What you want IS a crazy assed media interface.

Re-examine your signal paths. Do you need to have the menu system on the TV? That is the big techno challenge.

You need a program like this. This will work with everything from those fancy-assed wireless media centers, to an old modded XBox running XBox Media Center, to a PSP, to another PC, to a PSP. And you will need to do some tweaking to both get whatever device you choose (you're going to have to spend some money on SOMETHING if you don't have a gaming console or a media box) to interface with the program and with your network firewall.

I've just done this just this weekend ... though I went out and bought one of those fancy-assed wireless media centers. But I've succesfully gotten TVersity to stream media through my 360, through the media center, through my PSP (download only, though, no streaming, and the PSP will disconnect from TVersity while it's transcoding the file to PSP format, though it'll store it on disk till you go back and actually download the thing about 20 minutes later), to sharing files with my friends for download via a web interface...and said interface can be either HTML or Flash based, and if you share outside your local network over the 'net, you'd better be careful about who you share with because TVersity in its current state isn't all that secure when working over TCP.

How much do you love me? Just a little? You want all my blank DVDs and my burner?

I guess what I am asking is nuts eh? I can buy a lot of $50 divx players before it's worth it to spend $350 on that d-link device! Of course, I still have to burn video, but I dunno...it seems like there should be a simpler way.

I guess you're right mischief, I need to look at what I am proposing. What's the issue really though? I have a standard, fairly new, but not-fancy TV. Is there no simpler way to get video on it than to buy the proverbial crazy-assed media center?

And sure, WD, I do love you some. Find me something that doesn't do all that fancy shit, and just plays divx/xvid stuff on my tv, over my local network, and I'd love you tons!

TVersity is free, richat. Do you have an XBox? Or a 360? All you need is something that will connect to your network and accept a (usually, but not necessarily) wireless connection. Hell, even an old PC with a TV card in it would work, I believe, as long as it will connect to your TV and to your network. I mean look at it this way ... sooner or later you're going to spend $350 in blank media.

I bought a divx player about a year ago. I had to recode everything to ensure standalone divx player compatibility. Then burn to disc. This solution will stream/transcode on-the-fly to meet whatever your device's needs are, and will accept a huge variety of input video formats.

Dammit, forgot to add: I got my d-link for $189 at the local fry's

we just run an xvid cable from one of the computers to the tv and control it by the computer.