gen) and have generally been very happy with it. It has a high Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF) which for me is critical. I use PLEX Server on the WHS 2011 box and the PLEX app on the ATV2 which requires the ATV2 to be jailbroken. Have you considered that approach?

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HP MSS EX490, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, 1TB System drive, 6TB Storage pool managed by StableBit DrivePool

MoCA is networking over Coax (Similar to Powerline but using your existing coaxial lines instead of electrical wiring). Supposed to be much more reliable then powerline but for whatever reason isn't well followed by the tech consumer companies.

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Do you use it for watching movies on Netflix? If so, how does that work out?

I abhor netflix with their crappy streaming library and the "quality" of their HD. I have no doubt the Boxee would stream it just fine (assuming solid broadband connection) if one can overlook the kludgy nature of the Boxee apps/plugins and general poor web-navigation.

My praise of the Boxee doesn't go beyond slinging high bitrate movies of ANY format across a GbE network from a central server. The "features" offered beyond that are too clunky and simply of no use to me.