Reasonably priced media Player for the noobie..?

[scharfg]

I'm new to the downloading of content off the internet in .avi/divx/mp4/xvid etc formats and I'm looking for a simple to use reliable player that supports playing these back on my tubed and soon to be LCD TV.

I want to keep the purchase price below ~$75 so that limits me to a player from MediaSonic or NBox media player. I hope to hook up my 1tb 3.5" powered usb portable hard drive and my flash memory sticks. True HD is not important but 720 would be nice for the new flat screen. I don't want to reformat my external drive to FAT32 if I can help it cuz my old Toshiba laptop does not have enough room to store all my downloaded material that is on my 1tb external usb drive.

I also have the opportunity to purchase the Seagate Theatre for $50 as another option.

What would you folks recommend?

Thank you very much in advance!

[lowellriggsiam]

The original Seagate Home Theater has limited file support, ie no MKV, and a bad set of video output options. Since you have declared cost an issue you'd be better off getting one of the original Western Digital HDD media players as they have come down in price since the release of the newer model.

[Soopafresh]

Bite the bullet and get the WD TV HD player for $99. It's fantastic. Bought one for a relative a few weeks ago for xmas and we were amazed at the simplicity of use and the file formats and containers it played - I connected a USB thumb drive to it and it was immediately recognized. 1080p videos played perfectly. It's really worth the additional $25 over your budget.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136499&Tpk=WDBABF0000NBK-NESN

and an HDMI cable if you don't have one

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812816002&cm_re=hdmi_cable-_-12-8...-002-_-Product

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4QSFtPgNIo

[jman98]

I very strongly agree with Soopafresh and suggest you pay the extra money for a WD or very similar (and similarly priced) player. The WD TV lacks wireless, the WD TV Live has wireless, so there is some price difference. The WD players all support NTFS file systems and while FAT32 is also supported, you don't have to use it. NTFS on flash drives or disk drives is fine. Cheaper players may not support NTFS at all due to the cost of a license from Microsoft.

[scharfg]

Ah excellent points folks, thank you very much I'll look into a WD TV.

I just lined up a Pioneer DV420 at Future shop (on sale for $90 till Jan 07) for my multi format disk and 2.0 USB needs.

take care!